The situation was not due, in my judgment, to any ignorance or incompetence on the part of the executive officers of Government, but to a system which provided them with no sort of appropriate machinery for dealing with the position. The “Independent Treasury System” and the traditional aloofness of Government from the Money Market were seen at their worst. Millions of rupees were lying idle in the Government Treasuries at the time of year when there was most work for them to do outside. The sort of arrangements I have outlined in earlier paragraphs might have done something, I feel sure, to ease the situation. One can point, therefore, to the first quarter of 1913 as a specific occasion on which Government could have lent sums in India with profit to itself, with advantage to the Money Market, and without incurring any risk of which it need have been afraid. 12. I have now completed my discussion of these questions. Two points I would end by emphasising. The first affects my general treatment of the subject matter. I have tried to bring out the fact that the Indian system is an exceedingly _coherent_ one. Every part of the system fits into some other part. It is impossible to say everything at once, and an author must needs sacrifice from time to time the complexity and interdependence of fact in the interests of the clearness of his exposition. But the complexity and the coherence of the system require the constant attention of anyone who would criticise the parts. This is not a peculiarity of Indian Finance. It is the characteristic of all monetary problems. The difficulty of the subject is due to it. My second point affects the kinship of Indian arrangements to those lately developed in other parts of the world. Indian affairs are so exclusively studied by those whose knowledge and experience is preponderantly Indian or English, that the true perspective of India’s development is sometimes lost; and the value of foreign experiences neglected. I urge that, in her Gold–Exchange Standard, and in the mechanism by which this is supported, India, so far from being anomalous, is in the forefront of monetary progress. But in her banking arrangements, in the management of her note issue, and in the relations of her Government to the Money Market, her position _is_ anomalous; and she has much to learn from what is done elsewhere. INDEX Adie, Mr., 149 ff. Atkinson, F. J., 151 ff. Australian sovereigns, remittance of, to India, 115–116 Austro–Hungarian Bank, 24, 32, 33, 70 Bagehot, W., 162, 177 Balances. _See_ Cash Balances Balkan War, effect of, on gold markets, 23, 165 Bank Rate in India, 105, 163, 164, 196–198, 240 ff. Banking in India, 195 ff. Banking Reserves in India, 147, 160, 161, 204–205, 215–218, 224–227, 232 Banks with small paid–up capital, 230–232 Bengal, Bank of, 182, 198 ff., 234 Bombay, Bank of, 182, 199 ff. Bombay, proposed mintage of gold at, 64, 67–68, 84–87