Page:Modern Hyderabad (Deccan).djvu/153

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MODERN HYDERABAD.
141


The British Residents constantly protested against the debasement of the currency, which caused the greatest inconvenience to them in obtaining reliable rupees for the payment of the troops and for the monetary transactions of the Residency, and they made constant but unsuccessful attempts to persuade the Nizam to close the private mints in the State and make the East India Company's rupee the sole legal currency. In 1851 Captain Meadows Taylor wrote, "The wretched system of coinage in the Nizam's country, and the indisputable necessity of placing the department on a better footing have been strongly urged by me on Siraj-ul-Mulk, who has promised to give such immediate attention to the subject as its importance deserves."

In 1855 Sir Salar Jung I established a State Bank in Hyderabad city and introduced a silver currency called the Halli Sicca rupee, and this currency, like that of the Delhi rulers, contained nine of silver and two of alloy. The progress of the Halli Sicca rupee was slow, but in 1863 Sir Salar Jung said that the new system of coinage had answered "fairly well," and in 1868 the Government of India adopted the Halli Sicca