JOHN BULL'S PURSE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 147, 18 February 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

JOHN BULL'S PURSE.

THE ROMANCE OF £ s. d. It is not every man who jingles his coins of gold and silver in li s trousers pocket who real ses much of the romance and history they embody. He is usually content to know that each represents a certain purchasing power, that he can exchange it for goods of its value. And yet there is no coin in his pocket which has not an interest much greater than probably he has any conception of. Time was when our forefathers of long centuries ago knew nothing of gold and silver and bronze as means of exchange. They could satisfy all their wants by the sin.pie process of barter —by exchanging one article for another. Thus the man who had more corn than he needed for his own use would exchange u few bushels for their equivalent value in meat to stock li s larder, or clothes to put on his back; just as even to-day in certain uncivilised parts of the world skins, cattle, salt, and other commodities take the place of money. In later times, when such primit.ve business methods proved too clumsy and inadequate, it was found necessary to adopt seme easier medium of exchange, and for this purpose recourse was l ad to silver as the most suitable metal then available far transfer from hand to hand. Iron is 1 able to rust, lead is too soft, and tin too' brittle, while silver lias none of these drawbacks. Thus for some centuries after the Conquest the standard measure of value in Englrnd was the pound weight of silver, which was coined into 240 penn cs —a fact which, it is interesting to note, is preserved in our Troy table, 20 pennyweights—l oz., 12oz. —1 pound: and also in the name of "pound" given to our modern gold sovereign, which aho represents 240 pennies. WHEN THREEPENCE BOUGHT A LOT. But although the Briton had now got his coinage, and the clumsy method of barter was no longer necessary, he was faced by new difficulties in the fact that prices were so low in the M'ddle Ages that the silver penny (which was about the size of our three-penny-piece) was too valuable a coin for some of the things he had to buy. Thus, in a petition or 1330, it is pointed out that beer is one penny for three gallons," while a penny was the smallest coin, and the petitioners pray that smaller coins may be struck to pay for their little purchases and for "works of charity." It was scarcely possible to make smaller silver and thus it became necessary to resort to "tokens" —coins of lead, tin. and leather, which had practically no intrinsic value, with the result that, for generations, the country was flooded with millions of these worthless discs. To remedy th s abuse as far as possible permission was given to certain persons to strike copper or brass farthings, and this privilege in turn resulted in such abuse that within a few years there was very little silver left, and almost the entire currency consisted of brass farthings. An attempt was even made to force these farthings on the American colonies, but the Americans refused pointblank to have anything to do with fchenij preferring to mould the r own farthings in lead, in the shape of bullets. In England, however, the manufacture of "tokens" reached such a pitch that it is said "over 20.000 different kinds were in use between 164* and 1(372;" the circulation of some of them be : ng confined to a single street or one small village. THE RUSSIAN STAMP "COINAGE." Although these days of a debased currency are so remote, the token coin is by no means yet a relic of the past: for, only a few weeks ago, we read that Germany was coining "'halfpenny" pieces from iron to the value of t20.000: while Russians are u>ing a special issue of ungiimmed stamps pr.nted with portraits of the Czars, It was not until our third Henry was wearing his crown that the first gold co il was seen in England, and this pioneer, curiously enough, was a gold "penny." wlieh was of the value of twenty silver pence. In Edward lll.'s time we find a number of interesting recruits to the gold coinage—a florin (worth six shillings), which soon gave place to the gold noble of the value of 6s. 6d.; a groat and a half-groat, and under Henry VI. we get the "real," which was the equ.valent or ten shillings. The gold angel and haL'-angel made their first appearance in Edward IV.'s reign, and at the beginning of the ICth century we first meet with the sovereign and half-sovereign, and aKo with the silver shill ng, which now for the first time became current coins. In succeeding reigns we encounter many strange and long obsolete coins, such as three-halfpenny and three-farthing pieces in silver, tin farthings with, copper centres, gold seven-shilling pieces and quarter-guineas. Thiough such strange processes has England arrived at her present coinage of gold, silver, and bronze pieces, each of a standard weight, calculated to four places of dec mals, each containing the same mixture of metals in the same proportions. I bus every modern sovereign contains 22 parts of fine gold and two of alloy: each silver coin is made up of iii parts of finesil- - and three ol alloy, while bronze is an alloy oi iW parts oi copper, four of t n, and one of zmc. There s. however, tiii< notable difference, that, while a gold coin u actually worth its full face value, the silver in a shilling, for instance, is worth •">'!. only, and the bronze .11 a penny, kss than a farthing. CURIOSITIES OF CHANGE. To illustrate this distinction, every time you change a .sovereign into -liver you I "so con-ulcrablv more than half its intriiMc value —that- is. tiio silver you get is actually worth no more than Ss. Id. Ii you change t tor 2in p'unic'-. you g.-t lor your sovereign less than live shillings' worth of baser iii'-tal. It is thu> ju-t well that, while gold is legal tender to any amount, you are nor obliged to rec.' ve more than two pounds in silver coins, nor more than one shilling in bror.-.e. Anyone can take standard g"!l te the Mint and get it coined (ire.' of charge) into precisely as many ;overeigiits and half-sovere gns ns it iworth—thus, 2d pounds' weight v.ou'd be coined into I'lil »ovi-!v : gns and mi.' half-sovi reign. li. in-tead of carrying y,r r gold to the Mint, you take it to the Bank of England, the Bank is compelled to pun base it at lis. Vd. an ounce, or only three-halfpence an ounce under the price at wlrch the Mint buys it, the three-halfpence re-pre-fiit ng a modest proiit on the purchase. As a matter of fact, gold is coined at a loss, and although the Mint makes quite a con iderable profit every year, this profit is derived from it- s.|. v< r and copper coiieige. So jealously, too. i.- our gold coinage watched that anyone to whom a sowre:gn or half-sovereign, v. hich is below the least current weight, is tendered, may "break. <ut. '■! d !r--e" :t : although if i'e to.'k t to the Bank of England h- w<.-i\i e.-ive its full no:::-

inal value. In the case of a sovereign, the loss which makes ic no longer legal tender is only one part in 160 of its original we : ght. But microscopic as the loss is, it costs the Mint £30,000 a year to renew these gold coins whose weight has been reduced by friction in pockets and tills. the value of coined gold. In spite of the fact that our London Mint alone coins gold to the value of, roughly. £30,000,000 yearly, it is estimated'that all the gold coins in the United Kingdom to-day represent no more than £120,000,000. or barely sufficient to pay our war-bill for three and a half weeks. And for every sovereign in gold, our Mint produces less than two shillings in silver and bronze. Nor do bank-notes make much addition to our currency: for it is said that the Bank of England notes in circulation at anv time rarely exceed in va'.ae £30,000,000. Thus we arrive at the startling conclusion that n month of the present war would exhaust all the gold and notes current :n the I nited Kingdom to-day. A Bank of England note is intrinsically worth no more than the paper on which it is printed. Its real value, however, is assured by the fact that for everv note the Bank issues it has gold in it's cellars to meet it: and thus its value is as unimpeachable as that of the sovereign itself. There have been times, however, when the Bank Charter has been suspended, and it has been allowed to issue notes beyond the value of its gold reserve, when they have depreciated as much as 20 petcent., and for each £'o note its owner was glad to receive four sovereigns.