NORMAL EXCHANGES 213 
the Argentine peso again fluctuated ; but as the conversion 
office has not been restored in its original form, there is 
nothing to show that this is due to any congenital vice in 
the system. Presumably it was a mere question of con- 
venience; and it must be remembered that if the free ex- 
port of gold has not been re-introduced in Argentina 
through the conversion office, this is true of almost all the 
countries which were formerly on a gold standard. 
As for the gold exchange standard, we have shown that if 
its working has been temporarily suspended during the 
period of economic upheaval which followed the world 
war, this has been due to an accident (the rise in the price 
of silver) which is not in any way connected with the con- 
ditions necessary for applying the system. The Indian 
currency, a silver currency insufficiently fiduciary in 
character, could in the event of a rise in the price of the 
metal be exported so that a higher silver point was sub- 
stituted for the gold point; moreover, the Government of 
India, being obliged to make up the volume of currency 
which was always being depleted by the hoarding of a 
large native population, was obliged to purchase silver 
abroad at a price which would have become ruinous if the 
silver had only been put into circulation at a rate of 1 S 
rupees to the pound sterling—a rate much lower than the 
purchase price. Itis obvious that the same difficulty might 
have arisen in the same country if gold instead of being 
used as a reserve for payments abroad had circulated at 
home. It would also have been necessary in these cir- 
cumstances to alter the legal ratio between gold and silver 
coin.! 
We should also note the remarkable history of the ex- 
change in Greece, where in spite of three consecutive wars 
the exchange remained, under the system of the gold 
1 Unless the same action had been taken as in Mexico, where, a similar 
situation having arisen in 1906 after the ratio between gold and silver had 
been fixed at 1-32, permission was given for the export of silver subject to 
an equivalent re-import of gold. But this substitution of one metal for the 
other could hardly have been contemplated in India, where the silver 
currency answers the needs and tastes of the native population.