METRIC REFORM.
[To rim Forms or ram " Sricrkroz."1
Srn,—The letter from Mr. Harold Cox appearing in your issue of the 13th inst. is a fine example of theory v. practice. Does Mr. Cox know that the half-crown is a much more useful coin than the florin ? If he does not know, let him ask the tellers at the bank or the cashiers at large works who handle the coins for wages; in other words, let him go to the people of experi- ence. If he is still unconvinced, let him go to Germany and - ask the members of the Chambers of Commerce of Berlin, Breslau, Dortmund, Duisburg, Elberfeld, Erfurt, Friedberg, Gnesen, Hildesheim, Kassel, Limbourg, Offenbach,- Osna- brick, Sonneberg, Wessel, • &el.,- and to the ,Federation of Manufacturers of Berlin and other bodies, and ask them why they are memorialising the Prussian Diet for divisions of the mark other than decimal. Let him ask • them why they specifically ask for a coin which is a quarter of a mark iu value, and why they ask for another coin one-eighth of the mark in value. On the general question of metric weights and measures, let him again go to the people who have to do things—the practical people—not to those who make it their business to dream or to talk of principles of perfection. LA him ask British manufacturers why they stick to the inch and the yard; let him go to the United States and ask why the practical people of that country, with over a century's experi- ence of decimal coinage, are against extending the decimal system to weights and measures ; let him go again to Germany and ask why they build by the Rhineland foot divided into twelve inches ; or let him go to France itself and ascertain the reason why the practical people there divide the metre into thirty-six parts. If Mr. Cox will do these things, there will be one more added to the many who have already dis- covered the metric fallacies, and transferred their energies in the cause of reform from the pro-metrists to the 'British Weights and Measures Association.—I am, Sir, &c.,
GEORGE Moonas, Secretary.
British Weights and Measures Association, 46a Market Street, Manchester.
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