METRIC REFORM.
[To THY EDITOR OF THE "Srscrtrom.1 Snt,—I am very glad to see that you support in a note the letter appearing in your issue of August 6th in favour of metric reform. Your suggestion that the Government should prepare the way for this reform by issuing a coin to betoken the hundredth part of the florin points out clearly the road we must follow if we wish to come into line with the rest of Europe in the adoption of the metric system. It is quite impossible to adopt for general use a system of weights and measures which depends on the decimal relationship until we have a. decimal system of coinage. To introduce decimal coinage suddenly and compulsorily would involve so great a shock to ordinary habits as to be politically impossible. There is, however, nothing to prevent the Government from immediately issuing the new coin which you advocate. Its existence would at once enable manufacturing firms to adopt the metric system. I know of a firm of manufacturers of electric apparatus who tried the experiment of adopting the metric system in their works, but were compelled to abandon it because of the difficulty of converting decimal weights and measures into non-decimal units. May I, however, urge that instead of the name " cent " which you suggest, the new coin should be called a "ml!," repre- senting as it would the thousandth part of a sovereign? The word " cent " is already widely known to English-speaking people in its American (and Canadian) meaning, so therefore it would be a pity to give it another meaning for the British Isles and Empire. The word. "mil" is quite distinctive, as well as brief and expressive. May I add that simultaneously with the issue of this new coin, which will be of course almost exactly equal to a farthing, it would be necessary to withdraw the old farthings from circulation ? It is also highly desirable that the Mint should cease to issue half-crowns. They are a survival from the time when the florin did not exist, and though many protests would doubtless be made against their withdrawal before it takes place, three months later everybody would rejoice at their disappearance.—! am, Sir, &c.,
IlartoLD Cox.
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