⁴²⁹ Even the Chamberlain Commission said that the Government had departed from the ideal of the Fowler Committee. That is true. But those who have blamed the Government have forgotten that the same Committee also recommended that— “The exclusive right to coin fresh rupees must remain vested in the Government of India; and though the existing stock of rupees may suffice for some time, regulations will ultimately be needed for providing such additions to the silver currency as may prove necessary. The Government should continue to give rupees for gold, but fresh rupees should not be coined until the proportion of gold in the currency is found to exceed the requirements of the public. We also recommend that any profit on the coinage of rupees should not be credited to the revenue or held as a portion of the ordinary balance of the Government of India, but [pg 284] should be kept in gold as a special reserve, entirely apart from the paper-currency reserve and the ordinary Treasury balances” [and be made freely available for foreign remittances whenever the exchange falls below specie point]. Taking the two recommendations of the Committee together, where is the departure? What the Government has done is precisely what the Committee had recommended. That the Government of India or the Chamberlain Commission should have admitted for a moment that there was a departure is not a little odd, for the very despatch which conveyed the Minute of Sir Edward Law to the Secretary of State opens with remarks which show that Government was earnestly following the recommendations of the Fowler Committee. It runs:— “In our despatch No. 301 of August 24, 1899, we wrote with reference to paragraph 60 of the Report of the Indian Currency Committee [i.e. the Fowler Committee], that any profit made on rupee coinage should be held in gold as a special reserve, has not escaped our attention; but the need for the coinage of additional rupees is not likely to occur for some time, and a decision on this point may be conveniently deferred.”