§ SIR EDWARD SASSOON (Hythe)To ask the Secretary of State for India if he will state the amount of gold remitted from India since February this 263 year, and to what purposes these remittances have been applied; the sums of gold now held in India in the Currency Reserves, the Government Treasuries, and the Gold Reserve Fund respectively; whether any of the latter is deposited with the Presidency Banks or otherwise utilised in aid of commerce; the number of rupees (including value of subsidiary coins) issued since the beginning of this year; the total amount of silver imported during the same period, how much of this has been on Government account, and whether this portion is subject to the 5 per cent. import duty; the present amount of the cash balances in India and England respectively; and what has been, since 1st March, the average weekly amount lent out from the Indian Office Treasury in aid of the money market here.
(Answered by Secretary Lord George Hamilton.) The amount of gold remitted by the Government of India to this country since February last is £500,000, which has been added to the balances held by the Secretary of State in Council. The amount of gold held by the Government of India on the 15th October was as follows: Currency Reserve, £5,748,000; Government Treasuries, £88,000; Gold Reserve Fund, £175,000; total, £6,011,000. I have no reason to believe that any of this gold is deposited with the Presidency banks. If it were so deposited it would, of course, be necessary to transfer from, the banks to the Currency Reserve or the Treasuries an equivalent amount in rupees, a course which, in all probability, would hinder commerce rather than aid it; but for a considerable time, whenever the mercantile community has desired gold in exchange for rupees, the Government of India has made its own stock freely available. The total coinage of silver in India from 1st April till 31st August, 1902, was Rs.7,38,63,606 (£4,925,000). But this includes the coinage of British dollars for use in Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements, the rupees coined for Native States, and the subsidiary coinage for use in British India. The rupees coined for Native States amounted to about Rs.80,00,000; but I am not yet in possession of exact figures on this point. The imports of 264 silver into India during the period just mentioned were as follows: On private account, Rs.5,04,47,857; on Government account, Rs.51,830. It is provided by law that no customs duty is leviable on goods belonging to the Government of India. The latest figures for the cash balances in India and England are as follows: In India on the 31st of August, Rs.16,93,00,000; in England on the 5th of November, £5,062,228. The average weekly amount of loan from the Home Treasury during the present financial year has been. £5,100,000.