nations than by such forced assimilations as
that now under discussion, it is too much
after the fashion of Procustes's bed ; stretching
out the short man and cutting down
the long man to one uniform standard of
height.

Fraternisation, beyond a certain point, may
at present be a day-dream, and a waste, of
time. Neither country would gain anything
by denationalising its coin. Suppose the franc
to be adopted in England; it would alter our
gold coin, and most of our silver coin, and
would cause a bewilderment in the masses of
our population. Besides, the merchant would
not be better off; for he would have to
distinguish in his books English from
French francs, although identically the
same in coinage, but different in value,
on account of the daily fluctuating rate
of premium or discount between the two
countries.

There remains, then, only to be considered
how the desired change can be best effected,
by our preserving whatever is worth preserving,
of our old national materials, combining
it, upon the principle of decimal numeration,
with suitable new material. In the construction
of a new system, such as is at present
called for, the masses of the nation will have
to learn how to live, as it were, in a new
house, better arranged than, but, at the same
time, so differently arranged from, their
old dwelling, that they will have to give up
certain comforts, till they become used to the
new ones. To render, therefore, the change
acceptable, and at the same time really
useful, the new system should not alter the
old one, more than will be necessary to
establish the new principle soundly and firmly.
It should, for all practical purposes, be more
simple and easy than the old one. It should
consult the wants and customs of the people
in general, and those of the several classes
in particular. It should be constructed with
a view to durability and permanence, which
will be best attained by consulting strict
regularity and simplicity. And finally, it
should be as national, in name as well as
in spirit, as circumstances will allow; old
absurdities, such as, for example, duplicate
terms (pound in money and in weight,
quarter in measure and in weight, &c.),
being absolutely rejected.

At first sight, the temptation is very strong
to make the halfpenny enter into the new
system of coinage; because it is identical
with the sou, which works so well in the
composition of the franc; but in the first
place, that would reduce us to a copper, or
a silver, instead of a gold standard; and
secondly, would involve the rejection of the
sovereign, being no decimal fraction thereof.
Now, the best authorities are agreed that
the present sovereign is the best basis that
lies within reach for the proposed new
coinage. A people that has to reckon with
a debt of some hundred millions of pounds,
should preserve as high a coin, and money
of account, as our present sovereign, because
they cannot find time to play with so many
figures as would be required to express that
sum, and others of daily and hourly occurrence,
in shillings, or half-crowns. The recent
happy introduction of the florin, a decimal
of the sovereign, has decided the question
by anticipation.

Our mint laws are open to reform, quite
independently of decimalisation; such as
they are, they have given us the SOVEREIGN
in GOLD, by which all payments of a certain
magnitude are to be made, and in which, or
FRACTIONS OF WHICH, all values and
contracts whatsoever, exceeding forty shillings,
are expressed or understood, if they are to
have legal value. Silver, in coin or bars,
is not available according to law, if rejected
by the creditor, nor is copper, beyond forty
shillings of the former, and twelve pence of
the latter. Our silver and copper coin are
only small change, auxiliary coin, that serve
to balance debts below the respective amounts
stated. Hence it follows, that government
might alter, raise, or lower, the fineness and
weight of the shilling and of the penny,
without interfering with the value of our
property, or the import of our contracts, even
if these were expressed, as indeed they are
in numerous instances, in pence or in
shillings; for when, for example, an Act of
Parliament authorised the payment of railway
fare at the rate of a half-penny per mile, the
meaning of the Act, to be in harmony with
previous laws relating to the legal tender of
copper and silver coin as before-mentioned,
could be no other than that the fare should
be reckoned and paid at the rate of one four-
hundred and eightieth of a gold sovereign in
all cases where the amount exceeded
twelve-pence. In like manner, if I sell a cargo of
wheat at the rate of fifty shillings per quarter,
I mean to be paid for it, not in so many
shillings in silver, but at the rate of two and a
half sovereigns in gold. But a change in the
weight or fineness of the sovereign would
have very different consequences; not only
because it is made of gold, but chiefly because
legal enactments and our mint regulations
have combined to make it the legal basis, or
unit, of our moneys of coinage, determining
implicitly, at the same time, that our
standard should not be one of silver or
copper.

From all this, it follows, that we have
already the unit, or basis, in gold, of a decimal
coinage; and that it only remains to
complete the system by the addition of intermediates
and sub-divisions; at all events, no
plan has been proposed that could present
equal, or greater convenience and correctness.
And it also follows, that the proposed
withdrawal of the penny, and its being replaced
by a decimal copper coin, cannot affect laws,
or contracts, stipulating rates, or taxes, in
pence or shillings; because the enactments