Suggestions for a Simple System of Decimal Notation and Currency, after the Portuguese Model. By JAMES ALEXANDER, Wine-Merchant, Edinburgh.*

Some change in our present complicated system of money notation and currency has long formed an object of desire to the mercantile community of this country. For although we are the most mercantile nation on the face of the globe, insomuch that we have been not inaptly termed "a nation of shopkeepers," yet in this department of scientific reckoning we are not only confessedly behind almost every other European nation, but also far in arrear of the United States of America-an offshoot from our own stock. And now even Canada, one of our own possessions (but possessed in this particular of independent action), has already taken the start of us. From an object of desire this change has latterly become an object of expectation, for we are aware that certain steps have been taken towards it; but, like the deceitful mirage of the desert, the wished-for consummation seems to vanish from our longing eyes just as we think ourselves likely to reach it: in fact, we seem to proceed towards it by steps of strictly decimal progression. It is just about ten years since a parliamentary commission on the subject of weights and measures advised the adoption of a decimal scale in reference to them, but recommended, as a preliminary step, the previous decimation of the coinage, which was not properly before them; and it is only now, in the second decennial period, that we have had a Parliamentary Committee on the coinage and currency, whose report was presented at the close of last session. It is, at all events, refreshing to find that that committee has not shelved the coinage and currency for another decennial period, by recommending, in accordance with previous precedent, that the weights and measures should first be decimated; for the report undoubtedly directly recommends the decimation of coinage, currency,

* Read before the Society, 12th December 1853.

and accounts, and even points out, with some degree of distinctness, the mode in which the committee propose that this should be done, deduced from the evidence and recommendations of many eminently scientific men, who appear carefully to have considered the subject; but this further progressive step, giving apparently the hope of a speedy realization of our wishes, is to a great extent neutralized by a single sentence in the evidence of Sir J. W. Herschel, the talented master of the Mint, and one of the most important, if not the most important witness examined, who, after fully developing his theory of the important change, says, "I should feel disposed to assign somewhere about twenty years from its commencement, as a probable term for the completion of the process (meaning the process of transition) and the introduction of a totally new coinage. That is the idea I have of the way in which the new system might be introduced." In this idea as to time, Sir John is corroborated by other witnesses; and therefore I much fear that the question will arise with the present generation of mercantile men, Whether they will submit to the infliction of the many inconveniences which a change, however slight, in money matters necessarily entails, in order that their grandchildren may enjoy a better system of accounts, or whether they will not rather be inclined to "bear the ills (and the coins) they have, than fly to others that they know not of?"

The chief obstacle which appears to have appalled even the most strenuous advocates for a change, is the important fact, that "it is absolutely necessary that the greatest deference should be paid to existing circumstances, and that the present relative notions of value, so deeply rooted in the public mind, should be disturbed as little as possible;" and on this the very threshold of the question, the anomalous "pound sterling," and the much more ancient penny, stand arrayed in deadly feud; for it is held to be absolutely impossible, under the new system, that they can longer co-exist. The pound seems to have found most favour with the majority of the witnesses, who appear to regard the retention of it as the "unit of account" and of value as a sine qua non; and the committee have, therefore, done little more than hold the

scales betwixt the pound and the penny, and have at length decided that the pound has the preponderance, and that the penny must "go to the wall." They appear, however, to be so sensible of the great difficulties which surround this part of the question, and the prejudice likely to be created among the great masses of the people, that they shrink from the responsibility of "closing the record," and qualify even their recommendation by saying: "An obstacle of so undefined a nature as a vague popular feeling, based upon habit and association, and not upon reason, cannot be dealt with on any general and abstract principle; and your committee, therefore, purposely abstain from seeking to fetter the executive on that part of the subject." In my humble opinion, this is tantamount to a leaving open of the entire question, for popular feeling and prejudice is the most important element to be dealt with in the matter, for which it is open to any one `to suggest means of palliation, even from a different course of treatment to the one proposed. Now this simple change in the name and value of the present penny involves considerations of such magnitude, that just before the prorogation of Parliament one of Her Majesty's ministers stated that it was not to be thought of, or entered upon, without the most weighty deliberation. And I think, having regard to popular feeling, that he was right; the very name of the penny is enshrined in the affections of the people by the part which it bears in many a familiar saying and proverb. But besides this ideal attachment, a long array of tangible fixtures of value already present themselves against the change. Those in the van are marshalled by Government— penny-postage, receipt and newspaper stamps-statutory tolls and pontages-income-tax and railway mileage-rates-payment of troops, and customs duties; and these are followed by penny and threehalfpenny publications, and a long line of private interests,—an addition to which, upon slight consideration, will suggest itself to the mind of almost every tenth man in the community; added to this, the change is to fall, not upon the educated classes, who could best appreciate the advantages which it would bring about in another direction, but upon the masses of the people, whose prejudices it is much

easier to excite than to allay-that people whose ancestors, exactly a century ago, clamorously demanded back from the executive the eleven days of which they believed themselves to have been robbed by the change in the calendar—a belief which, in these latter times of intelligence and spreading knowledge, may be universally admitted to have been most irrational and absurd. But even where it excites a smile, is it not practically homologated, by the persistent adherence, in many districts, to what is termed the "Old Style," in the fixing of terms of service, much to the inconvenience of other districts, and while every annually recurring 1st day of January brings to the denizens of towns, and their immediate neighbourhood, cessation from toil, and the joyous feelings with which the commencement of every new year is hailed? In many country districts, this day is altogether overlooked, high holiday being held upon the 13th. In these days of cheap travelling, it is certainly a most anomalous sight for us citizens, just as we are beginning to settle quietly down, after our new-year's festivities, with the chastened feeling that another year has many days since gone down the stream of time into the ocean of eternity, to find our streets paraded by bands of holiday-making country people, and on inquiring the occasion, to be told that "this is New Year's day!" If this does not evince a still lingering belief in the justice of the cause of their last century predecessors, it at all events holds out an emphatic warning against any inconsiderate or violent interference with popular prejudices or predilections, no matter how evident, to those having the power of doing so, the advantages of the change may appear. Having, therefore, long had an idea of my own for changing the currency and accounts of this country to a decimal character, without the necessity of any violent change in the circulating coinage, while I shrink from placing myself in opposition to the systems developed by the many eminent men who have come forward on this important question, still believing, as I do, that for those on whom the ultimate responsibility of the change is to rest-while a Scylla boils on the one hand, in the proposed abolition of the present penny and its subdivisions, Charybdis is not far distant on the other, in the de

ferred hopes and expectations of the community-I think that a middle channel may be discovered, through which the currency bark, heavily laden though she be with the entire circulating coinage, may yet pass, with flowing sail, and without the aid of the screw, into a harbour of refuge, resulting ultimately in a shortened and successful voyage into the desired haven. Certain features of that channel were indeed pointed out to the committee, but they appear to have stopped at the very entrance, from a misapprehension of the direction in which it was to lead; and it is to prosecute that inquiry that the present paper is now, but still with considerable diffidence, presented for your consideration. On a matter of so very debatable a nature, it would be the height of presumption in me even to anticipate your approval; but I trust you will at least receive it with indulgence, as an humble contribution to the consideration of this important, and now much agitated question; and if it have only the effect of leading some of our more comprehensive minds to take up the matter, it will not have been made in vain.

The advantages of a decimal system of notation or statement of written accounts, over that which we now pursue, I need hardly state are very great, getting quit, as it would do, of our present complicated compound system, and enabling us to state all accounts in simple numerals, thus saving an immense amount of labour to our clerks, and in a great degree decreasing the liability to error. The subject, however, to my view at least, manifestly divides itself into two distinct branches, and I think that in the consideration of it, the not duly preserving this distinction has led to a considerable amount of complication. The keeping of money accounts in books, and the calculations necessary to do this correctly, and the actual handling, in payment or receipt of veritable coin, are in my opinion two almost totally distinct things, and the one only dependent in but a very slight degree on the other. Of the many thousands of clerks employed in keeping the records of our immense commerce, with the various ramifications of banking, &c., I should say that perhaps fully one half of them never see or handle a coin in connection with the accounts which they keep: it may be said that while