Jevons’s method is based on the assumptions that the proportions of
coins issued at different dates found in the given samples roughly
correspond to their proportions in the circulation at large, and that
the numbers in circulation of the latest issues do not much differ
from the numbers issued from the Mint. In short, if we know the
relative proportions of coins of 1860 and of 1912 in the circulation,
and if we know, approximately, the absolute number of coins of 1912,
we can calculate the absolute number still circulating of the coins of
1860. In applying this method to the Indian data, we are assuming that
the proportions of rupees of each date found in the bags examined in
a great number of scattered Government Treasuries are a fair sample
of the proportions still in circulation throughout the country. In a
country such as India, however, there may be great stagnancy in a part
of the circulation, and the coins finding their way to the Government
Treasuries may be a sample rather of the floating surplus of coinage,
which has a relatively high velocity of circulation, than of the
total stock, which includes semi–hoards passing from hand to hand
comparatively seldom. Since these samples are likely, therefore, to
contain an undue proportion of recent issues, estimates of the total
circulation, which are based on them, may be expected to fall short
of the truth rather than to exceed it. There is reason, also, for
supposing that in some cases the officials charged with the duty of
examining the samples did not always deal with them conscientiously. A
tendency was noticed for the returns of one year to resemble those of
the previous year more closely than they should, and not infrequently a
batch of coins would be attributed to a year in which it is known that
none were minted. Nevertheless the calculations of Mr. Harrison and Mr.
Adie, and the data on which they are based, seem on the whole coherent,
and bear, so far as one can judge, the marks of substantial accuracy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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