Whether any other criterion besides popular preference could have led the Court to adopt gold monometallism is a moot question. Suffice it to say that the adoption of silver monometallism, though well supported at the time when the Act was passed, soon after proved to be a measure quite inadequate to the needs of the country. It is noteworthy that just about this time great changes were taking place in the economy of the Indian people. Such a one was a change from kind economy to cash economy. Among the chief causes contributory to this transformation the first place must be given to the British system of revenue and finance. Its effects in shifting Indian society on to a cash nexus have not been sufficiently realized,⁶² although they have been very real. Under the native rulers most payments were in kind. The standing military force kept and regularly paid by the Government was small. The bulk of the troops consisted of a kind of militia furnished by Jageerdars and other landlords, and the troops or retainers of these feudatories were in great measure maintained on the grain, forage, and other supplies furnished by the districts in which they were located. The hereditary revenue and police officers were generally paid by grants of land on tenure of service. Wages of farm servants and labourers were in their turn distributed in grain. Most of its officers being paid in kind, the State collected very little [pg 30] of its taxes in cash. The innovations made by the British in this rude revenue and fiscal system were of the most sweeping character. As territory after territory passed under the sway of the British, the first step taken was to substitute in place of the rural militia of the feudatories a regularly constituted and well-disciplined standing army located at different military stations, paid in cash; in civil employ, as in military, the former revenue and police officers with their followers, who paid themselves by perquisites and other indirect gains received in kind, were replaced by a host of revenue collectors and magistrates with their extensive staff, all paid in current coin. The payments to the army, police, and other officials were not the only payments which the British Government had placed on a money basis. Besides these charges, there were others which were quite unknown to native Governments, such as the “Home Charges” and “Interest on Public Debt,” all on a cash basis. The State, having undertaken to pay in cash, was compelled to realize all its taxes in cash, and as each citizen was bound to pay in cash he in his turn stipulated to receive nothing but cash, so that the entire structure of the society underwent a complete transformation. ⁶² Cf. the article “The Silver Question as regards India,” in the _Bombay Quarterly Review_, April, 1857.