1. The Fowler Committee of 1898 avowed themselves in favour of the ultimate establishment of a gold _currency_ in India as well as a gold _standard_. Paragraph 54 of their Report runs as follows:— We are in favour of making the British sovereign a legal tender and a current coin in India. We also consider that, at the same time, the Indian mints should be thrown open to the unrestricted coinage of gold on terms and conditions such as govern the three Australian branches of the Royal Mint. The result would be that, under identical conditions, the sovereign would be coined and would circulate both at home and in India. Looking forward as we do to the effective establishment in India of a gold standard and currency based on the principles of the free in–flow and out–flow of gold, we recommend these measures for adoption. The first part of their proposal was carried out immediately, and, in 1899, British gold was declared legal tender at the rate of a sovereign to 15 rupees. It appeared at first as if their further object of a gold currency might soon be attained also. The principle of minting gold in India was accepted both by the Secretary of State and by the Viceroy’s Council, and in 1900 Sir Clinton Dawkins actually announced that it had been decided to constitute a branch of the Mint at Bombay for this purpose. In the meantime an attempt was made, described in §4, to force sovereigns into circulation. But the attempt failed, and Sir Clinton Dawkins’s proposal was never carried out. As Sir G. Fleetwood Wilson explained in the Legislative Council in 1911— A number of technical and other difficulties were raised by the Royal Mint, which ultimately wore out the patience of Lord Curzon’s Government. In the interval the Kolar gold mining companies had mostly entered into agreements for the sale of their produce in England; and the prospect of their bringing their gold to be refined and coined at Bombay—which was to be the _pièce de résistance_ of our gold mint—was thus deferred. In the circumstances it was decided in 1902 to drop the project, and to wait until a stronger demand for a local gold coinage should arise.