BRITISH WEIGHTS, MEASURES AND COINAGE [To the Editor of the
Secc-r.vron]
Sin,--I have lived for thirty-two years in Latin countries of the Old and- New Worlds, and during that time have conversed with many hundreds of merchants, manufacturers and others. It is the universal opinion of these that Britain loses an immense amount of trade by sticking obstinately to her antediluvian systems of weights and measures. Of late years I have often heard it said that when British goods were cheaper or better than others, the foreign merchant could put up with the unnecessary trouble given him by the translation of hundredweights, quarters, feet, inches, pounds, shillings and pence into terms of the metric or decimal system- a task few clerks are capable of performing--but that now there is no inducement to do so.
The opponents of reform used to say that British trade had got on very well with the present system, and foreigners could _ take it or leave it ; we had as much trade as we wanted. This they can no longer say. Is it not time, Sir, that we realized that, if we wish to compete with other manufacturing coun- tries, we shall have to take the plunge sooner or later, and that the sooner we take it the better ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
Calle San Luis, No. 1, Sardahola, Barcelona.
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