Long, Short, And Metric Tons

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31761, 19 August 1968, Page 16

Long, Short, And Metric Tons

“To take full advantage from decimal currency”, says the annual report of the New Zealand Potato Board, “the New Zealand Grain, Seed and Produce “ Merchants’ Federation decided to use a 20001 b unit “as the basis for trade in potatoes from January, “ 1967 ”, Merchants, whose business used to be conducted mainly in long tons and hundredweights, had little to gain from the change, but wholesalers, auctioneers, and retailers continually converted prices per ton or hundredweight to prices per lb. The change from £ s d to dollars and cents simplified the arithmetic, but, as the Potato Board says, to take full advantage from decimal currency, the adoption of the 20001 b unit was desirable. The board soon found that it would not be permitted to describe 20001 b of potatoes as a “ short “ ton ” of potatoes. “ Under the first schedule to the “ Weights and Measures Act of 1925 a ton of specified “commodities such as flour, bran and pollard could “ consist of 20001 b ”. The Minister of Labour (Mr Shand) told the board that to include potatoes among these “specified commodities” would be “undue “discrimination, and in conflict with the general “ basis of the legislation that the use of a 20001 b ton “be only for milled products of grain”. If New Zealand and the countries with which New Zealand trades were committed indefinitely to the use of avoirdupois weights and measures, there might be merit in pressing for a hundredweight of 1001 b and a ton of 20001 b. But the possibility, if not the probability, of the eventual introduction of metric weights and measures weighs heavily against this. In little more than 12 months the traders have made the change from the cumbersome £3O per ton (equals 30s per cwt equals 3.2142 c per lb) to the handy $6O per 20001 b unit (equals $3 per 1001 b unit equals 3c per lb). The next step—to the elegant $6O per metric ton (equals $6 per quintal equals 6c per kilogram)— may be many years away. Is it not worth waiting for—or hastening?