DECIMAL COINAGE. [From the Times.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 899, 15 March 1854, Page 4

DECIMAL COINAGE. [From the Times.]

The boldest of all reformers is the man who undertakes to alter the pursuits and employments, the habits and thoughts, of the common people. The good of a change is generally remote and prospective ; its evil is present, immediate, and tangible. The first may strike the mind of the statesman or the philosopher ; the second comes home to the feelings of the multitude. "G ye us back the ten days you have robbed us of, you rascal," was the salutation with which the mob greeted one of those most active in introducing the new style of chronological reckoning into England. The people really believed themselves aggrieved, and it was of little use to tell them of the Gregorian calendar and point out the errors involved in the popular calculation. The mob reasoned then as the Greek Church reasons now ; the wrong mode of reckoning was what they they were used to, and they hated accordingly the man who broke through an established custom, though it were for their benefit. There is one advantage in the spread of education, and that is that it renders these changes easier, first, by teaching men to reason, and thus emancipating, them from the dominion of prejudice, and, secondly, by enabling them more easily to understand and conquer the difficulties of the alteration. Even more delicate than the attempt to correct the errors of chronologers is the project of correcting the absurdities of the pence-table, the worthless anomalies of troy and avoirdupois, and the perplexing varieties of wine, beer, and Winchester measure, and reducing the confusion between measures of weight and measures of content to simplicity and uniformity. This task, a committee of the House of Commons has recently accomplished, so far as money is concerned, and has produced a report the arguments of which it would be difficult to answer, to the conclusions of which it is hardly possible to object, but which is evidently framed with a fuli consciousness of the enormous difficulties still to be overcome. Examined on philosophical principles, it seems hardly credible that a nation so enlightened, so

commercial, and to practical as ourselves should have gone on so long reckoning our money as we do. After haying adopted the decimal method of numeration, and taught our children from their tender years to lisp out units, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, — in other words, having taught them to count in multiples of ten, bow could we ever fall into the absurdity of dividing our shilling by 12 and our penny by four — how could we introduce the guinea, the seven-shilling piece, the half-crown, and more recently, the fourpenny and threepenny coins, which have no reference to the decimal scale, and only perplex its application ? If we bad counted on the duodenary scale, we cculd have understood the regulation which divided the shilling into twelve pence, but then it should have been follor/ed out by making twenty-four shillings to the pound. The probable origin of the decimal scale is 'he inability of a rude nation to count more than the ten fingers of the human hand, and the necessity, therefore, of beginning the operation again. Even this if not arrived at at once. Froteui, Homer tells us, counted his seals by fives, and the Cherokee Indians, when asked for any number larger than three, touched the hair of their head, to intimate that the sum of that number was infinity; but nature never suggested, and nothing but depraved custom ever could countenance, the having one conventional scale for ordinary numeration and another for money, weights, and measures. The union of all civilized nations shows that the decimal scale of counting is best suited to the object it proposes, and that no change in this direction can be thought of. But the tendency of all people to reduce their money to coins, each the tenth of the otber, points out equally clearly that it is in that direction reform must be sought. America once possessed onr currency, and Canada has only just emancipated herself from its trammels. So onerous is our present mode of calculation that it appears in evidence before the committee that it is found worth while to create an artificial decimal system of money, to translate our money into that system for the purpose of calculation, and-, then to re-translate it into its present barbaroa»d|&oraj^ nation. Another instance of the progress of the" " decimal system is afforded by the introduction of kilometres and myriometres into France— a change which took pikee so late as 1840, and which appears to be thoroughly understood'and acquiesced in by everybody. That man must have very strong national prejulices indeed who prefers the division into miles and furlongs to the simple and manageable measurement of distance adopted by our neighbours across the Channel. Admitting, then', that it js most desirable to make this change, on what principle is it to be made f What unit of value shall we select, and what decimal multiples or parts of it shall wo employ ? It isiobvious, in the first place, that we ougbt to select ,such an unit as- will least derange existing contracts and institutions ; secondly, it is desirable to make as little change as possible in the value and denomination of the currency ; and, thirdly, it would be very expedient ihat the new coin should be of a denomination to which the old can be easily reduced, so as to facilitate the translation of contracts made in one currency into the other. The Committee have selected for the unit ot value the pound sterling. We think their choice i* upon the whole, judicious. It is in this coir we contract to pay our enorn.ous debt. The pound is at present the unit upon which our whole system of calculation rests, and it is very desirabla not needlessly to disturb it. Moreover, the high, denomination of the coin will save us from dealing with those high numbers which are the inevitable result of employing so low an unit as a franc, or even a dollar, and, above all, we have in the florin the next step in the descending scale, — :he 10th part of a pound. Here, however arises the inconvenience of the recommendation. Tbe penny is the twenty-fourth part of a florin, and a farthing the fourth part of a permy — coins utterly abhorrent to tbe decimal scale, which must be got rid of before it can be carried into effect. Tbe next coin which is proposed is the 10th part of a florin, or the hundredth part of a pound, in value between twopence and twopence-half-permy — named, not very happily, we think, a cent, — a term already applied to a coin of very different denomination. The tenth part of a cent, the hundredth part of a florin, and the thousandth part of a pound will bo 24-25 tbs of the present farthing, and the lowest coin in circulation. This, together with the calling in of half-crowns and threepenny and fourpenny pieces, will complete the change of the coinage, and give, as money of account, pounds, florins, cents, and mils — the penny being 5-12ihs of the cent, and the mil, as has just been said, 24-25ths of the farthing. It would be vain to suppose that this change could be made without considerable inconvenience to the poorer classes, upon whom the weight of the proposed change will principally fall — an inconvenience, however, which will be remedied by what Adam Smith calls " the higgling of the market." Another inconvenience not so easily remedied will be that arising from the necessity of translating laws out of tbe old currency into the new. Thus, the penny postage can no longer exist, for tbe simple reason that there will be no coin and no aggregate coins exactly representing the value of the present. penny, live mils will be too much and four too little. So, also, the Customs' tariff will have to be reviewed, and reduced into the new currency. Cabmea cannot charge twopence a parcel for luggage, because there will be no twopence to pay with, and it may be doubtful whether a strict adherence to decimal principles will leave us the sixpence a-mile for which we have fought and conquered. The simple remedy seems to be to take the number of mils in the new coinage just above the sura originally fixed. The burden will be imperceptible to tbe consumer, and the Government will profit considerably by the change. On the whole, we trust that no narrow spirit of conservatism, no dread of senseless and ignorant outcry, no fear of that ridicule which is always at tbe command of the most selfish and narrow minded cf mankind, will impede this great improvement, or any longer prevent the greatest commercial nation in the world from keeping its accounts on rational and intelligible principles.