TEN PENNIES TO THE SHILLING

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 44, 16 November 1925, Page 10

TEN PENNIES TO THE SHILLING

PRESENT VALUES AND COST OF LIVING. An interesting article by Mr. Harold Cox on the scheme of the Federation of British Industries for dividing the shilling into ten pence is contained in the “Trade and Engineering Supplement” of the London “Times.” The executive committee of the Federation of British Industries suggests that the Government should thus increase the token value of the penny, in order, to secure a reduction of the cost of living through a widespread” restoration of “pennyworths” of full pre-war value and the benefits of a decimal system of coinage based on the existing pound • sterling, of which the proposed new penny would represent a half of a onehundredth part. Mr. Cox recalls past proposals for the establishment of decimal coinage in Britain, including the “poundmil” plan rejected by the Royal Commission in 1918, and is inclined to believe that if the present scheme had then been under discussion it might have been adopted. Mr. Cox then details his views on the advantages of the “decimalisation” of the shilling in the routine of. adding money columns and of calculating percentages, as well as in commercial transactions with foreign buyers. He shows how all monetary statements could be set forth in complete decimal form, and points out that we should still reckon in pounds, shillings, and (new) pence; the whole difference would be that the new penny would be one-tenth instead of one-twelfth of a shilling, but that difference would also secure nearly all the advantages of a complete.decimal currency. So far as daily additions of figures are concerned, the pence column would be added up without the necessity of subsequently dividing by 12; the only division required would be the relatively simple one of dividing the shillings total by 20. Thus there would be a very appreciable reduction in the daily arithmetical task of the addingup of millions of columns of figures.