³⁷⁴ From Hawtrey’s _Credit and Currency_, p. 269. On the values of the notes in terms of gold Prof. Foxwell says: “It is admitted by the severest critics of the bank that there is no substantial ground for complaint as to its conduct during the restriction until 1808–9. There does not seem, indeed, to have been any real depreciation of its paper until that date. The price of £4 per ounce, which figures monotonously for the years 1803–9, was really an arbitrary price, fixed by the bank itself as one at which it would purchase foreign gold.” _Preface to Andréadès_, p. xvi. Some people seem to doubt that there was no specific depreciation of the inconvertible notes of the Bank of England till 1810. Unfortunately data are not available to give direct evidence of the fact. But circumstantial evidence there is. It is to be remembered that the premium on gold was the only method then known of measuring depreciation and that Horner, Ricardo and others were open enemies of the Bank of England. That being the case, it does not seem probable that Horner would have waited to introduce his Resolution in the House of Commons till 1810 if the bank notes had shown signs of specific depreciation before that time. [pg 244] Which kind of depreciation is the greater evil we will discuss in the next chapter. Dealing for the present with this experience of the Bank of England, we have the fact that there can be a general depreciation without a specific depreciation. In view of this, the upholders of the exchange standard have no reason to be proud of the fact that the rupee has not shown signs of specific depreciation over periods of long duration. That a bank note absolutely inconvertible and unregulated as to issue should have maintained its par for very nearly thirteen years may speak far more in favour of the suspension system than the experience of the rupee can in favour of the exchange standard. There is a greater wonder in the former than there is in the latter, for the value of the rupee is sustained, apart from the fact that gold in terms of which it was measured was itself undergoing a depreciation, as is evident from the foregoing figures of general prices in England, and by a hope in some kind of convertibility, however slight or however remote but which had no place in the case of the Bank of England notes. Yet no one is known to have admired or justified the currency system of the suspension period, although it had not given rise to a specific depreciation for a long time.