PAPER CURRENCY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5183, 26 September 1927, Page 4

PAPER CURRENCY.

SHOUT LIFE OF BANK NOTES.

THE FATE OF OLD ONES. Although bank notes ate a common form of currency in New Zealand, lew of us seem to have as many as we would wish for. When we do happen to have any in our possession they never seem loth to part; with our com? pany—someone else is always imperatively needing them for sucn mundane purposes asi rent or grocers’ bills. The result, is : that bank notes, especially those of the two lower denominations (ten shillings and one pound) are very frequently changing hands. In the process they become so creased and grubby that their sponsors recognise that their days of usefulness are ended and they are “called in” (states the Wellington Post).

A short life and a gay one is the moto of the majority of ten shilling and one; pound notes, and in from nine to twelve months after the day they originally left a bank, uncreased and spotless, they are recalled from circulation and others are issued in their place. Each grubby bit of crinkled paper as it comes to the end of its rounds, could it but speak, could unfold many a tale of joy or of sorrow. Through countless hands it has passed, clutched tightly by some whose acquaintance with notes is meagre, treated with scant consideration by others who habitually deal in pounds by. the hundreds On.ce at leas ( t, in the course of its short career it has probably passed through the totalisator; into, the till and out of the till; into the bank and out of the bank, with no end to its possible vicissitudes. Although nine to twelve months may be the average length of a ten shilling or a pound bank note’s life, not infrequently the banks receive some which have been put into circulation as much as fourteen or fifteen years previously. These longlived notes would have a different tale to tell; perhaps they spent long years in the dark, hiddep away in a drawer or sewn up in a mattress against; a rainy day; who knows 7 RUTHLESS DESTRUCTION. Every month each of the bigger banks, operating in New Zealand der stroys from £20',000 to £30,000 worth of notes, amongst which the little ten shilling fellow predominates, being the easiest to acquire land also the easiest to get rid of. The layman may think this pathetic waste of good money, for a dirty note* will buy just as much as a clean one. But, however much one may deplore this apparent wast,e>, the bank officials’ decree is final.

This periodical destruction of apparent wealth e.TitafJsi considerable work for tihe banks. The numbers of the notes to be destroyed, have first to be carefully checked. This done, each note has stamped across it the word “cancelled” in. perforations. Then, to make doubly sure, bundle after bundle of the fast-expiring currency undergoes the same fate as R:oyalists underwent in the French' Revolution, for they are placed uncler a Keenedged guillotine which noatly severs the corner containing the; signatureAll the, while the bundles fare guarded by active and alert officials’, who see that none escape. But 1 the funeral rites are not ’even then finished, for all the severed corners arid the main parts of the mutilated nbties are again carefully gathered into Tjundles for cremation. In the cases of the banks whose headquarters are in Australia the, bundles are despatched for a last voyage across the Tasman Sea, carefully registered altho ugh valueless. The voyage, ended, they are burnt in the presence of an inspector, and a handsome fortune “goes’* up in smoke.”

The banks, of course., .are not,-losers by this process. Paiper-making and printing machines in London are continually at work manufacturing new notes; to the value. many hundreds of thousands of pounds to send tG' this part of the glcibe. When we are affluent enough to be able to present a ‘cheque at the; b.ank we will, if we are lucky, receive;’ over the counter crisp, new, and attractive-looking pieces of paper vrhich, although they have a ,face; vabae of 10s £l, £5, or more, have cost; the bank but twopence or threepence each. A hundredpound note costs no print than one for a humble pound 5 in fact, the cost of eaich is very small when made in quantity. There are Customs dues to be paid on them whim they arrive on the Dominion’s shores; then, too, there is tl le labour of clerks to be paid for, cl< jrks who- have to check and sign eac h one. This, however, is work whicl 1 many of us Wo uld gladly do were we • allowed to have the; proceeds for our • labour. ■ WHY DIRT.Y NIOTES AT JA.LL ? It will be seen, therefore, that the effor t of the han. 1 ks to keep the; notes in circulatio® in a reasonably clean ? .nd wholesome »condition is no nominal one. Rut t?he fact remains that all too quickly -.the 10s and £1 notes gather counties s germs and much dirt, so that one is moved to ask why the. banks in NTew Zealand do not adopt the procedure which is very commonly met ivith in other countries. There the-- smaller denomination notes are prii ited on comparatively cheap paper, ai id they are, recalled by the banks the first time they return to that institution; tliat is, before they have time to become dirty, no note leaving the bank twice; in its career. Such a scheme doubtless means added work for bank flerks .and officials, but it ends to keep the note issue reasonably clean, and no one can truthfully say that the average 10s or £1 New Zealand note is anywhere near clean.