The plans showing a way out of an _impasse_ such as this were legion. One was the issue of heavier rupees.²⁴⁰ The second was to make silver limited legal tender and to authorize the Secretary of State to sell in London gold or silver Indian stock to the extent of his gold payments, to be liquidated by [pg 145] the Government of India by the issue of unlimited legal-tender notes called “bons.”²⁴¹ The third was that England and India should, as between them, adopt a bimetallic standard on a new basis,²⁴² or to admit the rupee as full legal tender in the United Kingdom.²⁴³ The fourth was to regulate the opening and closing of Mints to coinage on the basis of deviations of actual exchange rates from the rate of exchange fixed at the opening of each year for the Council drafts of the Secretary of State. Under this scheme, so long as the actual rate did not exceed the fixed rate by less than 5 per cent., the free coinage of silver was to be suspended.²⁴⁴ The fifth was to provide that on the one hand the Secretary of State should fix a minimum rate for his drafts, and that the Government of India on the other should levy a duty on all imports of silver equal to the difference between the daily official quotations of bar silver in London and the price of silver corresponding to the rate fixed for the Council drafts.²⁴⁵ The sixth was to introduce a bimetallic coin, to be called the Imperial florin or rupee, made of the value of 2 _s_. and containing 4 per cent. weight in gold and the balance in silver.²⁴⁶ The seventh was to establish independent gold and silver standards without any fixed ratio of exchange between them,²⁴⁷ or with some slight inducement for the use of gold in transactions of larger denominations.²⁴⁸ Although the Government of India was not in agreement with these clever if not crazy plans of currency reforms, it agreed in the aim they had in view, namely, to place India on gold basis without involving the actual use of gold in place of the existing rupees in circulation. With this aim in view it revived for adoption the more simple and more scientific plan of Colonel Smith. As a preliminary, the Government reverted to the policy of the resolution of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce, to the adoption of which it saw such “fatal [pg 146] objections” in 1876. In the despatch dated June 21, 1892, which contained the proposals, the Government of India asked for nothing more. In the words of their author²⁴⁹ they proposed ²⁴⁰ By Aston and also by R. West, I.C.C., 1893. App. III, pp. 281 and 325. ²⁴¹ By Atkins, _ibid._, p. 282. ²⁴² By Chapman, _ibid._, p. 282. ²⁴³ By Woodhouse, _ibid._, p. 33. ²⁴⁴ By Graham, _ibid._, p. 305. ²⁴⁵ By M. Schilizzi, _ibid._, 319. ²⁴⁶ By Stalkartt, _ibid._, p. 322; also a very similar one by Merington, _ibid._, p. 316. ²⁴⁷ By Perry, _ibid._, p. 323. ²⁴⁸ By Claremont Daniell, _ibid._, p. 292.