THE YARD, PENDULUM, AND METRE. 445 



way interfere with its practical use a correction which 

 the French themselves might under such circumstances, 

 consent to adopt). But the question now arising is 

 quite another thing, viz. : whether we are to throw over- 

 board an existing, established, and, so to speak, ingrained 

 system adopt the metre as it stands, for our standard 

 adopt moreover its decimal sub-divisions, and carry 

 out the change into all its train of consequences; to 

 the rejection of our entire system of weights, measures, 

 and coins. If we adopt the metre we cannot stop short 

 of this. It would be a standing reproach and anomaly 

 a change for changing's sake. The change, if we 

 make it, must be complete and thorough. And this in 

 the face of the fact that England is beyond all question 

 the nation whose commercial relations, both internal and 

 external, are the greatest in the world, and that the 

 British system of measures is received and used, not only 

 throughout the whole British empire (for the Indian 

 " Hath" or revenue standard is defined by law to be 18 

 British imperial inches) but throughout the whole North 

 American continent, and (so far as the measure of length 

 is concerned) also throughout the Russian empire ; the 

 standard unit of which, the Sagene, is declared by an 

 imperial ukase to contain exactly seven British imperial 

 feet, and the Archine and Vershock precise fractions 

 of the Sagene. Taking commerce, population, and 

 area of soil then into account, there would seem to be 

 far better reason for our continental neighbours to 

 conform to our linear unit could it advance the same, 

 or a better d priori claim, than for the move to come 



