The herald., 1898-01-18

amenities Of life, and it is not to bt
wondered at that the London news
papers, voicing that industry, should
! in their hostility to a policy which the,
disapproved, forget for moment tha
courtesy which is due to the stranger
within their gates, especially when HI
comes upon invitation, and that the,
should be led to characterize as i'm
pertinent proposals which were mad'
only upon the request of their own gov
ernment."
ENGLISH ANTAGONIST
1t was perfectly realized from the be.
ginning, he said, that bimetallsm fol
England was out of the question. India
was the vital point of the negotiations
with England, and all other proposals
were insignificant in comparison with
that respecting the reopening of the
mints of India to the unlimited coinage
of silver and the repeal of the orde.
permitting gold to be paid for govern
ment dues and exchanged for govern
ment rupees.
Mr.. Wolcott spoke at some length
upon the conditions in India, explain
ing the value of the rupee since the
closing of the mints to silver in 1893
The closing of the mints had, he said,
created wide dissatisfaction and there
was a general impression that the In
dian government would be glad to re-
trace its steps.
"Many English monometallists of
wide influence believe the policy to be
a mistaken one," he said, land would be
glad to see the Indian mints reopened.
| il it could be done without stimulating
the cause of bimetallism and as a sepa-
rate and distinct action. There was a
general opinion, not limited to England,
that the Indian government would be
quick to avail itself of an opportunity
| to reopen it's mints, and would welcome
another international attempt towards
bimetallism that would raise the value
of silver, and would be glad to cooper
ate with such an attempt.
"This belief found expression in the
speech of the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer on March 18th, and am sure
| that 1 violate no confidence when !
say the answer of the Indian govern
ment, protesting against reopening In
dias mints was as much a surprise to
the English ministry as it was a dis
appointment to us.
"While the protest was not final, the
English government in London
could have overruled the OBJ
lection from India, yet such action
would have been contrary to all pre-
cedent. AS a matter of fact, the home
government, it is said, unanimously
upheld the report. Frequent statements
in our papers asserted that the answer
of India was dictated from London.
1t may be that the blind and unreason-
ing fury of the city of London directed
against my suggestion of contributions
or concessions to any international set
tlement of the currency question which
should recognize silver, and which
threatened a panic and the overthrow
of any ministry which attempted it, may
have rendered the reply of the India gov
ernment not wholly unwelcome; but the
policy outlined in the letter of Septem-
Der 10th, signed by the Viceroy and his
associates, must stand as the deliberate
and uninfiuenced judgment of that gov
ernment''
| THE INDIAN SITUATION
ITO u.s." Mr.. Wolcott continued, "the
India situation is ineXplicable. Millions
Of people, most of them extremely poor.
have for years invested all their savings
in silver. These accumulations a few
years ago were worth a thousand mil
lions of dollars and more. Today they
are worth less than half that sum. BY
the closing of the Indian mints and the
artificial gold value given to silver, In
dia is at great disadvantage with the
| Iy,ni icrh ircr ri hn nrtc Of
which are stimulated by the higher pre-
MUM on gold, and they are robbing In
dia of much of her manufacturing and
export trade. The present policy inflicts
upon India as we'll as the evils of an
insufficient and steadily lessening cur
rency, evils which the vicissitudes Of
that dependency during the past ten
months have served to emphasize. The
world has heard much of the famine in
India, and of the great funds subscribed
| for its victims 1t has not been, however,
so generally known that the famine was
one of money rather than food; that the
contributions We're chiefly forwarded
| to India in the form of money and not
grain, and that during the whole period
of the famine rice was abundant where
men were starving, and its price was
| but a trifle over cent a pound, less than
the price of wheat in England. For all
| these evils-the loss in the value of the
savings of the people, the disadvantage
of different purchasing value for sill
yer in India from that which prevailed
in China, the evils of an insufficient vol
ume of money and the enormous injury
which commerce suffered through vio-
| lent fluctuations in the rate of exchange,
we offered what we believed to be a
remedy Our offer was refused, and the
refusal must be considered as final until
the failure of the experiment upon which
the India government has entered shall
| be demonstrated.
"There was one oversight in communi-
cation of the so-called proposals to the
India government. 1t was distinctly un-
derstood at all of our interviews to be a
condition of the assent of any country
to any agreement that it shall be entirely
sitisfied that the plan proposed, because
of the adhesion of sufficient number of
other nations or otherwise, would Sc
cure the maintenance of the parity pro-
posed. Had this been fully understood
it is possible that, though not probable,
a somewhat different answer would have
returned from India"
OBSTACLES ENCOUNTERED
Mr.. Wolcott next enumerated the OBJ
stacles with which the commission had
to contend, in which he included the re-
markable drop in the price of silver, the
coincident tariff legislation in the United