DEBT. The permanent debt of India gradually increased from £33.577,414 in 1842 to 151.327.958 in 1857, when it rapidly grew in consequence of the Indian mutiny, and stood in 1862 at £97. 037.062, and gradually increased to £205.323.315 in 1901. Of this last amount. f76.887.936 was held in India and £128.435.379 in England. The greater part of the debt in India hears interest at the rate of 344 per cent.. and about one-half the debt in England hears interest at 1 he same rate, the remainder paying interest at the rate of 3, and per cent. Besides the above there were an unfunded debt in England if rupees raised by the Government had to be increased by one-11;11f. The financial embarrass ment thus caused led the Government in 1892, when the exchange value of the rupee sank to Is. ld.. to consider a plan for the closing of the Indian mints to the coining of silver. In June, 1893, a law to this effect was passed, and the rate of Is. 4d. for flue rupee was established as the gold price of silver. provision being made that when the rupee rose to this value the mints should be reopened to the coinage of silver. Tha value of the rupee gradually rose. and. so far as the Government was concerned. the financial conditions greatly improved. But complaint was made that the native growers and the European planters in India were suffering severely from the change. It was argued that these classes were obliged to pay labor on the old scale, in spite of the appreciation of the currency. Hence, while industrial expenses remained nominally the same, the employers received ltmer profits. Ileavy losses fell also upon the natives, who as times grew hard were obliged to turn their hoards of silver into money. Finally, in the
sprieg of 1898, a currency committee was ap pointed to investigate the monetary situation in India. This committee reported. in .1111y, 1899, in favor of maintaining the gold standard, :mil making it more effective: and to this end it law %%as passed in Sciitembi-r of the same year. Since 1899 the value of the silver rupee has been stable at the rate fixed—Is. -1(1. (32.4 cents). The coinage of rupees, whieli for some years after 1893 almost (-eased, became large in 1900-1901, and the profit on the coinage was set aside as a special gold reserve fund to be used in maintain ing the rate of exchange between (treat Britain and India. There is a comparatively small amount of paper money in circulation in 'India. It is legal tender within certain limited districts. The amount outstanding in 1\larch. 1898, was 298,059.000 rupees, about two-thirds of which was in the districts of Calcutta and Bombay.
According to the Indian money system. 10(1.000 rupees equal I lakh, and 100 1l1:11s equal I (Tore. Malec a sum that would be read in terms of only, according to the English method, would, according to the 'Indian method, he differ ently punctuated and read in terms of both the larger the smaller denominations. To illus trate: The snip 3788 1517000 rup(a-s would in Eng lish read 37,884.517,000 rupees, but in the Indian notation it would be written 3.788,45,17,000 and read "Three thousand seven hundred eighty-eight crores, forty-five laklis, seventeen thousand rupees." In 'Indian money estimates, SUMS are often given in tens of rupees, the abbreviation being Rx.