CO882-(1-2) — Page 321

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :--

C.O. 882

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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change was taking place in the relative values of the precious metals, in consequence of the disco- veries of gold in California and Australia (in the former dating from 1850, in the latter from 1851), and was producing the practical settlement of the question to which Mr. Wilson's letter adverts. Sovereigus, in consequence of these discoveries, soon became a much cheaper remittance to Mau- ritius than before; and it was observed, about the time Lord Grey left office, that they were quoted in

the local price-currents as having fallen nearly to

;

par with British silver, notwithstanding that the latter, probably in consequence of the now greater issue of Government notes, had already fallen to

par

with valued at 28. This disappearance

rupees of the local premium on gold, as compared with British silver, and on both, as compared with rupees at 28., was fully confirmed in the course of time and the result was, that British money and Govern- ment notes were, by degrees, used in payment of dollar debts at the legal rate of 48. to the dollar, in common with rupees at the conventional rate of 28. to the rupee. Indeed, was reported in the middle of 1853 that the substitution of British currency and Government notes for rupees was going on very rapidly, the latter, though still current at 21., having become in great demand for export. It appears that even the Indian labourers had by this time become accustomed to British money and Government notes, and evinced no objection, any more than other classes, to the substitution of those descriptions of currency for rupees.

To what extent this displacement of rapers has proceeded at the present time, it is difficult to say; but there seems no ground to question Mr. Wilson's statement, that British money is how so freely used as to have become the practical standard for official and popular purposes alike. In the prices-current received from the island up to the present time, British money, gold and silver alike, continues to

be quoted regularly as at par value with rupees at 2. But it appears, from the quotations of exchanges with India, that it is now seldom so' profitable to import rupees to circulate at this rate, as British money.

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Corresponding to the fall in the value of British money in Mauritius, the price of standard silver in London has been constantly quoted, since the gold discoveries, as high as 58. 14d. the ounce, instead of 58. the ounce, the usual price before. But the most recent quotations have been a good deal lower. In Ceylon, where the 28. rating of the rupee authorized by law, and where, in consequence of that rating, rupees, till lately, formed the entire circulation, it is known that they have been, to a certain extent, displaced, within the last year or two, by British money.

is

In this changed state of the Mauritius currency,

it is obvious that the question as to the valuation of the rupee, on which the Treasury has been so long at variance with the Colonial Office and the local Government and public, is, as Mr. Wilson says, practically set at rest. The official value of la. 10d. is of course further than ever from the market value of the coin, and the rupee can less than ever be used in Government transactions; but British money being now so freely used by the pub- lic, it is to be presumed that the taxes are no longer paid, and salaries no longer spent through the inter- vention of brokers, exchanging the two descriptions of currency for each other.

In October 1852, it having been sufficiently ascertained that the Mauritius premium on sove- reigns, as compared with British ailver, had disap- peared, an Order in Council was passed at the instance of the Treasury, limiting the tender of British silver to sums of 40s., mat home, with the view of preventing any renewal of the former excessive accumulation of this money, which it seemed was the only reason that the premium sovereigns had arisen. This Order in Council as- ided to other Colonia besides Mauritius, where

ske mase practice of an unlimited tender of silver, often senompanied by a simdar severvigu, had prevailed. It operation in Mauritios by prociamma Geventer in Navumber 1858. Từ nosempnaled by ang empression of Treasury, en sther parts of tha Mas British silver appears to have runn