The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-01-03 00:00:00

rived at no-one-will attempt to dispute, for it must
be easier in: the addition or multiplication of pence
to put down: the unit, and carry on the other
figures, than, to labour through the process of 1
dividing the product by twelve. So, in the treat-
ment of shillings, the unit, as at present, will be
retained, and the division of the remainder by two
will be saved.. Thus far the advantages of the
proposed decimal. system may be readily admitted,
and, no doubt, that in keeping accounts and
making the calculations which are continually
being required. in commercial transactions, there
will be a saving of time and labour, sufficient in
some large establishments to save the cost of one
clerk. But what is the price which must be paid
for this obvious advantage P Not simply a slight
change which will be willingly consented to, but a
retention of the present pound sterling, and a posi-
tive re-construction of the rest of our monetary
system, involving an alteration in the value of our
copper coinage, which enters more than any other
into the every-day affairs and monetary transac-
tions of the vast majority of our population, and
those, too, the least likely to take readily, or even
to comprehend, new ways. By the present system
the penny—which is used for toll at our ferries,
for postage, for receipt stamps, and as the price of
a multitude of articles—is the two hundred and
fortieth part of a pound ; by the proposed system
it must represent either the two hundredth or the
two hundred and fiftieth part of a pound,wronging
in one case or the other the payer or the receiver.
Some of the speeches slightly touched upon the
necessity of decimalising our weights and mea-
sures, but though that part of the question was
postponed, it is absolutely indispensable to the
other. In discussing the question, however, some
of the speakers dwelt on the inconveniencies aris-
ing from the conflicting weights and measures
used in different districts, owing to the variety of
local customs. No clearer argument could have
been adduced to show the impracticability of en-
forcing the proposed decimal currency system. By
the act of 5 and 6 George IV., passed in 1825, or
nearly thirty years since, all weights and measures
were required to be copies of the imperial standards
deposited in the Exchequer ; and by the act 4 and
5 William IV., c. 49, passed in August, 1834, local
weights and measures were abolished, and all
contracts made by any other than the imperial
standards were declared to be null and void. Yet,
despite the stringency of these regulations, which
were to equalise all commercial transactions, wheat
is still sold in Liverpool at per 701bs. ; butchers';
meat in London at per Sibs., instead of the im-
perial
stone of 141bs. ; and local customs are
maintained as though the law were not in exist-
ence. If, therefore, people cling to their old and
well accustomed ways in defiance of acts of Parlia-
ment, of what avail will be an act to convert
farthings and pence into mils and cents when the
old names and the old values will be adhered to,
unless the almost impossible alternative be adopted
of withdrawing all the present small coinage from
circulation, an operation involving immense ex-
pense, and a delay which has been computed at
twenty years ? Merchants, accountants, and clerks
may be readily convinced of the saving of time and
trouble in keeping their books, and may unite iu
adopting the proposed system, without troubling
the Legislature, but the long-practised habits of
millions of people are not so easily changed, and
their transactions in the buying and selling of
small quantities are those which would be most
affected. There is, however, another difficulty in
the sub-division of small quantities for which no
advantage in large transactions would prove a
compensation. Under a decimal system, division
could only take place by fifths and tenths, render-
ing halves and quarters utterly impracticable, so
that, in the purchase of minute portions of goods,
in which the poor are chiefly interested, they would
be constant losers by the impossibility of finding
coins to represent the fractional parts. All the
arguments which have been used by the advocates
of the decimal system may be admitted, as far as
concerns the facilities for calculation and keeping
accounts in mercantile transactions, but beyond
this it is overloaded with difficulties which no in-
genuity in altering the coinage can surmount ; and
the instance we have alluded to with reference to
weights and measures is a proof that the long-
settled customs of a people cannot be changed by
acts of Parliament, however stringent their regu-
lations.