22 MODERN MONETARY SYSTEMS 
To sum up, whenever white metal from producing 
countries was barely sufficient to pay off the debts owing to 
the Far East and it became necessary to call upon the 
stocks of bimetallist countries, silver went to a premium ; 
when, on the other hand, shipments of white metal to 
London could not be immediately deflected to the Far 
East, and it became necessary to send some of it to 
bimetallist countries, reserving at least a part for repatria- 
tion in the form of gold specie convertible into British 
legal tender currency, gold went to a premium. 
The co-existence of monometallist gold and silver 
standard countries on the one hand and of bimetallist 
countries on the other, accounting as it does for the con- 
ditions of the London market for silver throughout the 
bimetallist 7égime, gives a logical, and, it may be added, a 
psychological explanation of the variations in the ratio 
between the two metals during the period under con- 
sideration. 
Moreover, such facts as we have confirm this view. It 
has, for instance, been definitely established that the silver 
premium before 186% coincided with enormous transfers 
to India to pay for abnormal purchases of cotton and in 
the form of loans of large capital sums; articles in the 
Economist bear witness to the necessity of having recourse 
at the time to the stocks of bimetallist countries, and in 
particular of France, for this purpose ; at certain times it 
also became necessary to pay a considerable premium in 
exchanging gold for silver in the currency of the country. 
On the other hand, the gold premium, or in other words 
the fall in silver after this period, coincides with an enor- 
mous decrease in the amounts transferred, due to the dis- 
appearance of abnormal purchases and to payments in 
respect of interest on the capital invested in India.l 
1 According to Monsieur de Foville (“La Monnaie,” p. 47) the net 
imports of silver into India, which had averaged 135 million rupees during 
the War of Secession, had fallen to 23 millions in 1872. See also Arnauné, 
‘La Monnaie,le Crédit et le Change,” 3rd ed., pp.4I and 231. The Customs 
statistics of India bear out that the silver premium after 1860 coincides 
with a sudden enormous increase in the import of silver into India, whereas 
the fall in silver after 1866 coincides with a sudden enormous decrease in