A DECIMAL COINAGE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5390, 6 July 1878, Page 2 (Supplement)

A DECIMAL COINAGE.

(From the European Mail.) A suggestion has lately been made for the introduction of a decimal coinage in England. The plan is to decimalise the shilling, dividingit into ten pennies, and these pennies into ten cent*, in which cents the calculations for small prices could be made. " The existing pence and half-pence could remain in use as now, their value being somewhat increased, as ten pennies instead of twelve would make a shilling. No one, it is urged, would be injured by this increased valuation, the whole amount of our bronze coinage, as is properly pointed out, being only £1,325,000. The difficulty would be to arrange for tolls and other fixed charges, which are now expressed in pennies and half-pence; but this is ingeniously got over by the device of an Act to read “ eight cents” for a “penny” in all Acts where tolls or charges of a penny or multiples of a penny are established. The -Statist fears that more minute enactments will be necessary if such a change is made ; but this is a matter of detail, and undoubtedly a decimal coinage, with smaller divisionary money than we now have, would be a boon to the poor, while, convenient, to all classes for calculations. We fear, however, that there is no subject where opinion is so difficult to move as in questions like this. The “ Decimal Coinage ” was the favorite subject cf Anthony Trollope’s “Prime Minister ” in the days before he achieved that dignity; that is, Trollope selected it as the type of a subject which is the property of a dismal few, and which can hardly be rescued from their exclusive control. Before anything can be done, the public would be bewildered with schemes . for an international coinage, with questions of the unit of value, and other abstruse topics, so that the steam necessary to carry a practical measure .through would be dissipated. Before we have a decimal coinage, there must be. a fortunate combination of circumstances Influencing public opinion, and paving the way for action, of which as yet we see no prospect.