50 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



The adoption of such can, however, scarcely be advocated without at the 

 same time discussing the possibility of inventing an Imperial Coinage. 



The system of decimal coinage recommended by the Australian 

 Committee was the adoption of the sovereign as the standard of value, 

 and the division of the florin into 100 parts to be called cents. If 

 carried into actual practice it would simply add another to the many dis- 

 cordant systems of metallic currency now existing within the Empire, 

 and result in making uniformity in Imperial Coinage quite unattainable. 

 It did not form any part of the instructions to the Committee to con- 

 sider the possibility of establishing such uniformity, but they paid some 

 attention to the prospects of currency reform in Great Britain, and to 

 the probable direction of that reform. Alany of the witnesses and 

 authorities consulted by the Committee tempered their advocacy of 

 the decimal system by a recommendation to • await the action of Great 

 Britain. The committee, however, ascertained that the Lords Com- 

 missioners of the Treasury are of opinion that " the difficulties con- 

 " nected with any change of our coinage system are so great that there 

 " is no likelihood that the question will engage the attention of His 

 " Majesty's Government in a practical way." 



The difficulties just referred to, regarding the coinage of the 

 United Kingdom, will of course also be met with in any attempt to invent 

 a metallic currency for the Empire. It is quite possible, however, that 

 they have been exaggerated, and many of them appear to have their origin 

 in a predetermination in every event to retain the British sovereign. 

 That coin was also the object of the Australian committee's solicitude 

 when it declared that " from the reports of similar inquiries in Great 

 " Britain as well as from the evidence of competent witnesses it would 

 *' seem that the retention of the sovereign as the standard of value is 

 *' the only basis upon which a decimal coinage proposal would find favour 

 *^ in that country." Possibly, however, the abandonment of the poor 

 man's penny might be just as unpopular as the abolition of the rich 

 man's sovereign, and adopting the penny and half-penny system de- 

 cimally would compel the alteration of the sovereign. Much informa- 

 tion on this subject is contained in the Australian report already quoted 

 from.^ Two additional essays concerning Imperial coinage also deserve 

 study; the one by Mr. Probyn already mentioned, and the other entitled 

 "An Imperial Coinage "^ by Filelis (Arch. McGoun, K.C., Montreal.) 



Mr. Probyn shews very clearly that " there is a great diversity, not 

 " merely of system but of details in the same system, throughout the 



^Report on Coinage: D4 — F. 8797. Robt.S. S. Brain, Government Printer, 

 Melbourne; also, No. 62 F, 13542 and No. 60 F, 13135. 

 *The Commonwealth 1901, p. 202. 



