ABSTRACT
The fact that a gold currency was formerly in use in south India has often been alleged as an argument in favour of the possibility of maintaining a gold currency in India today. However, those, who have quoted this example have in reality had very few facts regarding it at their disposal. On the Coromandel Coast, the precious metals were, in the eighteenth century, obtained entirely, or almost entirely, by foreign trade. The principal share was derived from Europe in payment for the piece-goods which formed the staple export to the West, The remainder came from the various regions with which the coast was connected by the country trade. Both silver and gold came from Manilla, which obtained the first from America and the second from China. Silver was tending to replace gold as the principal export from Europe to the Coast. In the seventeenth century gold had been the more regular and constant export from the West.
