ART. VI.-1. Report from the Select Committee on Decimal Coinage, together with Minutes of Evidence, etc. Parliamentary Blue Book, 1853.

2. Preliminary Report of the Decimal Coinage Commissioners.

1857.

3. Questions communicated by Lord Overstone to the Decimal Coinage Commissioners, with Answers. 1857.

WHEN an Englishman travels for the first time amongst a people whose habits differ slightly from those he has left behind, he is apt to find fault with everything, simply from the fact that he has been accustomed to something different. After a while, he learns to accommodate himself to his new position. His temporary irritation yields to the complacency of self-satisfaction, as he looks benevolently around him on those who, he never doubts, are in every way less favoured than his own countrymen. Perfectly convinced that "they order these matters better at home," he bears with discomforts, and congratulates himself on his interest in Old England. Seen from a foreign shore, home institutions become perfect. Everything around him suffers from contrast with what he has left-men, manners, money: yes, even money. With his hands thrust deep into his pockets, where they delight to dwell, he turns over the florins, or the dollars, or the francs, which he finds there, with a feeling akin to pity at their inferiority to his more familiar shillings. When he lands on the quay at Folkstone, after a three months' tour, the sight of the head of Old King George on the penny-piece, or of that of his beloved Queen on the sovereign, makes his breast swell out again, and helps him to shake off the qualms of the passage. No one could persuade him that he has left behind him the perfection of coinage, any more than that he has bid adieu to the lands of freedom. He brings back from his travels a hearty faith and an undoubting confidence in the institutions of his country. Happy man! But is he not all the while labouring under a grievous delusion, blinded by prejudice? Suffering he certainly is not, but that proves nothing; for it has been wisely and mercifully ordered, that certain mental infirmities carry with them a soothing balm. He believes himself blest, and his belief is his blessing. Still, it is not the less true, that if he has been all along deceiving himself, he is in a false position, and is happy only by mistake. Such a state of things cannot last for ever. Some officious neighbour or some untoward circumstance will at last open his eyes, and the happiness which he has enjoyed through ignorance, will be all forgotten in the misery of his revealed position.

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But what has all this to do with the subject of decimal coinage? We will try to answer the question. From time immemorial, the people of this country have carried on their transactions by means of a system of monies of a mixed character, and not constructed on one uniform principle. They have, notwithstanding, contrived to get along pretty well, and have generally flattered themselves into believing that theirs was the very best system that could have been devised. But, in the midst of this dream of perfection, they have got a great shake. Their position has been made uncomfortable to them, and they are gradually beginning to stretch themselves and look about them. Some thirty years ago, a faint cry was heard urging them to awake to the fact that all Europe, and America too, are in advance of them in that essential element of happiness (alas! that it should be so), money; but, hardly condescending to lift their head, they quietly turned themselves on their side and slumbered on. Within the last few years, however, the echo of the cry has been taken up in high places. The merchants and bankers-a vast multitude-are thoroughly awake. Agitation has assumed an organised form. The old method of reckoning by pounds, shillings, and pence, is at the bar convicted of the crime of having existed in the slow days of stage-coaches, and waiting its sentence of banishment with them to the remote, thinly peopled corners of the island. It is certainly at this moment not improbable that the first information which the mass of the people may obtain on the subject of their coinage, will be the announcement of the fact, that their children must no longer be taught to say, "4 farthings make a penny, 12 pence make a shilling, 20 shillings make a pound," because it will be no longer true.

We trust we shall be excused for discussing a question of an uninviting character, when it shall appear that it threatens to become shortly a question of universal interest. The history of the subject is briefly this :-In 1824, Sir John Wrottesley introduced the matter into the House of Commons. He recommended that, in place of our present coinage of account, a system should be adopted consisting of pounds, double shillings, and farthings—the last diminished by four per cent. This motion was opposed by the Master of the Mint, on the ground of the inconvenience which might attend its adoption. Once broached, however, the discussion was renewed from time to time by various writers. The work which appears to have been mainly instrumental in directing public attention to the subject, was a small volume by General Pasley in 1834, in which the discrepancies that exist in different parts of the country amongst weights and measures were forcibly pointed out, and the necessity for a decimal system, both of measure and of money, was insisted on. In consequence

of the destruction of the standards of weight and measure by the burning of the Houses of Parliament, Commissioners were appointed in May 1838, to whom the question of their restoration was referred by Lord Monteagle, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. These Commissioners gave in their Report on the 21st of December 1841. Their instructions had reference only to the restoration of the standard of weight and measure; but as the question of decimal division necessarily came under their notice, they took the opportunity of inviting the attention of the Government "to the advantage of establishing in this country a decimal system of coinage." They expressed their opinion, that "no single change which it is in the power of a government to effect in our monetary system would be felt by all classes as equally beneficial with this, when the temporary inconveniences attending the change had passed away." They pointed out the facility with which a new coin with a distinctive name-a twoshilling piece-might be interposed between the pound and the shilling; whilst the farthing, which now passes as the nine hundred and sixtieth part of a pound, might be considered as the thousandth part of that unit, and a new coin might be established, equal in value to the hundredth part of a pound. A suggestion of this kind coming from such men as the Astronomer Royal, the President of the Royal Society, Sir John F. W. Herschel, and others-men of the greatest eminence in the mathematical and physical sciences-could not fail to excite attention. The matter was taken up by Professor De Morgan, whose eminence as a mathematician gives weight to his opinions, whilst his logical acumen and playful humour enable him to place them before the public in an attractive form. Various papers by him were published in the "British Almanac" from 1851 downwards. These papers will be consulted by every one who desires to obtain a full knowledge of the history of the subject.

A second Commission on Weights and Measures, appointed in 1843, referred to and confirmed the recommendations of the former Commission, relative to the coinage. In April 1847, the question was again brought before Parliament in a motion by Sir John Bowring, for an address to the Crown in favour of the issue of silver pieces, of the values respectively of one-tenth and one-hundredth part of a pound, avowedly as a step to the complete introduction of a decimal system. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Charles Wood, had no objection to the issue of one of the coins, the one-tenth part of the pound; and the motion was withdrawn on the understanding that it should be issued. The result has been the introduction of the florin. In 1853, the second Commission on Weights and Measures addressed a letter to Mr Gladstone, then Chancellor of

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the Exchequer, in which they stated that "they felt it their duty to represent that they were strongly impressed with the advantages of a decimal system of coinage; and that, having learned that an immediate coinage of copper to a considerable amount was in contemplation, they made an urgent request that, before specific steps were taken in reference to the proposed coinage, the decimal system might be carefully considered, trusting that the result would be that the Government would decide on issuing coins related to the millesimal subdivision of the pound."

In accordance with the views expressed in this letter, an inquiry was made in the House of Commons as to the intentions of the Government. This inquiry seems to have had no effect, so far as the issue of new copper coin was concerned; but it led, on the 12th of April 1853, to the appointment of a Committee, to take into consideration and report to the House the practicability, and advantages, or otherwise, that would arise from adopting a decimal system of coinage. The witnesses examined by this Committee, twenty-five in number, were unanimous in favour of a decimal coinage; and, with the exception of Mr Headlam, M.P. for Newcastle, were all in favour of the scheme recommended by the Commission on Weights and Measures, already referred to, which may be termed the pound and mil scheme. Mr Headlam expressed his conviction, that the scheme is impracticable; and although not warmly advocating any change, propounded a scheme based on the existing farthing.

The Committee reported to the House on the 1st of August 1853. The substance of their Report is as follows:-1. The evidence is clear and decided against the present system, showing, amongst other things, that it entails a vast amount of unnecessary labour and great liability to error; that it renders accounts needlessly complicated; and that it confuses questions of foreign exchanges. 2. On the other hand, the concurrent testimony of the various witnesses is to the effect, that the adoption of a decimal system would lead to greater accuracy, would simplify accounts, would greatly diminish the labour of calculations, and would facilitate the comparison between the coinage of this country and that of others. The resulting benefits to society would be the economy of skilled labour, and the advance of school education. 3. The Committee, having well weighed the comparative merits of the existing system of coinage and the decimal system, and the obstacles which must be met with in passing from the one to the other, desired to record their conviction, that these obstacles are not of such a nature as to create any doubt of the expediency of introducing that system, so soon as the requisite preparation shall have been made for the purpose, by means of cautious but decisive action

on the part of the Government. 4. They had no hesitation in recommending the pound and mil system, retaining the present sovereign, the half-sovereign, florin, and shilling; and suggesting an alteration of four per cent. in the present farthing, to convert that coin into the lowest step of the decimal scale which it is necessary to represent by means of an actual coin, viz., the thousandth of a pound. To this lowest denomination the Committee proposed to give the name of mil. Further, the Committee recommended the withdrawal of the half-crown, and the threepenny and fourpenny pieces, which are inconsistent with the decimal scale, and the eventual addition to the coinage of two silver coins of 10 and 20 mils, and three copper coins of 1, 2, and 5 mils. 5. As to the practicability of introducing the decimal system, the obstacles appeared to the Committee to be twofold in their nature. The first arises from the difficulty which is always found to exist in inducing the mass of the popu lation to depart from standards with which they are familiar, and from modes of calculation, to the defects of which usage has reconciled them. The second arises from the necessity of rearranging the terms of all pecuniary obligations expressed in those coins which, in the event of a change in our monetary system, would cease to have legal currency. Relative to the first of these obstacles, the Committee examined several witnesses, who have extensive dealings with the poor, who gave it as their opinion, that no prejudice would be raised in the minds of the people against this slight decrease of four per cent. in the value of the farthing, provided they were made to understand that they could, on the other hand, get twenty-five of the new coin for sixpence, where they now get twenty-four; and further, that competition invariably causes the quantities of the articles sold to accommodate themselves to prices without difficulty. Relative to the second obstacle, the Committee argue that the change of coinage was easily effected in the United States, and in Ireland. The greatest difficulty lies in the substitution of a new copper coin in place of the penny, and the consequent adjustment of obligations expressed in that coin, such as postage, newspaper, and receipt stamps, certain customs' duties, etc.; in addition to the class of cases in which private interests are concerned, such as railway, bridge, ferry, and road tolls. The Committee offer several practical sugges tions for the arrangement of these matters, and conclude by expressing their belief, that the necessary inconvenience attending a transition state will be far more than compensated by the great and permanent benefits which the change will confer upon the public of this country, and of which the advantages will be participated in to a still greater extent by future generations.