1857–58 15,277,629 27,456,036 12,218,948 2,783,073 12,655,308 43,783 +436,360 −2,739,290 26,7 8,1 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 1858–59 21,728,579 29,862,871 7,728,342 4,426,453 6,641,548 132,273 −1,086,794 −4,294,180 24,9 8,1 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 1859–60 24,265,140 27,960,203 11,147,563 4,284,234 10,753,068 64,307 −394,495 −4,219,927 25,0 8,2 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ⁶⁸ Prepared from figures given in Palgrave’s “Memorandum on Currency and Standard of Value,” Appendix B to _Third Report of the Royal Commission on Depression of Trade and Industry_. C4797 of 1886. Figures for the production of gold and silver, which are for calendar years, are added from the “Silver Question and the Gold Question,” by R. Barclay. [pg 34] so was the coinage of it. Why then should there have been any stringency at all? The answer to this question is not far to seek. If the amount of silver coined had been retained in circulation it is possible that the stringency could not have arisen. India has long been notoriously the sink of the precious metals. But in interpreting this phenomenon, it is necessary to bear in mind the caution given by Mr. Cassels that “its silver coinage has not only had to satisfy the requirements of commerce as the medium of exchange, but it has to supply a sufficiency of material to the silversmith and the jeweller. The Mint has been pitted against the smelting-pot, and the coin produced by so much patience and skill by the one has been rapidly reduced into bangles by the other.”⁶⁷ ⁶⁷ Minute on Gold Currency for India, dated December 8, 1863, in the _Report of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce_, 1863–64. App. I, p. 189. Now it will be seen from the figures given that all the import of silver was coined and used up for currency purposes. Very little or nothing was left over for the industrial and social consumption of the people. That being the case, it is obvious that a large part of the coined silver must have been abstracted from monetary to non-monetary purposes. The hidden source of this monetary stringency thus becomes evident. To men of the time it was as clear as daylight that it was the rate of absorption of currency from monetary to non-monetary purposes that was responsible as to why