The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1914-06-04
HOARDED GOLD MYSTERY.
What Becomes of Metal Poured Into
India q Puzzle.

The report of the royal commls-
sion on Indian finance and currency.
which has just been issued, settles
some controversies and starts others,
but it does not clear up the mystery
of the boarded gold of India.
From time immemorial India has
absorbed gold as sponge absorbs
water. The flow of gold to India has
always continued. In the last twelve
years she has received 1856, 100000
pounds in gold, partly in soverelgns
and partly in bullion, in addition to
enormous quantities of silver, says
the London Mail. 1t all goes into the
country, but very little ever comes
OUT Lord Rothschild observed some
years ago that he had noticed that
none of the smooth gold bars sent to
India from this country ever came
back. What happens to this great
stream of precious metal, which con-
tinuously disappears like those rivers
in desert lands which lose themselves
underground.
The testimony of experts is most
conflicting. Some say it is boarded,
while a few are ready to prove by a
formidable array of statistics that it
cannot be extensively boarded. Those
who believe that India possesses a
vast store of boarded treasure make
the widest guesses at it's probable
total. The most popular estimate of
the boarded wealth of India puts the
total at 30O,0O0,0OO pounds, which
would amount to l pound per head of
the population; but some credible
estimates are far higher. The ex-
perts quarrel, again, about the prob
able effect of India's absorption of
gold upon the worlds money mar
kets and the prices of commodities.
Some say that all gold-using coun-
tries benefit thereby, while others.
such as Sir Edward Holden, appear
to hold that ''the drain of gold to
India is potential menace. The
commission, while declining to in
dorse either of these mutually de-
structive contentious, has declared
in effect that an Increased use OF
gold in India should not in future
be encouraged by the government,
but India already seems disposed to
resent this recommendation.
Whether gold is boarded in India
is really a question of terms. All ma
tions hoard gold upon occasion. If
England were threatened with
great war tomorrow We may depend
upon it that there would be rush
for gold on the part of those people
who possessed both foresight and
balance at the bank 1t is estimated
that during the Balkan crisis the peo-
pies of central Europe obtained and
boarded 60,000,000 pounds. India
has been subjected to repeated invas-
ions and innumerable internal wars,
and her people have never completely
lost their hereditary sense of inse-
curity. Banking facilities are still
sparse, and it would be surprising if
Indians did not hoard.
But boarding does not necessarily
mean burying in the ground or con-
cealment in the roofs of houses
though those practices are doubtless
extensive. Mr.. ]. NJ. Keynes, mem
Der of the commission, tells story
of a Brahman in eastern Bengal who
even boards currency notes in his
roof. Once week he retires privily
and spreads them out in the sun to re-
move the damp. A very large pro-
portion of the boarded wealth of In
dia is, however, in the form of gold
and silver ornaments. 1t is into these
ornaments that the bulk of the bull
lion and sovereigns as we'll as much
of the silver. disaDDearS