TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE GOLD COINAGE.
THE proclamation respecting the gold coinage has occasioned con- siderable annoyance even in town : in the suburbs, it for a time almost put a stop to buying and selling in retail for ready money. To those of the opulent whose time is valuable it was sufficiently troublesome ; but to labouring men and their families it has in many cases been productive of losses severe to them.
Is there no way to prevent the recurrence of similar annoyance? The light gold will be withdrawn from circulation; the panic and distrust will disappear; the " sweaters and pluggers" will for a time relax in their nefarious industry : but as soon as the recol- lection of this embarrassment has faded, the creatures will be at their dirty work again, and the mutilation of the coinage will be followed by another proclamation and all its teasing concomitants. The following plan might perhaps be found effective to pre- vent the depreciation of the coinage, at no great expense. Let a seignorage be exacted upon all bullion coined, sufficient to meet the expense of constant recoinage as pieces become light by the fair operation of tear and wear ; let coined money be issued exclusively from the Mint through the Bank of England; and let the Bank be bound to receive at their full value all British coins which do not fall below a certain weight, or bear marks of having been tampered with. 'Where tampering has taken place, let the Bank institute legal proceedings, just as they would do at present in the case of a forgery of their own notes, for the detection and punishment of the offenders. This, or some similar arrangement, would, in the first place, tend to prevent coins from being kept in circulation until greatly depre- ciated by abrasion ; secondly, it would give men in business and their bankers a motive for continually sending in money to be recoined as soon as it became a little too light; thirdly, it would create a party having a direct and permanent interest in keeping an eye on the state of the coinage with a view to detect and punish all who deteriorate it. The " swelters and pluggers" calculate upon its being no person's business to look after and prosecute them : they know that the loss falls upon the individuals into whose hands the light coins come, and that private parties are not likely to incur the trouble and expense of instituting an inquiry and prosecution in addition to the loss they have sustained by taking some light sovereigns.
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