A practicable decimal system for Great Britain and her colonies / by R.T. Rohde.

  • Rohde, R. T. (Robert Turner)
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practicable decimal system for Great Britain and her colonies / by R.T. Rohde. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    although the loss of interest might be considerably reduced by the issue of transferable “ Mint Orders,'’ or of Bank of England notes against Mint orders, which would temporarily take the place of the gold withdrawn from circulation. The Government and the country both seem to recognise the necessity for restoring our sovereigns to their proper value. The question in dispute is a mere matter of national book-keeping, “out of which of the nation’s many pockets shall the cost be provided?” The systems by which the British public are made to pay at present in the coinage of their silver money at more than its real value, and for the future in the depreciation of their ioj. piece also, for the free coinage of the large sums of gold which are sent abroad in settlement of exchange transactions, seem rather unfair, as most of the gold is sent abroad to be re-minted and might just as well, save for the convenience of a few American bankers, be exported in the form of bars.* It would be more just to the nation at large that the Royal Mint in London should adopt the custom of making such a charge for coining gold as would cover the cost of the process as well as the estimated wear and tear of the coin for, say, 20 years, the Mint on its part being bound to re-coin all worn sovereigns within certain restrictions. In this connection the following extracts may be of interest. They are from the “United States Mint Regulations, 1880”:— “ Section 3524.—The charge for converting standard gold bullion into coin shall be one-fifth of one per centum.” (Repealed, and no charge made since the Act of 14th January, 1875, Section 2, “An Act to provide for resumption of specie Payments.”) “ Section 3505.—Any gold coins of the United States if reduced in weight by natural abrasion not more than one-half of one per centum below the standard weight prescribed by law, after a circulation of 20 years, as shown by the date of coinage, * “ Since 1817 more than ^300,000,000 of sovereigns and half-sovereigns have been put into circulation, while not ,£50,000,000 are known to have been formally withdrawn. By the best computations of bankers there remain in the United Kingdom ,£90,000,000 in sovereigns and £20,000,000 in half- sovereigns, of which 55 per cent, are light.”—Mr. Childers Budget Speech, 24th April, 1884.