UNIFORMITY OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



199 



bition of the Metric System into this country, and they reported accordingly 

 on the subject. 



The Commissioners assumed that " there is no immediate cause requiring 

 a general change in the existing system of legal weights and measures of 

 the country for the i)urposes of internal trade," and regarded the question 

 of introducing the Metric System only in the aspect of facilitating inter- 

 national trade and scientific researches ; but your Committee are of opinion 

 that in so doing the Commissioners have not sufficiently taken into account 

 the bearings of the general question on education, on scientific workmanship, 

 and on the general economics of the nation. The Royal Commissioners have 

 recommended the legalization of the Metric System, and that, in order to 

 facilitate the use of the same. Metric Standards accurately verified, in relation 

 to the primary Metric Standards at Paris, should be deposited in the Standard 

 Department of the Board of Trade. But although your Committee consider 

 the carrying out of such recommendation a decided advance over the present 

 anomalous state of the law, past experience leads them to fear that no general 

 uniformity will ever be arrived at by mcvelj 2^ermissive legislation, and that 

 unless the use of Metric Weights and Measures is to become general at no 

 distant period, the reform will have no fair chance of success. As the late 

 Master of the Mint properly said, in the Standard Commission (Fifth Ecport, 

 p. xsx), "Although the general introduction of Metric Weights and Measures for 

 trade purposes might in the first instance be made permissive only, yet their 

 use should, to some extent, be made compuhory, else the mere permission to 

 use them in the home trade of this country woidd be practically a dead 

 letter." Your Committee have already reported on the decided advantages 

 of the Metric and Decimal system in economizing time and facilitating the 

 teaching of arithmetic in the schools, in effecting mechanical valuations, 

 and in Chemistry and Pharmacy. But neither of these advantages can be 

 realized to the full extent until the new system of Weights and Measures, 

 \nih. its divisors and multiples, become identified with our ideas of dimen- 

 sions and quantities. Your Committee admit that this must be the work 

 of time ; but all the more necessary is it to make provisions for the same, 

 by inserting in any measure on the subject clauses fixing a time when the 

 use of the new system will become binding. Your Committee therefore 

 greatly regret that the Bill introduced in the House of Commons by Mr. 

 J. B. Smith to establish the Metric System of Weights and Measures, and 

 fijting a time when the use of the same shall become compulsory, has not re- 

 ceived the cordial support it deserved. But a majority of five only against 

 the Second Eeading, in a small House, so late in the Session, must not be 

 accepted as conclusive evidence of the deliberate opinion of the Legislature 

 on the subject. 



Pending the final settlement of this important question, your Committee 

 are gratified in finding that, in consequence of representations made by them 

 to the Right Hon. Mr. W. E. Forster, Yice-President of the Committee of 

 Council on Education, the Educational Code of this year for the first time 

 prescribes " that in all schools the children in Standards Y. and YI. in Arith- 

 metic should know the principles of the Metric System, and be able to ex- 

 plain the advantages to be gained from uniformity in the method of forming 

 multiples and submultiples of the Unit." Your Committee are convinced 

 that the School is the proper lilace for^initiating this useful reform ; and in 

 view of the immense economy of time which would be gained in the teach- 

 ing of arithmetic, your Committee would urge that teachers should at once 

 commence introducing the subject in the Schools. To advance this desirable 



