The exporters' of gold, who avail themselves of the facilities
at the Bank of England for that purpose, complain that if they decide on taking sovereigns rather than bar gold, those they are supplied with are the greater portion- of them under full weight. The fact itself will hardly admit of doubt, since the seigniorage on this coin was originally so small, that they are pretty generally reduced, by wear, below stan- dard; but that there is any motive on the part of' the Bank in making over the light ones to importers, rather than to bankers and others for circulation at home, is a very disputable matter. Their natural and proper course would be, to select those coins of full weight, by prefer- ence, for exportation, since there is no more effectual mode of lowering the exchange with foreign countries than to circulate among them coins deficient either in weight or in purity ; and a great source of reproach it would become, in time, to this country. Their late advance in the price of bar gold may be said to have exactly the same effect as repre- senting, in another form, the deficient weight of the sovereign.—Titnes.
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