AUSTRALIAN MONEY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 79, 5 April 1910, Page 71

AUSTRALIAN MONEY.

* WHY THE NEW COINAGE WILL BE REFUSED* NEW ZEALAND'S POSITION. Reference was briefly made in The Post yesterday to tho effect that the banks doing business in New Zealand would not accept the new silver coinage of \ustralia, and if not the bunks (hen traders will naturally decline to tako money that they have no c nance of paying over the counter into their accounts. The position is one of negotiation between the New Zealand Go\ernment anil the banks at the moment. It appears to be the banking opinion that ns an enormous profit will accrue to the Commonwealth through the new- silver coinage. New Zealand, which has no share in the profit on it, 6hould not circulate it. The seigniorage or proSt on the coinage belongs theoretically to the King, but actually to the Government On the Commonwealth coinage tho Commonwealth Government makes about 4Jd in every Is. New Zealand has to pay Is for every shilling of the British coinage, and the profit goes to the British Government. The time has come, it is held in some quarters, that if Australia is to have her own filver coinage, the Dominion of New Zealand should have h«r's ; or if the Commonwealth silver i» to circulate here, then it should be effected at a profit to this country, and arrangements with New Zealand should b« madt by the Commonwealth Government to that end. So far as can bo ascertained, there U no desire, at least in New Zealand banking circles, to change the design of the Imperial coinage circulating in this country; no wish to substitute the head of a Maori rangitira for that of Edwardus R«x VII., or the Roya! coat of arms for a kiwi couchant. Even supposing arrangements are made between the Governments of the Commonwealth and that of Now Zealand for the latter to participate iv the profits arising out of the new coinage it will take some time before legislative action to give effect to it can be carried out. In the meanwhile the Commonwealth silver will have no more than a sentimental or numismatic interest for New Zealanders. Visitors or travellers returning from Australia will, no doubt, find it very awkward if they come here with pocket* full of the new silver, for it will have no more chance of becoming current here than French francs or German marks, for, as has been said, if the banks will not tako it the traders will not tako it cither. There must shortly be a lot of the new silver money in circulation in Australia. There is to arrive in all £200,000 worth of the new money in the following sums : £50,000 in shillings, already in Australia; £100,000 in florins, £25,000 in sixpences, and £25,000 in threepenny pieces. Silver withdrawn from the Australian banks to a corresponding amount of the new silver will be forwarded to the British Government. The schedule to the Commonwealth Coinage Bill stows tnat the new silver coins have to be thirty-seven-fortieths fine silver and three-fortieths alloy. The Commonwealth Treasurer may canss to be made- bronze or nickel coins as well as silver and gold. Hitherto the New Zealand banks have drawn their supplies of silver from Australia for convenience, and to save expense, and have returned the worn silver to London, via Australia ; but New Zealand has been ignored altogether in the matter of the new silver coinage by the Commonwealth, which has ufxumed that it would secure tht seigniorage on tho circulation in the Dominion. Hence the trouble.