DECIMAL COINAGE.
Sau—Considering the numerous publications which are "flying about" on the subject of decimal coinage, and some by persons of much note, it would be unreasonable to expect that my small voice could command much attention ; but if the plan I venture to propose be, as I believe it to be, both rational in itself and more convenient and practical than any of those which you have ennumerated and commented upon, I may hope that it will receive some consideration.
I think it will be admitted, that any plan which very much deranges ex- isting ideas, especially among the r and ignorant, will be attended with
21 great deal of difficulty, and -will productive of much confusion and dis- tress. It appears to inc to be essential to the popular success of any new system, that the small coin in which the poor count and with which they make their purchases should not be appreciably changed. There den be no doubt that they would have the greatest difficulty in using or understanding a coin of the value of 1-10 of two shillings, 2 4-10d., (the proposed cent,) in- stead of their ordinary pence. and half-pence ; and indeed, I suspect that we should all, even the most educated and thoughtful among us, feel it disagreeably troublesome to reduce our present ideas of value to so eomplicated a denomination. I am of opinion that the only way in which it could be made intelligible to the lower classes would be by repie- sentiug- it as a ten-farthing piece and giving it, instead of" cent," some name which would convey a constant remembrance that such was its ap- proximate value. Even then, there would be too much computation in- volved in its use to make it otherwise than a constant stumblingbloek to the ignorant. The plan which I would propose in its place would be, to reduce the value of the present penny by 4 per cent, still retaining both the name ansi the coin, and to make 100 of these a gold piece of the value of eight shillings exactly, our monetary unit; the tenth of which, a silver piece of the value of tenpence, might --be substituted for the shilling. The value of this silver piece would be exactly that of the French franc ; and, as names are convenient to facilitate explanation,. I will fin the nonce (adopting the mode of formation used by the French in naming their own coin) call it a brit, and the golden unit (the eight-shilling piece) a royal. Now this sys- tem would throw the whole difficulty of the change,—and a very slight one it would be,—upon the educated classes, who would merely have to change the totals of their existing accounts, in order to reduce them to the new de- nomination, by multiplying the i pounds by 21 and dividing the shillings (decimally) by 8, adding the pence n the second place of the decimals. This would be too easy a process for any one capable of keeping accounts to object to for a moment. It would not affect the poorer classes, to whom the re- tention of the old and well-beloved names of pence and halfpence (the change in the value of which would be quite inappreciable) would divest the plan of the appearance of any formidable difficulty. The brit would be easily understood as a tenpenny piece ; such familiar expressions as two- and-sevenpenee cajive-and-strpenee would still be continued, only that two- aud-sevenpence (two brits and sevenpence) would represent 27 pence in- stead 'of 31 pence, and five-and-sixpence (five brits and sixpence) would represent 56 pence instead of 66; in which the .correspondence between the terms and the numbers would give a facility that does not exist at present. A coin of the tenth part of a penny might be struck and be called a "mil." Five of them would equal a halfpenny, and their low value might make themadeeptable to the very poor. Farthings it would be necessary to abolish. There would be some other conveniences attending this system which are worthy of notice. It would be identical with that of the French, except that the unit, to which I have assigned the name royal, would be one place higher in the numerical scale, and. would be a golden coin ; the mil would be their centime, the penny their decline, and the brit their franc. The royal would be their ten-franc piece ; and were we to adopt it as our unit, it is not, I conceive, unlikely, considering how much they have lately suf- fered from their silver standard, that the French might be induced to follow our example, and, removing their unit a place higher, introduce the same standard as ourselves. Considering the constant intercourse there now is between the two nations, it would be no slight advantage that the monetary systems of the two should correspond ; and when they do, may we not ex- pect that the rest of Europe will soon find it convenient to adopt the same ? Another convenience has reference to our Indian dominions. The de- sirableness and the difficulty of introducing a gold coinage into India have of late years been frequent subjects of discussion. The proposed royal would be piece of the value of four rupees. It is my belief (and I have been length India) that a four-rupee piece is the only gold coin which is likely to become generally current in India. The Indians always count by fours; to a mass of four they give the name of gunda, and in countinga large sum of rupees they count twenty-four of these masses for each hun- dred. The golden four-rupee piece woad represent one of these masses or gundas. Their old gold mohur represents, in conformity with their system, sixteen rupees, or four of these masses ; baths value is too great for general use. The value of a rupee among Indians is equivalent to a pound among ourselves; and we can easily understand how much too large we should.find coins of the value of 16/. for ordinary purposes: few of them could be used, as few of the gold mohurs are used by the Indians. But it would be very different with a four-rupee piece ; it would be as convenient to them as five- pound notes are to us—perhaps more so.
The advantage which appears to me to recommend the system I propose, is its great practicability. If the practical is to be rejected in favour of a beautiful theory, we ought to discard the decimal notation altogether, and adopt the duodecimal, with a twelve digital system of arithmetic. There can be no doubt that this would be far more perfect than our present deci- mal notation ; but we must first see it adopted by our men of science before it could be introduced into our coinage and accounts with say hope of suc- cess. So far as I know, not even a book yet exists by which such a method of arithmetical computation can be taught. The time, then. appears to be far distant when it can come into familiar and popular use.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant, Sens. P.S.—In using the words royal and brit, I have not meant to propose them as the hest or even eligible names. I have merely used them because explanation was difficult without distinctive appellations of some kind.
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