AUSTRALIAN COINS

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 110, 3 February 1931, Page 10

AUSTRALIAN COINS

Legal Tender to £2

EXCHANGE PROBLEMS

Traveller’s £175

BANKS’ PRECAUTION

Influenced by the recent announcement that the banks were charging full rates of excliange on Australian silver coinage in New Zealand, a, number of tradespeople and others, it is stated, are refusing to accept such currency in payment for goods or services. Inquiries go to show that tlie banks are not charging exchange on Australian silver coins of an amount of less than forty shillings.

Recently attempts have been made to bring large amounts of money in silver from Australia to New Zealand and it is to protect themselves from being flooded with such coinage that the banks are charging exchange on sums of over £2. A few days ago, it is stated, a man arrived from Sydney with no less than £175 in silver coins, on which the bank at which he attempted to change it into notes informed him he would have to pay the current rate of exchange. An other instance was mentioned in which a passenger to New Zealand was asked by an Australian business man to bring £5OO worth of silver coinage to the Dominion. The English Coinage Act of 1870 which was brought into force in New Zealand in part by Royal Proclamation in the London Gazette of 1890, provides that a tender of x payment of money, if made in coins issued by the Mint in accordance with the provisions of the Acc, shall be legal tender —in the case of gold coins for a payment of any amount; in the case of silver coins for a payment of an amount not exceeding forty shillings, but for no greater amount; and in the case of bronze coins for payment of an amount not exceeding one shilling. Nothing in the Act prevents any paper currency so provided for under any Act or otherwise from being a legal tender. All New Zealand bank notes at present are legal tender in. the Dominion for any amount. As Australian silver coins are minted in the Royal Mint or its Australian branches, they are clearly legal tender in New Zealand for payment of amounts of up to forty shillings.

TRIP TO N.Z.

What Australians Found

CREDITS THAT SHRANK Australians who went to New Zealand for the holiday season have begun to return to the Commonwealth with accounts of the way in which their Commonwealth notes, letters of credit, and cheques were affected by the rate of exchange between the two countries, says a recent issue of the “Age,” Melbourne. A number of tourists returned to Australia by the Marama, having obtained at the rate of 1/10 in the £1 just sufficient New Zealand money for their requirements. On landing in Sydney, however, they discovered that during the four days of the voyage a further adjustment of the exchange rate had been made, the effect of which was that a Bank of New Zealand £1 note was worth £l/3/3 in Australia. Those who still had New Zealand notes in their possession on arrival in Australia were thus able to recover a great amount of what they had previously lost in exchange. The more stable condition of New Zealand has led to the transfer of a great amount of money from the Commonwealth to New Zealand for investment purposes, notwithstanding the restrictions placed upon the transfer of money from Australia. One man who left Melbourne toward the end of December for the purpose of establishing a business in' New Zealand took with him by bank draft the limit of the amount allowed under the restriction. This was not nearly sufficient for his purposes, so he took in addition £7OO in Commonwealth notes, hoping that by some means or other he would be able to make use of them without losing too much by way of exchange. He arrived before the first heavy increase in the exchange rate took place. He induced a- New Zealand bank to accept £lOO worth of the notes for the purpose of opening a working account for his business, but when he tendered more Commonwealth notes for deposit to the credit of his account the bank declined to accept them, officials informing him that the bank already had too much money in Australia. An Australian bank which trades extensively in New Zealand accepted the remainder of his notes, and he thereupon transferred his original account to that bank. Two days later the exchange rate rose to 1/10 in the £l, and the business man was pleased to find that he had'saved himself from a loss of approximately £6O in exchange. Another way in which a certain amount of money has been transferred from Australia to New Zealand has been by means of the savings banks. A depositor in an Australian savings bank transferred an account of £5OO to the New Zealand Government Post Office Savings Bank two months ago. The cost of the transfer was 25/- for the whole account. The cost of the transfer to-day, if the New Zealand Savings Bank would accept it, would be about. £4O. Such transfers have now, however, been checked by the high rate of exchange, and by the unwillingness of New Zealand financial and trading institutions to accept credits drawn upon Australia.