UNIFORMITY OP WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 353 



Committee a most favourable opportunity for promotiug uniformit)- in weights 

 and measures, and they have suggested to the Imperial Commission an Ex- 

 hibition of the weights, measures, and coins of all countries, and the hold- 

 ing of an International Conference on the subject at the same time. A 

 similar request was sent to the Imperial Commission by the International 

 Decimal Association, and in union with them we deputed Professor Leone 

 Levi to proceed to Paris to put himself in communication with M. Le Play, 

 the Commissaire-General, with a view to the advancement of the object. 

 Professor Levi has fully succeeded in his mission, and a Special Committee of 

 the Scientific Commission has been appointed. Your Committee indulge the 

 hope that the proposed Exhibition with the International Conference will 

 greatly promote the desired uniformity, and they are most anxious for the 

 success of an undertaking in initiating Avhich they have taken an active part. 

 Professor Levi's report on the subject is appended (pp. 363-365). 



The International Statistical Congress, which met last at Berlin in 1863, 

 proposes to hold its next Meeting in Elorence in October next. At all 

 its previous meetings the question of uniformity of weights, measures, and 

 coins, in their character as statistical units, formed the subject of grave 

 discussion ; and although the Congress has not only repeatedly expressed 

 its opinion in favour of uniformity, but made specific recommendations 

 with a view to its attainment, it is most desirable that it should on this 

 occasion also, when many of the Southern States of Europe are likely to be 

 there represented, give its authoritative voice in favour of uniformity in 

 ■weights, measures, and coins, both for statistical purposes, and the general 

 progress of scientific and social intercourse among nations. The British 

 Association has never yet been represented in that Congress, and it seems 

 befitting that the section of Statistics and Economic Science should seize the 

 opportunity for the discussion of a subject in which both that Congress and 

 this Association have taken such lively interest, and for the establishment of 

 a correspondence and mutual representation likely to prove most beneficial to 

 Statistical Science ; and Italy, whose contributions to science and art and 

 political economy have been so valuable, wiU doubtless heartily welcome the 

 representatives of this great and eminently progressive Association. 



The state of weights and measures in India has been brought before your 

 Committee in two pamphlets, one on Indian weights and measures, by Mr. 

 Gover, Principal of the Military Male Orphan Asylum of Madras, and the 

 other by Mr. James Bridgnell, Head Accountant of Her Majesty's Mint, 

 Calcutta, entitled, " Suggestions for a Decimal System of Measures, Weights, 

 and Money for India." Having regard to the great importance of extending 

 to that empire the same advantages of uniformity as we are labouring to 

 promote in other parts of the world, your Committee have sent an address 

 on the subject to the government of India. The question is now under their 

 consideration; but much difference of opinion exists between the Madras 

 and Bombay Commissions on the respective merits of the decimal and binary 

 systems. It is most important that India should neither be separated from 

 nor remain behind any country in the world ; and we trust that at the forth- 

 coming Exhibition and International Conference to be held in Paris she will 

 send copies of aU her weights, measures, and coins, and be duly represented 

 in the French capital, especially as her trade with countries using the metric 

 system is becoming more and more extensive. 



It is much to be desired that a measure for legalizing the use of metric 

 weights and measures, similar to that passed in the United Kingdom, should 

 be introduced in all tlxe British Colonies, and your Committee would be alad 



1866. '' 2 a 



