What is, then, the resource left to the Government to _retire_ the rupee currency? Only the gold-standard reserve. That is the only reserve the amount of which is unappropriated for any particular use. It is free cash, and only to that extent is it possible for the Government to restore the rupee currency when a fall in its gold value eventuates, Of course [pg 229] it is important to bear in mind that this is the extent to which it can retire the currency. Not that it will, for it may not, and there is no want of cases in which it has not. Two instances will suffice. During the first period of the Mint closure, 1893–98, it will be recalled how a large number of rupees had accumulated in the hands of the Government, and in the interest of raising the value of the rupee they should have been locked away. Instead the Government of India released that money in circulation in extending railways and other public works, as though the spending of rupees by itself produced an effect different to what would have been produced had they been spent by the public. Similarly irresponsible conduct marked the sale of reverse councils in 1920. To meet these reverse councils the Secretary of State took the gold from the paper-currency reserve. But instead of cancelling notes to the extent of the gold that was taken out of the reserve, the Government took powers under an Act XXI of 1920 to fill the gap by manufacturing securities _ad hoc_, so that though there was redemption there was no retirement, and so much gold was merely wasted, for it produced no effect on prices or the exchange. This Act, passed in March, 1920, was of temporary duration, and would have obliged the Government to retire the currency by October, 1920, when it was to expire. Rather than do this the Government altered the paper-currency law, not temporarily but permanently (Act XLV of 1920), changing the provisions in such a manner as to require the Government to cancel the currency to the smallest degree possible by retiring their “created securities.” Even this was not done, owing to deficits in the Government Budget.