Decimal Coinage.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 18, 1 May 1902, Page 4

Decimal Coinage.

No one (says the Melbourne Advocate) will wish to deprive the Commonwealth of the credit of a careful performance of its duty. The report it has presented to the Houee of Representatives concisely states the current recommendations of the advocates of decimal coinage. It also recognises Borne of the immense practical difficulties which those upholders of theoretical perfection occasionally overlook, as may be seen by noting its last three clauses. These recommend (1) that the State Government be asked to co-operate by having the new system taught in the public schools aild by issuing text-books, tables, sums, and simple problems — rather a big order to begin with ; (2) that at least two years before the change the Commonwealth Parliament shall pass legislation making the payment of debts and fulfilment of contracts in the new money legal, and providing for the nearest equivalents between the decimal and the old coinage ; (3) that the Commonwealth also bring about the adoption of the metrical system of weights and measures, without which the full benefit of the change in the coinage will not be experienced. The committee itself had a difficulty to encounter, which was voiced by the chairman at one of the later meetings. That was, as he said, the fact thut ' a large proportion of the witnesses came not so much to testify to the practical utility of the system as to give the committee their views on the subject.' Several times he had to stop the delivery of what were practically essays on the advantages of a decimal system. It is not likely that the labors of the committee will lead to early action. Similar committees have sat again and again in Great Britain, and have admitted the value of the decimal system, but the insurmountable obstacles in the way have nullified their labors. Tne penny and the pound are indissolubly blended with British trade and* British tradition. The third recommendation of the committee interferes with both The penny will disappear in f jvor of a coin of four cents, value, which will represent the two hundred and fiftieth part of a sovereign, instead of the two hundred and fortieth part ; while the sovereign will coiiHii-t of a thousand so-called cents., each one twenty-filth part Lss than our present farthing. This recommendation alone sh >ws the impracticability of the scheme, which recogit-es the immense difficulty of parting with the sovereign, and in trying to retain it blunders into a far worse muddle. For the cew cent — the 1000 th of £I—has1 — has no equivalent anywhere in the world. The American cent has the value of an English halfpenny, the Continental centime is the fifth <T»rt of the Continental sou, which is alno equivalent to an English-Halfpenny. The Oanaditn cent i^- fWed by law at the value of an English halfpenny in its relation to the nilver coinage— 21 for lg, J8 for 1 florin, tiO for half a crown, and 100 for the dollar — which is recognised, aa in 'Vuienca, at somewhat o\er the fifth of a sovereign. Though, for convenience of nomenclature in ordinary speech, we divide any number of dollars by five to get an equivalent in sovereigns ; yet ia practice the Biitish sovereign is worth only 4 dollars 863 cents iv Canada, aiid the same in the United States. Canada's adoption of decimal coinage goes no further than the dollar ; all the rest of her cjins are those of England, where all her coins are struck. America, again, has never adopted the metrical system of weights and measure.*, albeit ahe usei the cental of lOOlbs instead of the cwt of llL>lbd. The truth is, the subj >ct bristles with trouble the moment the theories be^in to be applied. The newspaper proprietors, the bakers, and the Postal Department, for instance, will each have to give 250 penny ptpern. penny loaves, and penny postage stamps for a sovereign instead ul 210. The baker can get even by making his loaves less, but what will the other two do .' Aud that same consequence of great loss to two persons without any advantage to the third has been the logical outcome of every plan submitted up to date for altering the present system of Imperial coinage. If the world were to be made over again, no doubt the decimal system would have a good chance of adoption. Under prewent circumstances, the game is not woith the candle, for the trouble would outweigh the