Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2010
In the late nineteenth century, when most of the world was on a gold standard, India was on a silver standard. Silver was used for coins, held in hoards, and worn as jewelry. Regression analysis confirms a positive relationship between prices and the money supply, and inverse relationships between prices and rainfall and prices and the combined influences of railroads and commercialization. The. influx of silver was not correlated with the money supply, apparently because hoarding and dishoarding by peasants and others caused the amount of money in active circulation to vary.
1 Basham, A. L., The Wonder That Was India (New York, 1959), pp. 228–30Google Scholar ; Warmington, E. H., The Cgmmerce Between the Roman Empire and India (Delhi, 1974)Google Scholar.
2 See, for example, Tooke, Thomas, “A History of Prices, and the State of the Circulation during the Nine Years 1848-56,” in Chaudhuri, K. N., ed., The Economic Development of India under the East India Company, 1814-58 (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 177–79Google Scholar.
3 Several early studies focus on the metallic portion of India's currency, but they neglect the organization and operation of the banking system: Bhatwadekar, M. V., A History of Indian Currency (Bombay, 1944)Google Scholar ; Chablani, H. L., Indian Currency and Exchange (London, 1925)Google Scholar ; Coyajee, J. C., The Indian Currency System (Madras, 1930)Google Scholar ; Malhotra, D. K., History and Problems of Indian (Simla, 1949)Google Scholar.
4 Catanach, I. J., Rural Credit in Western India (Berkeley, 1970), Ch. 1.Google Scholar
5 Little has been written in a serious vein about the economic functions of the mahajans or shroffs, who are generally perceived-in old times and the present-to be parasitic, exploitative money lenders and landgrabbers. For a treatment of their modern roles see Walter C. Neale, “The Role of the Broker in Rural India,” a paper delivered to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, December, 1967, photocopied.
Two recent studies also show concern with the historical and modern functions of these rural credit agents: Michie, Barry H., “Baniyas in the Indian Agrarian Economy: A Case of Stagnant Entrepreneurship,” Journal of Asian Studies, 37 (1978), 637–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Ghatak, Subrata, Rural Money Markets in dia (Delhi, 1976).Google Scholar
6 Nugent, Jeffrey B., “Exchange-Rate Movements and Economic Development in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Political Economy, 81 (1973), 1110–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7 Baden-Powell, B., The Land Systems of British India, 3 vols. (London, 1892)Google Scholar ; Dutt, Romesh C., The Economic History of India Under Early British Rule (London, 1956), Chs. 5-9, 11, 21-22Google Scholar ; Neale, Walter C., Economic Change in Rural India (New Haven, 1962)Google Scholar
8 Anstey, Vera, The Economic Development of India, 3rd ed. (London, 1936), pp. 373ff.Google Scholar
9 Ibid., ch. 14 ; Whitcombe, Elizabeth, Agrarian Conditions in Northern India, Vol. 1 (Berkeley, 1972), ch. 6Google Scholar.
10 Dutt, Romesh C., The Economic History of India in the Victorian Age (London, 1956), p. 595.Google Scholar
11 Ibid., ch. 10.
12 Harnetty, Peter, Imperialism and Free Trade: Lancashire and India in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (Vancouver, 1972), p. 49.Google Scholar
13 The exact relationship between regional rainfall series and famine reports deserves more careful study. The best record of the incidence of famines is Bhatia, B. M., Famines in India, 1860-1945 (Bombay, 1963)Google Scholar.
14 On the motives behind and financiing of the railroads see Thorner, Daniel, Investment in Empire (Philadelphia, 1950); on the impact on prices seeGoogle ScholarHurd, John, “Railways and the Expansion of Markets in India, 1861-1921,” a paper delivered to the Association for Asian Studies, 03, 1971, mimeoGoogle Scholar.
15 Atkinson, Fred J., “Silver Prices in India,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 60 (1897), 142–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16 United States Department of Treasury, Report of the Director of the Mint, 1895 (Washington, D.C., 1896), p. 62.Google Scholar
17 , Atkinson, “Silver Prices,” p. 142.Google Scholar
18 Ibid., p. 143.
19 Ibid.,
20 There are not many descriptions of peasants' handling of silver and their use of jewelry as a store of value. See, however, Bailey, F. G., Caste and the Economic Frontier (Manchester, 1957), pp. 75–82Google Scholar.
To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Google Drive account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.