DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.34367#0264
206
REGULATION XXXV.
[A.D. 1793.
are the prevailing currency, and in which they dispose of them at an
enhanced value to persons who have payments or purchases to make
in those districts. The merchants and traders are under the necessity
of submitting to the imposition; for no other rupee but the nine-
teenth sun sicca being coined at the mints, the old rupees are procurable
only from the shroffs, and consequently they must either pay the exchange
demanded or discontinue their purchases. From this rejection of the
coin current in one district when tendered in payment in another, the
merchants and traders, and the proprietors and cultivators of land in
the different parts of the country, are subjected in their commercial
dealings with each other to the same losses by exchange, and all the other
inconveniences that would necessarily result were the several districts
under separate and independent governments, each having a different coin.
The money-changers are the only description of people who derive any
benefit from this disordered state of the coin. The loss falls upon Govern-
ment and the public at large, and must be perpetual, unless the various
old and counterfeit rupees now current in the different parts of the country
can be thrown out of circulation, and one species of rupee made the general
standard measure of value in all transactions between individuals, and
between Government and its subjects. The sicca rupee of the nineteenth
sun is the established silver coin of the country, and the rupee in which
the public revenues are payable. It was with a view to render it the
general measure of value, that Government determined, in the year 1773,
that all rupees coined in future should bear the impression of the nine-
teenth sun, or year, of the reign of Shah Alum, and no other species
of rupee (with the exception of some Arcots) has since been coined in the
Calcutta mint. The rupees of the eleventh, twelfth, and fifteenth sun,
were indeed directed to be considered current equally with the nineteenth
sun sicca rupee: but this was a temporary measure, intended to be con-
tinued in force only until there should be a sufficiency of the nineteenth
sun sicca rupee introduced into circulation. The number, hpwever, of
these three descriptions of rupees is of course inconsiderable, compared with
the number of the nineteenth sun sicca rupees that have been coined since
the above-mentioned year, and they are so much worn as to be no longer fit
for circulation. The preceding remarks evince, that it is the interest
of individuals of every description, excepting the money-changers, to
co-operate with Government to render the nineteenth sun sicca rupee
generally current, and the standard of value throughout the country.
Amongst the measures considered necessary to effect this important
object, the following were the principal: First, to direct the officers em-
ployed in the provision of the investment and manufacture of salt, and all
commercial transactions of the Company, to make their agreements with
individuals for sicca rupees of the nineteenth sun ; for if Government,
in their extensive commercial dealings and in the provision of the salt,
make contracts with their subjects in other species of rupees, they must
necessarily continue the measure of value where those concerns are trans-
acted, and it would be as ineffectual to declare the nineteenth sun sicca
rupees the only legal currency, as it would be unjust to attempt to enforce
the rule. Secondly, to oblige individuals to estimate their property by
the nineteenth sun sicca rupee, by declaring the amount of bonds and
engagements entered into after a certain period (in fixing which a time
REGULATION XXXV.
[A.D. 1793.
are the prevailing currency, and in which they dispose of them at an
enhanced value to persons who have payments or purchases to make
in those districts. The merchants and traders are under the necessity
of submitting to the imposition; for no other rupee but the nine-
teenth sun sicca being coined at the mints, the old rupees are procurable
only from the shroffs, and consequently they must either pay the exchange
demanded or discontinue their purchases. From this rejection of the
coin current in one district when tendered in payment in another, the
merchants and traders, and the proprietors and cultivators of land in
the different parts of the country, are subjected in their commercial
dealings with each other to the same losses by exchange, and all the other
inconveniences that would necessarily result were the several districts
under separate and independent governments, each having a different coin.
The money-changers are the only description of people who derive any
benefit from this disordered state of the coin. The loss falls upon Govern-
ment and the public at large, and must be perpetual, unless the various
old and counterfeit rupees now current in the different parts of the country
can be thrown out of circulation, and one species of rupee made the general
standard measure of value in all transactions between individuals, and
between Government and its subjects. The sicca rupee of the nineteenth
sun is the established silver coin of the country, and the rupee in which
the public revenues are payable. It was with a view to render it the
general measure of value, that Government determined, in the year 1773,
that all rupees coined in future should bear the impression of the nine-
teenth sun, or year, of the reign of Shah Alum, and no other species
of rupee (with the exception of some Arcots) has since been coined in the
Calcutta mint. The rupees of the eleventh, twelfth, and fifteenth sun,
were indeed directed to be considered current equally with the nineteenth
sun sicca rupee: but this was a temporary measure, intended to be con-
tinued in force only until there should be a sufficiency of the nineteenth
sun sicca rupee introduced into circulation. The number, hpwever, of
these three descriptions of rupees is of course inconsiderable, compared with
the number of the nineteenth sun sicca rupees that have been coined since
the above-mentioned year, and they are so much worn as to be no longer fit
for circulation. The preceding remarks evince, that it is the interest
of individuals of every description, excepting the money-changers, to
co-operate with Government to render the nineteenth sun sicca rupee
generally current, and the standard of value throughout the country.
Amongst the measures considered necessary to effect this important
object, the following were the principal: First, to direct the officers em-
ployed in the provision of the investment and manufacture of salt, and all
commercial transactions of the Company, to make their agreements with
individuals for sicca rupees of the nineteenth sun ; for if Government,
in their extensive commercial dealings and in the provision of the salt,
make contracts with their subjects in other species of rupees, they must
necessarily continue the measure of value where those concerns are trans-
acted, and it would be as ineffectual to declare the nineteenth sun sicca
rupees the only legal currency, as it would be unjust to attempt to enforce
the rule. Secondly, to oblige individuals to estimate their property by
the nineteenth sun sicca rupee, by declaring the amount of bonds and
engagements entered into after a certain period (in fixing which a time