Created in 1899 on the recommendation of the Fowler Committee, the Gold Standard Reserve (GSR) was initially intended to support the establishment of a gold currency. With the abandonment of an Indian gold standard, its purpose then became to underpin the exchange and to provide a pool of money that could be used to cash the reverse council bills sold in India and cashed in London when the exchange rate fell below the gold export point and as an alternate source of funds when council bills/sterling could not be sold/bought at sufficiently high prices. It also provided temporary loans to the Indian government when it lacked the funds to meet council bills; helped to minimise Indian inflation; by ensuring the stability of the exchange, improved Indian credit in the London capital market; and, controversially, in 1907 financed the repayment of £1.1m of railway debentures, which the IO was unable to renew owing to a dearth of money in the City. Indian critics denounced the raid. The repayment of the debentures should have been financed via the issue of sterling bills, a solution rejected because officials wished to avoid acting against their City friends, and the use of the Reserve for ‘purposes…wholly foreign to its object’ would ‘shake public confidence’ in India's determination to maintain the exchange, threatening its stability.