CHAPTER XXXI DECIMAL SYSTEMS OF MONEY A reference to the table given in the chapter on "Foreign Exchange" will show that with the exception of the following countries: The United Kingdom The Cape Colonies New Zealand, and British India the coins of every country there named are divisible by ten. It will thus be seen that Great Britain and some of her Colonies and Dependencies have the unenviable distinction of being the only civilised countries in the world which have not a decimal system of money. It cannot be said that our present system of money affects our foreign trade appreciably, but it undoubtedly causes a great waste of time in calculations, as compared with foreign methods. Thus, to reduce farthings to £'s and £'s to farthings, our children are taught to proceed as follows: whereas to reduce centimes to francs, and francs to centimes, all that is necessary is to insert or remove a decimal point, thus :— 732936 centimes = Fcs. 7329-36; Fcs. 7329 36 = 732936 centimes; no calculation being required. The difficulty of decimalising our coinage centres in the penny. The penny plays such an important part in everyday affairs that to increase or diminish its value as compared with the £ would undoubtedly cause a good deal of friction-though this would be for a time only. = = Our present moneys of account are £'s, shillings, and pence. £1 = 20 shillings, 1/- 12 pence, and 240 pence 960 farthings. If our forefathers had only had the wisdom to make the £ equal to 1,000 farthings, what a lot of trouble it would have saved! Probably our descendants will say the same thing of us if we suffer a continuance of our present inconvenient system of money, and our chaotic "system" of weights and measures. Many proposals have been made for decimalising British money. Some enthusiasts have gone so far as to suggest that we should adopt the franc as a basis, divided into tenths and hundreds, thus: whilst others suggest the dollar as the basis, thus— The latter is much the more sensible proposal of the two, but it is tolerably certain that if we ever do have a decimal system of money in this country, it will be neither of the above. There is no question that in any system which may be adopted the £ will have to be retained as the unit the British public will not consent to keep their accounts in either Dollars or Francs. The most popular proposal is that originally brought before the House of Commons in 1824 by Sir John (afterwards Lord) Wrottesley, and known as the "pound and mil" system. This has the advantage of retaining the £ as the unit; but in order to decimalise the £ it would be necessary to do away with the half-crown, the sixpence, the threepenny piece, and our present copper coins. It would, however, be possible to retain the penny, in view of the difficulties already mentioned with regard to that coin, but it would of course not be a decimal of the £. The "moneys of account" under this system would be the £, the florin, one tenth of a pound"; the cent, a new coin worth 22d., or the hundredth part of a £; and the mil, a new coin worth 19% of a farthing, or the thousandth part of a £. 100 The following tables show the coins at present in circulation as compared with those necessary under the proposed new system: The "penny," under the new system, would be worth about 20% more than the present coin, i.e., 10 pennies of 5 mils each would go to the shilling. It would be possible to retain the present penny and halfpenny and declare them to be worth respectively 41 mils or one-twelfth of a shilling, and 2 mils or one-twenty-fourth of a shilling, which would cause no disturbance whatever in retail transactions, but would be inconvenient in other respects. Under the new system, accounts would be kept in £'s and cents, thus: : The saving of time in calculations under this system, as compared with our present system of £'s, shillings, and pence, is obvious. |