Year: 1876

4 resolution has been recently offered in the
Senate, proposing common unit of money
and accounts for the United States and Great
Britain. The notion Is, "a stated, to make
new dollars whose value shall be one-fifth of
the pound sterling. The chief value Of this
class of resolutions is in their calling attention
to n real want; a want that can only be met by
IN international coinage. Tho proposed dollar
that should be worth onc-iifth of a sovereign
would be in the awkward and fractional rela-
tions to the coinages of all other nations that
Engand's currency is at present. That our own
dollars are now much nearer standard OF
international service, we hope to mako clear
to our readers.


For many years tho flvoritc proposition
among those who studied this subject was TO
take some one coin of prominent nation, and
make that the unit Of weight for the coinagcs
of other nations. The fiye-franc piece was
long believed to be tho most available for this
purpose. The French coins circulated through
out Europe at values recognized III most cOun-
tries, without the need Of being exchanged for
other coins b. the traveller There was even
u prospect that Germany would adopt "a a basis
of currency coins having simple relations to





changed the face of affairs, aud Germany has
adopted a new coinage whose unit bears no
simple relation to that Of any other nation.
Ii has at length become evident to even en-
thusiast- in this matter that there is no pros
pect of any one nation adopting n coinage
having n relation Of simple fractions to the
present coins of any other.


In letter TO tho International Congress at
Geneva, Prof f. a. p. Barnard, President of
Columbia College. who is also President of the
American M..trnl"~-r-1tr-ett --5-.,, r''1''7rr 10
solve the problem, at least partially, by what
seems a simple and feasible method. II ia, i'll
"A few words, to take in this country a step
which will give Us coinage based on
the metric system, and also to issue
n coin for international purposes that
shall have simple metric value.
In regard to the first of these propositions, we
are very fortunately situated. Our present
coinage could bo brought into simple fractions
of mctiical weights and iincncss by change
Of about three mills to the dollar. This
trifling change is obviously less than the
variation in the value of our paper
dollar during the hours of almost any
day. according to the street quotations
Of gold No possible Inconvenience to the
community could accrue from 30 slight n
change. Tho new unit suggested as probably
most serviccable for international exchanges,
would be a 6O-ccnt token, five of which could
well be represented by 50 gold coin. One
gram Of standard gold would then have
the exact value Of this 90 cents There
is fair reason to hope that other Governments
would follow our example i'll making these in
ternatonal coins. The great convenience that
would result from such uniform coinage made
legal tender by the leading nations need not
here be dwclt upon. We shall not he first in
the field rs to metric coinage, since Japan and The
Argentine Republic have shown their wisdom by
leading the way; Japan in 1870 with the gen
of L., grams of standard gold; the Argentine
Republic very recently, with the peso .fuerte
{" hard dollarr) Of like value and weight.
The adoption of the metric system of weights
and measures is only question of time in over
coming habit and prejudice. \ bill proposing to
call "A convention of civilized nations to estab-
lish uniformity of weights and measures APP
pears in this mornings report of the House
proceedings. The Boston Society of Civil
Engineers has just issued pamphlet
urging a law to fix the adoption of the
metric system at some future date
The value of the metric system has been
demonstrated beyond the need of argument
If any change is to be made in our coinage
there can be no question that it should be in
the direction of uniformity with the weights
and measures that are sure to displace all
others.