To estimate the effect on the Indian coffee-planters with reference to the effect of the monetary policy of the Government in placing the Indian at a disadvantage as regards his competition with the Brazilian planter would be difficult, and I am not in a position to form a decisive opinion on the subject; but I may mention that the manager of the London and Brazilian Bank informed the Currency Committee that the production of coffee in Brazil has largely increased, and will still further largely increase, owing to the greater facilities of communication, and also the direct influence of a low rate of exchange.  The last-mentioned fact gives, I may observe, one more instance of the direct effect of a low rate of exchange in stimulating production, and so swelling the volume of exports.  If, then, the Brazilians are to retain, and we are to lose, the benefits of the cheapness of silver relatively to gold, it is evident that the coffee-planters of India must be handicapped in their competition with those of Brazil; but I do not hazard a decisive opinion as to the exact weight of the competition, as I am uncertain as to how far our quality of coffee comes into competition[68] with the quality produced in Brazil.

I must now at least allude to the effects of the measure on the trade, manufactures, and railways of India.  I regret that I am unable to go more fully at present into a consideration of the effects on them of this ill-starred measure, but all that the general reader requires to know is, to use the words of Sir Frank Adam (one of the most important witnesses examined by the Currency Committee), that if the Government succeeds in forcing up the gold value of the rupee, China would be able to undersell India in tea and rice; the Bombay manufacturers would receive fewer rupees for their wares, and, as in the case of opium, the advantage would go to the Chinese and Japanese; the railways would have little to carry from the interior if the rupee prices went down.  Finally, I may observe that the gold industry of India would be largely injured, and that, especially, mines struggling towards a successful issue would be seriously hampered if the gold value of the rupee were forced up.

Brief though my survey of this great subject may be, I trust I have said enough to expose the harmonious rottenness of the monetary policy of the Government, and by this I mean a rottenness so complete that it is impossible to find a single redeeming feature in the measure that has been adopted.  It is rotten economically, it is rotten financially, and it is, if possible, still more rotten from a political point of view.  Those who have knowledge enough to understand the bearing and ultimate evil effects of the measure are angrily arrayed against the Government now, and when the ryots and labouring classes of all kinds experience the fall in prices and dearth of employment that will assuredly follow if the Government should be able to force up the gold value of the rupee, and are able to trace this to the action of their rulers, widespread and serious will be the abiding discontent which will take possession of the people.