It is obvious from this that the par of exchange between any two countries will be stable if they employ the same metal functioning as their standard money freely convertible into and exportable as bullion, for in that case they would have as a measure of value a common medium, the value of which could not differ, given freedom of commerce, in the two countries by more than the cost of its transhipment, i.e. within specie points. On the other hand, there can be no fixed par of exchange between two countries having different metals as their currency standards of value. In that case their exchange is governed by the relative values of gold and silver, and must necessarily fluctuate with changes in their value relation. The limit to the exchange fluctuations between them will be as wide or as narrow as the limit to fluctuations in the relative values of the two metals may happen to be. When, therefore, two countries such as England and India are separated by differences in their metallic standards, theoretically there could be no possibility for a stable par of exchange between them. But, as a matter of fact, notwithstanding the difference in their metallic standards, the rate of exchange between England and India seldom deviated¹³³ from the normal¹³⁴ rate of 1 _s_. 10½ _d_. for R.1. So steady was the rate up to 1873 that few people were conscious of the fact that the two countries had different currency standards. After 1873, however, the rupee-sterling exchange suddenly broke loose from this ¹³³ It appears, however, from the chart that the rupee-sterling exchange before 1873 was not quite stable. But the fluctuations in it are to be attributed to quite a different set of factors. It should be noted that the rates of exchange used for reducing the Indian moneys into sterling during the time of the East India Company had been various: moreover, they had so little relation to the intrinsic value of the coins exchanged that the actual rates officially given were far from the actual market rates. As having a bearing on this interesting subject, consult H. of C. Sessional Papers 735 II of 1831–32; Appendix No. 20, _Correspondence, etc., relating to the rates of exchange at which the currencies of India are converted into sterling_; also Tucker, H. St. George, _Remarks on the Plans of Finance_, 1821, _passim_, and _Memorials of Indian Government_, 1853, by the same, pp. 382–85. ¹³⁴ Normal only if 15½ to 1 be taken as the normal ratio between gold and silver, which was the case for nearly seventy years. [Illustration: CHART II: Fall of the Rupee-Sterling Exchange] [pg 71] normal parity, and the dislocation it caused was so great and so disorderly (Chart II) that no one knew where it would stop.