vernment measure raises the
gold value of the rupee, the agitator will be able to point out that, at
an enormous cost to the producers of India, the Government has only
obtained a most trifling financial relief, and be able to complain with
justice that the Government has lessened the profits of the agriculturist
and diminished the employment for labour. What an admirable advantage has
the monetary measure of the Government conferred on the popularity of
British Rule in India!

I have alluded to the losses that the measure must inflict on the planters
of Southern India, and my remarks on that head apply equally to the
tea-planters of India; but the latter have, besides, a special grievance
which they share in common with the tea-planters of Ceylon, and this
grievance is also shared in by the coffee-planters, though, as far as I
can see, hardly to the same extent. This well-founded grievance lies in
the fact that if no international agreement (and there seems no
probability whatever of such an agreement ever being come to within any
time to be even guessed at) is come to between the silver-using countries
in the East, the tea-planters of India and Ceylon will be brought into
unequal competition with their rivals in China, and the coffee-planters of
India and Ceylon will in like manner be unfairly weighted in their
competition with the coffee producers of Brazil. With reference to the
tea-planters of India and Ceylon the case is very clear, and it is
perfectly obvious that if in India you have silver artificially raised in
value relatively to gold, and that in China silver remains unprotected,
the Chinese will be able to accept a smaller gold value for their tea than
the Indian producers, and the difference in the exchange may be such that
China may regain her former position in the tea market, and that Indian
teas may be partially driven from the field; and if we add to that that
the Indian tea-planter will, in consequence of exchange being forced up,
have fewer rupees to pay his coolies than he has now, it is evident that
the result of the Government measure will be most serious to this
industry. The evidence (Currency Committee) that relates to Ceylon is very
decisive on this point, and the witnesses examined with reference to tea
expressed extremely depressed views as to the ruinous results that must
arise if the monetary policy of the Indian Government can be carried into
effect. From the correspondence that has passe