A hundred years ago
From the 'Spectator', 4 September I869—The Master of the Mint. Sir J. F. W. Herschel, sends to the Times a long letter on Mr. Lowe's proposed reform in the coinage. His view appears in the main to agree with our own,— that Mr. Lowe is right, that it is very doubt- ful if the loss is worth the trouble a reform would involve, but that if a change is intro- duceld, international transactions had better be carried on in bullion bars containing f100 in standard gold. Sir J. Herschel is clearly of opinion that prices are going to rise a good deal yet, perhaps, for another century, until "the earth is picked clean of gold, as it was (practically speaking) in the Middle Ages", and he suggests a curious plan for relieving the pressure. Why should not nations not yet wedded to a single standard introduce a "bin- ary standard?"—decree, that is, that either creditor or debtor might insist on half value in either gold or silver. There is no objection to that except the old one. that the majority of mankind do not know their right hand from their left, and would sell in the single standard and buy in the binary one every day of their lives, so losing a per-centage they ought to retain.
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