SHALL WE ADOPT THE METRIC SYSTEM? 769 



people if tliey are compelled to use a system so materially different from 

 that employed by other English-speaking people. These inconven- 

 iences would only be reduced to the minimum, if, by an international con- 

 vention between the United States and Great Britain, a mutual agree- 

 ment were entered into to bring the system simultaneously into use 

 among all English-speaking people. Unless some such international 

 arrauo-ement can be eflfected, I think it would be wiser for the friends of 

 the metric system to remain for the present content with the law which 

 has legalized its use by those who may find it well adapted for their 

 own particular work. If it possesses the great advantages claimed for 

 it over the older system, its use being already authorized by law, it will 

 gradually extend until it has crowded all others out of existence, and 

 no further legislation than that already had will be necessary to secure 

 ultimately its general introduction. If, however, its advantages are so 

 far counterbalanced by its disadvantages, at some of which 1 have briefly 

 hinted, that, its use having been legalized, the people will not employ 

 it of their own accord, its enforced introduction would be a great pub- 

 lic wrong." 



The Commissary-General of Subsistence reports : '* I have the honor 

 to state in reply to the first branch of the inquiry covered by the reso- 

 lution, that to make obligatory, in government transactions, the metri- 

 cal or any other system of weights and measures not in use by the 

 people, and consequently not familiar to or generally understood by 

 them, would not only involve great confusion and great extra labor in 

 making reductions from the system in use by the people to the system 

 adopted for the Government, but I believe that the people would look 

 with grave suspicion upon government transactions based on a system 

 of weights and measures which they did not understand ; and that to 

 adopt a system exclusively for the Government would have a tendency 

 to remove the Government further from the people, and weaken, if not 

 nearly destroy, their confidence in the integrity of the officials and 

 agents of the executive departments. 



*' To the second branch of the inquiry covered by the resolution, I 

 would respectfully submit that I not only believe great detriment would 

 ensue from the adoption of the metrical system exclusively for the use 

 of the Government, but that it would be, also, inexpedient for the United 

 States to make the system obligatory between individuals, unless in co- 

 operation with Great Britain, with whom we are so intimately con- 

 nected by language, literature, and commerce. 



" The change to a new system of weights and measures, based upon 

 units widely different from and incommensurable with those upon which 

 the system now in use is based, must necessarily require a great effort, 

 and should be preceded by a long period of preparation, say twenty 

 years. Even with the most thorough preparation, the change, when 

 made, will bring with it almost inextricable confusion and wellnigh 

 intolerable inconvenience, however superior to the existing system the 



