[85] The payments to the Government broker, from which, no doubt, some deduction has to be made for expenses, have been as follows:—
| 1908 | £2,642 |
| 1909 | 6,396 |
| 1910 | 12,728 |
| 1911 | 10,544 |
| 1912 (up to Dec. 14) | 7,958 |
The principles governing the amount of these payments were explained in the House of Commons on December 17, 1912, in answer to a question.
[86] See Mr. J. B. Brunyate’s Account of the Presidency Banks (1900), whence the historical details which follow have been chiefly derived. Mr. Brunyate’s Account is of the highest value to students of banking history.
[87] The first Bank of Bombay went into liquidation in 1868, although its liabilities were eventually paid up in full. A new Bank of Bombay was formed in the same year.
[88] By 1862 such issues were of negligible account, but in earlier times they had been important. “Probably the first banking institution in India, on European lines, was the Bank of Hindustan, which was established in Calcutta about 1770 by a private trading firm. The notes of this Bank, though not recognised by the Government, obtained a local circulation which occasionally reached forty or fifty lakhs and generally averaged about half that amount.” It is said that they were “received for many years at all the public offices in Calcutta scarcely excepting the Treasury itself.” On two occasions, once in 1819 and again in 1829, the occurrence of a panic led to the presentation for payment of about twenty lakhs’ worth of the notes, and the demand was promptly met. (Brunyate, loc. cit. p. 55.) This Bank and others disappeared in the commercial disasters of 1829–1832. “Out of their ruin rose the Union Bank, a Joint Stock Bank created by co–operation among all the leading Calcutta houses.” (Brunyate, loc. cit. p. 59.) In 1834 the Bank of Bengal refused to accept the notes of its formidable rival, and in 1848 the Union Bank disappeared.
[89] This was in some degree consequent on the failure of the Bank of Bombay in 1868, the Government having found itself in the awkward position of being a shareholder in a Bank, its liability for which was not clearly defined.
[90] The way in which Indian institutions have been moulded on and influenced by English is interestingly illustrated by the fact that several of the provisions in the Charters of the Presidency Banks were copied from the 1695 constitution of the Bank of England.
[91] This also was partly consequent on the failure of the Bank of Bombay in 1868.
[92] Except for the use of principals for the purpose of certain specified kinds of remittance.