_Aggregate Sterling Reserves_— Gold £10,300,000 Money at Short Notice 5,200,000 Securities 15,400,000 ——————————– £30,900,000 ═══════════ (a) Book value. Thus, to take a round figure, the crisis found the Secretary of State with about £31,000,000 in hand. The storm was soon on him. By the end of October 1907 it had become plain that the Indian harvest would be a bad one, and the financial crisis in the United States was fast developing. On November 4 the Bank of England raised its rate to 6 per cent, and on November 7 (for the first time since 1873) to 7 per cent. On November 6 the Secretary of State could only manage to sell even 30 lakhs of rupees by allowing the rate to drop to the minimum figure of 1s. 3–29/32d. For several weeks following, at a time of year when the demand for Council Bills is usually strong, he sold none at all. But beyond withdrawing from the market he took no further steps for the support of exchange. This measure was inadequate to effect its purpose, and there is a good deal to be said for the view that he ought to have taken at once the more drastic steps for maintaining the gold value of the rupee which he had to take a few months later. However, it was a perplexing and unprecedented time for every one, and that it was some weeks before his advisers found their bearings is not to be wondered at. So inadequate was his action that at first the fall in exchange was scarcely stayed at all. Tumbling day by day, it reached on November 25 the rate of ⅓–11/16. This is below the gold export point (from India), and it could not have fallen so low if the Government had made gold freely available in India. But, as can be seen from the preceding table, their Indian gold reserve was not large. Individuals were not permitted, therefore, to take out more than £10,000 at a time; and in this manner the gold dribbled slowly away over a period of a few months. It would probably have been of more use if it had been allowed to disappear in a week at the moment when it was most badly wanted. In the meantime the Secretary of State, deprived of his usual source of income from the sale of Council Bills, was meeting his normal expenses from the gold portion of the Currency Reserve in London. But the Gold Standard Reserve, although about £1,000,000 worth of Consols was sold out in order to be ready for use in a more liquid form, was kept so far intact.