ONE EMPIRE, ONE MONEY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5469, 7 October 1878, Page 3

ONE EMPIRE, ONE MONEY.

(From tho Colonics and India.) ‘ A correspondent recently raised a question as to the variety of tho coinages in use in our different possessions, • which is of very great importance, to an empire extending over every portion of the globe. A traveller passing from one country to another is compelled to submit to the loss which frequent exchange from one currency to another entails ; but the inconvenience is aggravated when the process has to be repeated in lands all owing allegiance to tho same Crown. The existence of a uniform currency in our various colonies would go far to facilitate commercial relations between them. Tho advantage lias been to a certain extent admitted by tho acceptance of the gold coinages of tho Sydney mint os a legal tender in^thia^ country,but- -this -ris //only a very short atep in tho right direction, * So long as different nationalities'exist, ao long .must there bo different monetary systems ; but wo are only adding to a necessarily, existing state of confusion by maintaining' separate, systems’ r of : coinage, or,; at' ; least, - uninterchangeable moneys, in so many of our foreign possessions. Canada adopts 1 tho dollars. and cents of ; the United States. India has her system of rupees and annas ; Ceylon counts her wealth iu a similar manner. In South Africa, Dutch

and .English coins are employed side by side. Oyprus, again, will probably afford a new instance of the inconvenience, It would surely be possible to arrange that, even if the coinages of the various colonics are not identical ia form, the value of the pieces should be equal, and that they should be able to obtain currency without depreciation of value all over, the empire. . , . ,