ONE EMPIRE, ONE MONEY.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3100, 24 January 1879, Page 4

ONE EMPIRE, ONE MONEY.

A correspopdent recently raised a question as to the variety of the 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 owning allegiance to the same Crown. The existence of a uniform currency in our various colonies would go far to facilitate commercial relations between them. The advantage has been to a certain extent admitted by the acceptance of the gold coinages of the Sydney Mint as a legal tender in this country, but this is only.a very short step in the right direction. So long as different nationalities exist, so long must there be different monetary systems; but we are only adding to a necessarily existing state of confusion by maintaining separate systems of coinage,

or, at least uninterchangeable moneys, in so many of our foreign possessions. Canada adopts the dollars and cents of the United States. India has her system of rupees and annas; Ceylon counts her wealth in similar manner. In South Africa Dutch and English coins are employed side by aide. Cyprus, again, will probably afford a new instance (of the inconvenience. It would surely be pospossible to arrange that, even if the coinages of the various colonies are not identical in 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. — Colonies aud India.