VANISHED NICKEL

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 18, 22 January 1916, Page 14

VANISHED NICKEL

A CURRENCY PROBLEM.

What (asks an English paper) is the cause of the rather snddetn disappear, ance' of nickel small change in Ger many? Since October the German mint, which is evidently very short-handed. has been supplying ■ the country with driblets of iron five/pfennig pieces, hut' in most insufficient quantities. Promises were made by the Treasury that in Novembei. and December the supply: of iron coinage would be increased to the extent of an additional £250,000, but the shortage still exists,'and is'so general that much inconvenience is felt, especially among the poorer classes The greatest inconvenience,. however, 16 being felt by the" Government, who are bombarded with questions as to where the nickels have gone. Every German knows where they are, but they must rio| say they know, they must pretend ignorance The replies vouchsafed to reassure pnbHc apprehension are comical There are*, iot example, the school savings boxes One man writing on the subject, knows a, school where there are SC of these boxes, all of them packed full of nickels. Multiply this by' the 30,000 schools in the empire, and you account foi a considerable quantity;of small^change. Then there are the Automatic Id in the slot gas metres, and in Berlin those are_all full of nickels, and the gas companies have not sufficient employees to empty them regularly . Extraordinaryscenes are witnessed daily at the termini of tramlines, when the passengers storm the conductors, who are now to a large extent women, and demand the change from silver which they have paid for their fare We are told it is'no uncommon thing for1 persona requiring a .large supply of nickels to pay a big discount_ for it Traders have got into the habit of paying postage stamps as smsili change. But there was no shortage a year ago t and-there were then as many school savings boxes and Berlin gas' metres as there are to-day These reasons for the shortage won't do. We know where . the nickels have gone-—where the copper and the brass, the cotton, the rub-1 ber, and the petrol are going.