Then only gold—made legal tender, at a suitable ratio with the rupee—will become a part of Indian currency. ⁴¹⁸ The legal position of the Secretary of State and the extent to which he can be bound by the provisions of any law passed by the Government of India were well explained by Sir James Westland in his speech on the Indian Paper Currency (Amendment) Bill, which afterwards became Act IT of 1898; compare also the peculiar wording of that Act. That the stoppage of rupee coinage is a sufficient remedy is amply corroborated by the now forgotten episode in the history of Indian currency during the years 1898–1902. Within the short space of a year and a half after gold had been made legal tender the Hon. C. E. Dawkins, notwithstanding the fact that there was no gold Mint, was able, in his Budget speech in March, 1901, to observe:— “India has at length emerged from a period of transition in her currency, has reached the goal to which she has been struggling for years, has established a gold standard and a gold currency, and has attained that practical fixity in exchange which has brought a relief alike to the private individual and to the Government finances.”⁴¹⁹ So great was the plethora of gold that Mr. Dawkins further remarked⁴²⁰:— “… We have been nearly swamped … by gold …” [pg 275] ⁴¹⁹ _Financial Statement_, 1900–1, p. 14. ⁴²⁰ _Ibid._, p. 19. The transformation in the currency position which then took place was graphically described by Lord Curzon, the then Viceroy, in the following words⁴²¹:— “Mr. Dawkins … has successfully inaugurated the new era under which the sovereign has become legal tender in India, and stability in exchange has assumed what we hope may be a stereotyped form. This great change has been introduced in defiance of the vaticinations of all the prophets of evil, and more especially of the particular prophecy that we could not get gold to come to India, that we could not keep it in our hands if we got it here, but that it would slip so quickly through our fingers that we should have even to borrow to maintain the necessary supply. As a matter of fact, we are almost in the position of the mythological king, who prayed that all he touched might be turned into gold, and was then rather painfully surprised when he found that his food had been converted into the same somewhat indigestible material. So much gold, indeed, have we got, that we are now giving gold for rupees as well as rupees for gold, i.e. we are really in the enjoyment of complete convertibility—a state of affairs which would have been derided as impossible by the experts a year ago.” ⁴²¹ _Ibid._, p. 167. Compare this state of affairs in 1900–1 with that found to exist in 1910–11, for instance. Speaking of the currency situation as it was in that year, the Hon. Sir James (now Lord) Meston, observed⁴²²:—