38 MODERN MONETARY SYSTEMS 
§ 2. Imitations of the Monetary Reform in India. 
Although the theoretical significance of the monetary 
reform in India was imperfectly understood by its authors 
and its first imitators, its practical application was suffi- 
ciently grasped for analogous reforms to be carried out. 
The Government of the British Colony of the Straits 
Settlements, the American Government in the Philippine 
Islands, the Siamese Government, and later, in Europe, 
the Hellenic Government! were able to undertake them 
with success. 
The system tentatively set up in India was carried out 
most consistently in the Philippines. The Philippine 
Coinage Act of March 2nd, 1903, supplemented by a 
local law, the “Philippine Gold Standard Act,” of Octo- 
ber 10th, 1903, contained the following provisions : 
(4) The coinage of a new Philippine silver peso and 
the adoption of the gold peso—equal to one-half the 
American dollar—as the theoretical monetary unit; this 
was equivalent to fixing the parity of the new silver peso 
at half a dollar ; demonetisation of foreign silver coin. 
(6) The constitution of a gold reserve, and the creation 
of an Exchange Office at New York for the supply of drafts 
on Manilla at a rate corresponding to parity plus “gold 
point,” and of another office at Manilla for the supply of 
drafts on New York at the same rate. The American re- 
formers, impressed with the same ideas as their English 
predecessors, also believed in the efficacy of contracting 
and expanding the internal stock of currency automatically 
in order to maintain its parity with gold. They therefore 
decided in theory to withdraw from circulation the sums 
1 Greece, which had been on a forced currency since 1885, adopted the 
system of the gold exchange standard in 1910 by entrusting the National 
Bank of Greece with the task of converting the drachme into foreign 
currencies at par. Measures having been taken to ensure a sufficient port- 
folio of foreign currencies and credits, it has always been possible to keep 
the Greek exchange at par with the franc, and later with the dollar, 
through several war-periods until 1919. See Pharmakidis, “La Situation 
monétaire en Gréce avant et aprés la guerre,” Rev. Econ. Intern., Dec. 
1922, and Damiris, “Le Systéme Monétaire Grec et le Change.”