HC Deb 15 December 1902 vol 116 c1212
SIR EDWARD SASSOON () Hythe

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is now prepared to suggest to the Indian Government the advisability of instituting an inquiry as to the effect of the closing of the mints to the free coinage of silver, since the attainment of stability at sixteen pence per rupee, upon the economic condition of India generally.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON,) Middlesex, Ealing

l am not of opinion that there is any sufficient reason for instituting a special inquiry, which would of necessity be elaborate, into the economic effects either of the closing of the Indian Mints in 1893 or of the stability of exchange which that measure was intended to produce and has produced. Those effects, so far as I am able to judge of them, appear to me to be on the whole eminently satisfactory.