OUR COINS.
WHAT is Mr. Lowe going to do with the Coinage? lie has introduced a Bill about it, but it is not a Bill authorizing him to order the improvements which the public would like, but which will not be secured unless he is convinced either that they would pay, or that the electors will be decidedly angry if they are withheld. Of the latter alternative, an increase of pressure from the outside, we have very little hope, the majority of people being fairly content with the coins in use, and anxious rather to secure as many of them as they can than to urge on the Mint to efforts to make the system more complete. Nevertheless, there are several changes both in the metallic and the paper currency which might be made from above, and would, we believe, if made, ensure popularity to their author. The first of these, as we have before remarked, is the issue of a five- shilling gold piece, a coin just a little bigger or thicker than the five-franc piece now so popular in all the countries that have acceded to the monetary convention, i.e., France, Italy, Switzerland, and Belgium. There could be no diffi- culty in striking such a coin here that does not exist in France, and there might be much profit, for it need not be made worth more than the five-shilling pieces it is to represent. It is not wanted for export or for melting, but for a convenient token, enabling its owner to carry a good deal of small change in very little compass. The crown-piece was always the most inconvenient of coins, and is now disused ; two half-crowns take up quite as much space, and five separate shillings, as a rule, take more. A pound's worth of silver is a burden to the pocket, besides being a trouble to count, and men want something to give away which shall be gold and yet be less than half-a-sovereign. We venture to say that "the Quarter," as it would pro- bably be called by the people, would in six months be the most popular of all coins, while it would be indefinitely more difficult to counterfeit than the crown-piece—first, from the impossibility of approaching its weight, and secondly, from the perfection of the machinery needed to secure regular milling in so small a coin. Then in gold the public would like to see a " Victoria," a five-pound piece, which would be one of the most beautiful coins in the world, and would be prized by all that numerous class who wish to keep money by them and are afraid that the bank-note will be destroyed. A bar coin, too, worth £100 • of standard gold with milled ends would greatly facilitate exchange transactions, and would not cost the Miut any more to produce than a sovereign, only one per cent. of its value, besides giving us a new divisor for very large sums of money. Considering the figures to which transactions rise in our day, the sovereign is really an absurd denominator,—almost as absurd as the franc, which compels French officials to work such terrible sums in numeration.
In the Silver coinage, we want, we believe, only two small changes. The half-crown should be extinguished at once as a public nuisance. It is the ugliest, fattest, heaviest, greasiest coin of its value in Europe, has nothing to do with accounts, is not used by the professions as the guinea is, and can neither be divided nor multiplied with ease. It was a stupid coin at first to be invented by a people who multiply by ten, and not by eight, and its slight usefulness has been entirely abolished by the introduction of the useful coin which the Mint chose to call by the German name Florin, when it might just as easily have been called by the Anglo-Indian one Rupee. That coin is the tenth of a pound, but to make its use complete the Treasury should call in the silver threepennies and fourpennies, both of them ugly, unmeaning little bits of silver, too near alike not to tempt the dishonest, and issue new " tenths," "groats," or " argents," or " reals "—the name' does not signify much—silver coins of a little under twopence-halfpenny. That would be one more step towards a decimal system, and a very great one ; while it would upset nothing, tax nobody, and be forgotten in a fortnight. To have decimal coins would be a great step towards obtaining a decimal coinage, and would gradually accustom the public to wish for the scientific system of account which we must one day obtain. A nation like the English will surely not go on for ever teaching every fresh generation two systems of addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication, when one would suffice, or always cumber accounts with three separate and unequal divisions for coins which ought to descend and ascend on a scientific scale.
The Copper coinage does not signify much, for we are not just now discussing the " mil," the thousandth part of a pound, which, if all our people were civilized and all well-to-do, we might have to-morrow, but which at present would seem to involve, and for a time involve, too severe a tax upon the poor. But we should like to know why Mr. Lowe, who likes to see the Mint pay, should not make the penny and halfpenny smaller still, and the farthing of some metal cheaper than copper. What is the use of wasting all that good bronze in loading down people's pockets? They can't sell it for a third of its price, and why should they sell it for a twelfth ? In other words, why not make the penny a copper shilling and the halfpenny a copper sixpence? Such coins would not be lost any more than shillings and sixpences are, would be just as pretty, and would be 75 per cent. lighter to carry in the pocket, not a very serious consideration, but still quite as serious as the beauty of the impression, and certainly not a draw- back to a change which would give the State many thousands a year. Nor, we may add, does there seem any real objection to make the Queen's Head legal tender, and so available for very minute remittances. The public has done that for itself very nearly, and the Legislature might just as well complete the pro- cess, unless, indeed, it is thought that the tendency of the stamp to wear out would prove an unbearable annoyance to small traders.
Then there is the Paper coinage. The public is quite content with the Bank of England note, probably the crispest, neatest, and strongest note in the world ; but would be still more content if it were just a trifle more secure against forgery and theft ; greater security against the former it is, we suppose, impossible to attain. It is very difficult to imagine a mode of either making paper or of stamping it which criminal ingenuity and science could not successfully imitate, though a little colour in the note would protect us against the photographer ; but against theft we might be better protected. What is the answer to the clever sug- gestion of a correspondent in the Times of Thursday as to " crossed " notes,—banknotes payable like crossed cheques, only through a bank ? Small notes of that kind would, of course, be of little use, because they would be transferred from hand to hand before pre- sentation, and could be transferred as easily when crossed as before ; but heavy notes, notes for £1,000, are not taken except by haulm or men who mean to send them to their bankers' at once. Thieves could not get rid of them except through a bank, that is not at all, or by a circuitous process which would allow time to warn all bankers of the danger, and ask them to detain any person who presented them. The notes recently stolen from a bank clerk will probably never be presented, but dealers in such goods, knowing that they could employ no innocent agents to present crossed notes at the Bank of England, that they must first pass them through a bank, would hardly purchase them at any rate of discount whatever, while their shrewdest device, the alteration of a single figure, would be of small avail. The note would still have to be cashed by some bank, and practically at some bank at which they were personally known. All this, how- ever, is but extra precaution, and the changes really required in the coinage are but two, the issue of a gold five-shilling piece, and a silver piece, or if silver would be too small, mixed silver and copper piece for twopence-halfpenny.
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