president's address. 23 



as far as the principle is concerned) in the value of some of the 

 coins now in use, although the financial or commercial difficulties 

 may be great. One very obvious way would be to use the half 

 sovereign as a standard (this might appropriately be called a 

 Victoria, after our late Queen, during whose reign it was intro- 

 duced) ; the shilling is already the tenth of the half sovereign ; 

 the penny, which is also only a token, could be used as the tenth 

 of a shilling, and the farthing, another token, could be used as 

 the fifth of a penny, i.e., until it was necessary to strike fresh 

 coins ; if necessary the farthing might be renamed the fifthing. 

 The farthing is already of such small value that it would probably 

 not be necessary to provide a still smaller coin, i.e., the tenth of 

 a penny (or T ^ of a shilling) corresponding to the continental 

 centime, although it could be used in accounts. With the half 

 sovereign as the unit a sum like £50 lis. 7^d. could be written 

 Y. 101 1 75, or V. 101-75. 



If the sovereign were retained as the unit, and the florin as 

 the tenth, and it was, I believe, introduced as the beginning of a 

 decimal system of coinage, greater changes would be necessary, 

 as the existing smaller silver coins do not conveniently fall into 

 a decimal system which starts with the sovereign as the unit. 



All multiplications and divisions would, of course, be exceed- 

 ingly simple, as only decimals would be used. Of course there 

 are objections to a decimal coinage, since 10 yields only two 

 factors, viz., 2 and 5, which latter is rather a large one ; decimal 

 coins are for this reason inconvenient for small purchases, as they 

 do not readily adapt themselves to such fractions as J, l and ■§■,. 

 but the disadvantages do not appear to outweigh the decided 

 advantages possessed by a decimal system. 



A duodecimal system, as the English is in part, lends itself to 

 the existing duodecimal division of the hour, day, month and 

 year. A consistent and complete duodecimal system of weights 

 and measures, and of coinage, would be probably the most con- 

 venient of any, but the decimal system has been adopted by so 

 many countries, that the introduction of the duodecimal system is 



