A CURRENCY QUESTION.

Motueka Star, Volume IV, Issue 157, 20 February 1903, Page 4

A CURRENCY QUESTION.

A peculiar currency story has come into circulation of late. A West African trader applied to his London bankers for a supply of silver coins stipulating that they should bear the late Queen’s head and no other, When an explanation was sought, the trader said that, while personally he had no objection to King Edward coins, his native employees and customers were more conservative in their tastes. This trader is a manager for one of the great West African companies, which employs hundreds of natives in collecting and carrying rubber and other merchandise. It had regularly contracted with the men of a certain tribe to do the work, agreeing to pay them in English silver shillings. The coins were, of coui*se, shipped from London in convenient amounts. All was going along very well. The labourers were doing'their work well and were entirely satisfied. The company’s business was flourishing. But when pay day came around a few months ago there was trouble. The pay-master opened his package of shillings and found that they were the new issue, with King Edward’s head. He offered them to the labourers. They refused them. He argued, and pleaded, but all in vain. The labourers struck, and the company’s business was at a standstill. The labourers said they bad agreed to work for certain coins. These were not the coins. They had not upon them the image of the Great White Queen. Therefore they wete of no value. Therefore they should not take them. Unless they- were paid as agreed they 7 would not work. The company 7 had hot kept its promises, and they would go home to their villages. Enough Victorian coins were gathered to save the situation, and the company’s chief factor was sent off to London by the earliest steamer to make arrangements for the future supply-. Unfortunately, the natives want new shillings, so that the difficulty 7 is likely to he recurrent. The story, the truth of which there is no reason to doubt, is another illustration of the remarkable position whieh Queen Victoria’s long reign gave them.