184 REPORT — 1855. 



property. III. The greate3t practical amount of freedom to each individual. IV. 

 Economy in the production and uses of wealth. V. To open the way for each in- 

 dividual to the possession of land and all other natural wealth. VI. To make the 

 interests of all to co-operate with and assist each other, instead .of clashing with and 

 counteracting each other. VII. To withdraw the elements of discord, of war, of 

 distrust, and repulsion ; and to establish a prevailing spirit of peace, order, and 

 social sympathy. 



And, according to him also, the following principles are the means of the solution 

 of this social problem : — 



1. Individuality. 2. The sovereignty of every individual. 3. Cost as the limit of 

 price. 4. A circulating medium founded on the cost of labour. 5. Adaptation of 

 the supply to the demand. 



The author explained the views of Mr. Warren and his expositor, Mr. Andrews, 

 on the theory and application of these principles ; and especially referred his 

 audience to a work by the latter, entitled "The Science of Society," published by 

 Fowler and Wells, New York. 



On a Plan for Simplifying and Improving the Measures, Weights and 

 Monies of this Country, xoithoiit materially altering the present Standards. 

 By Lieut.-Gen. Sir C. Pasley. 



On Decimal Accounts and Coinage. By Theodore W. Rathbone, ^'sg'. 



The author proposes a plan for the introduction of decimal accounts and coinage 

 into this country, which claims the merit of involving the minimum of change, of 

 disturbance of existing arrangements and habits, in accomplishing the object in view ; 

 and with the maximum of ultimate result, as regards the introduction of a. perfect 

 and comprehensive decimal system, and on principles equally applicable to weights 

 and measures. 



He proposes to change, compulsorily , nothing hut one single money of account — 

 simply to adopt ienpence instead of twelvepence as our future coin, by rendering pence 

 and tenpence hereafter our legal moneys of account — leaving it entirely to the future 

 experience, and to the decision of the public, to determine to what extent the pound 

 shall be confined to the expression of large amounts, and its use discontinued in our 

 ordinary everyday accounts ; and further, whether any and what new coins of cir- 

 culation shall be issued, as the present are worn out. Without interference with the 

 present circulation, or any kind of alteration in the present value, of a single existing 

 coin (the point as to which the poorer classes are most sensitively tenacious and 

 subject to injury), and without the introduction of any one new — any incommen- 

 surable, not accurately exchangeable — coin (which is the fatal defect of almost every 

 other mode of proceeding), and without any abrupt compulsory alteration of the 

 present forms of account in the columns di s. and d. (which is also an inevitable 

 consequence oi every other proposition that has been made) — the proposed exchange 

 of ten for twelve in one column throws all our accounts up to the pound, all the 

 accounts of the poorest and least instructed classes, into the most perfect and 

 strictest possible, as well as the simplest and most intelligible, of decimal forms ; — 

 leaving it optional to continue the ruled columns, or adopt to any extent the decimal 

 point — on this scheme unmistakeably indicating the units and tens*. Accounts 

 beyond the pound in amount are likewise thus, in any case, at once relieved from 

 the great inconvenience of the present complicated system' — the addition of the pence 

 column duodecimally instead of decimally — in twelves instead of tens ; nor can any 

 one who has had experience of the comparative convenience and advantages of the 

 beautiful, confessedly perfect, decimal system of France, doubt that not only when 

 legally required, but in all ordinary transactions, pence and tenpence would soon 

 become universally our usual moneys of account — easily rendered as they ever would 

 be into pounds by a number affording so many useful factors for mental and every 



* One penny, decimally indicated on coins and in accounts, would be '1 ; sixpence •6; 

 tenpence would be I'O; twelvepence l"2i thirtypence (the half-crown or three-franc coin), 3'0; 

 a pound twenty shillings, or twelve pences, that is, 240 pence would be 24'0 ; the decimal and 

 existing figures being identical. 



