───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 1886–87 1 6 1 5·441 65,17,721 — ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 1887–88 1 5·5 1 4·898 71,90,097 — ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 1888–89 1 4·9 1 4·379 77,98,400 — ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 1889–90 1 4·38 1 4·566 — 27,31,892 ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 1890–91 1 4·552 1 6·09 — 2,35,51,744 ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 1891–92 1 5·25 1 4·733 80,09,366 — ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ¹⁹⁴ Compiled from figures given in the _Final Report of the Gold and Silver Commission_, p. 40, and in App. II, p. 270, to the _Report of the Indian Currency Committee_, 1893. [pg 116] changes in their operations. The whole of insurance business is aimed at giving stability to economic life. The necessity which compelled all regularly established Governments to maintain standard measures by which the true proportion between things as to their quantities might be ascertained and dealings in them regulated with certainty was motivated by the same purpose, and the meticulous precision with which every civilized country defines its standard measures, and the large machinery it maintains to preserve them from deviation, are only evidences of the great importance that an economic society must continue to attach to the matter of providing precision of expression and assurance of fulfilment with regard to the contracts entered into by its members in their individual or corporate capacities. Important as are the standard measures of a community, its measure of value is by far the most important of them all.¹⁹⁵ The measures of weight, extension, or volume enter only into particular transactions. If the pound, the bushel, or the yard were altered the evils would be comparatively restricted in scope. But the measure of value is all-pervading. ¹⁹⁵ Cf. Harris, _An Essay upon Money and Coins_ (reprinted by J. R. McCulloch in his volume of _Scarce Tracts on Money_, Part I, Chap. IT, par. 21; Part II, Chap. II, pars. 11, 13, and 20).