[11] This does not include the funds held abroad on account of the Russian Treasury. Speaking in March 1913, in the Budget Committee of the Duma, the Minister of Finance stated that the total amount of Russian State funds placed abroad was £60,000,000. [12] I have throughout deliberately ignored the current practice of the United States in these matters. Her development and present position are anomalous, and have claimed no imitators. Her arrangements would need a discussion to themselves, and would, I think, convey few lessons of value to students of Indian affairs. In dealing with her dependencies, she has herself imitated, almost slavishly, India. [13] I may seem to speak as if Japan had in name a Gold–Exchange Standard, which is not the case. There is not much publicity in regard to her monetary arrangements. But I believe that they are, in fact, such that it is as a Gold–Exchange Standard hers ought impartially to be classified. The Finance Minister stated in the Diet in 1912 that the gold funds held by the Government and the Bank of Japan in Europe and the United States were about £37,000,000. The amount of gold circulating in Japan herself is, I believe, inconsiderable. [14] Unless it be Egypt. [15] In the course of the last twenty years, however, the Bank of Holland, having got rid of the greater part of her redundant stock of silver coins, has gradually come to rely more on her holding of gold and less on her holding of foreign bills than formerly. In 1892–93 foreign bills at £1,801,409 were about 16 per cent of her resources (excluding silver coin); in 1911–12 they had fallen to £1,389,139 or about 5·5 per cent of her resources (excluding silver coin). But the media of exchange are still notes and silver, and not less than formerly does the Bank pursue the policy of keeping her gold for purposes of export only and of withholding it from circulation. Almost the whole of her stock of gold is in the form of bars and foreign coin. (It should be added, however, that at the end of 1912 there were proposals, in order to avoid fresh coinage of silver, for the introduction of a 5 fl. gold piece.) [16] The rupee contains ⅜ oz. of silver of eleven–twelfths fineness. When standard silver is at 24d. per oz. the cost of a rupee to the Government is about 9·181d.; at 32d. per oz. it is about 12·241d. The average rate of profit on coinage of rupees from 1910 to May 1912 was about 42% of the nominal value. [17] See also pp. 199, 200. [18] For this and other historical details see J. B. Brunyate, _An Account of the Presidency Banks_. [19] Mr. Wilson had proposed to invest a high proportion of the reserve (perhaps two–thirds) in Government securities. [20] I quote this from the Secretary of State’s despatch (Sir Charles Wood, March 26, 1860) criticising Mr. Wilson’s original scheme.