7 DECEMBER 1991, Page 25

Saving the Queen

THE Treasury claims a small Euro-mone- tary triumph: the sovereign's head can remain on notes and coins. Decus et tuta- men, as the inscription on the rim of the pound coin puts it — an ornament and a safeguard. But if the business of safeguard- ing the currency is handed over to some pan-European authority, it is scarcely polite to invite the Queen to stay on as an orna- ment. It is scarcely honest, either. The royal

image and superscription, now as in biblical times, signals responsibility for the coin of the realm. Notes, by contrast, are the responsibility of their issuing bank, as wit- nessed by its seal and the signature of its chief cashier. The sovereign's head is a recent addition to the Bank of England's notes and cannot be said to have added value. On a Euronote, it would only suggest the tale of the disgruntled bus passenger carried far from his destination: 'But it says Ardwick on the front!' It says Guinness on the side, luv, but we don't sell it.'