108 CUBKENCY OF GUERNSEY, ETC. 



Thus ended a system of currency which had existed in 

 this Bailiwick for upwards of 500 years. In this article we 

 have traced it from the time when the currency was entirely 

 foreign, and a British com was no doubt looked on as a 

 curiosity in the same way as a strange foreign coin would be 

 looked on now, to the time when a war arose and the British 

 currency had to be tolerated, being accepted faute de mieux 

 with all its inconveniences and faults until the normal course 

 of the currency could be resumed. Then disturbances on the 

 Continent again forced its temporary adoption till things 

 righted themselves again. Then another war made it neces- 

 sary to make the British currency legal tender equally with 

 the French, until the greatest war of all brought home the 

 self-evident object lesson to the most conservative mind that 

 as a British dependency and in daily, almost hourly, contact 

 with Britain it was impossible to indefinitely maintain a cur- 

 rency which was based on that of a foreign country. 



On reflection, it is difficult to fathom the object of the 

 States of Guernsey in not availing themselves of their un- 

 doubted right to issue coinage of all kinds, not limiting it 

 as has been done to copper coins. No doubt there has been 

 some good reason for this, possibly the fear of complications 

 through forgery. 



This right to issue coinage has not been disputed, and 

 as late as i870 (1) the British Government suggested that the 

 Bronze coinage of Guernsey should be assimilated to that of 

 the United Kingdom, as had been carried out in Jersey (2) . 

 But the States would have none of it and held to their 

 8, 4, 2 and 1 double pieces. 



In the spacious times before the Great War, when silver 

 was worth about 2/- to 2/6 per ounce and each ounce of silver 

 could be coined to correspond in weight and fineness with 

 British coins of the same value to give 5/- worth of coin, 

 what an unearned income would have accrued to the States if 

 they had not limited themselves to the issue of copper coin 

 only, but had* gone in for silver issues as well. 



One might suitably designate it as a lost opportunity. 



(1) Billet d'Elat, loth Juno, 1870. 



(2) The penny of Jersey was then one-thirteenth of a shilling, and the new-coin, 

 age made it one-twelfth. 



