The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitra Counties Gazette Published Daily. DECIMALS.

Feilding Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 32, 31 August 1905, Page 2

The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitra Counties Gazette Published Daily. DECIMALS.

» Thb movement for the adoption of tbe decimal system of weights and measures in Great Britain is not making as rapid progress as its supporters desire, but it is by no means at a standstill. Last month it was announced that the British Board of Trade had authorised tbe use of twenty pound, ten pound and five pound weights in connection with the Liverpool trade. Two years ago the Board legalised the use of fifty pound weights at Liverpool, and the result was a marked simplification of book-keeping in regard to the foreign trade. The use of the other decimal weights will still further improve tbe position. The weights of American goods, which form the bulk of the port's imports, had, under the old system, to be translated into their English equivalents before tbny could he ohecked by the British merchants. The American pound is the exaot equivalent of the English pound, but the American does not know tbe stone. His hundredweight is one of one hundred pounds so that an American bale of nominally five hundredweight if placed against the British quarter of a ton, the English importer had to work out that tbe bale weighed four British hundredweight and fiftytwo pounds over before he knew what weight he should expect. The elimi nation of the awkward and unnecea 6ary fractions of course simplifies the work of tbe clerk and book-keeper to a very large extent, and Liverpool traders are loud in their appreciation of the change. Some of them are already urging that tbe decimal weights, which ara at present optional, should be made compulsory. There is not the least doubt, they state, that the deoimal system of weights and measures is infinitely superior to the cumbrous British system, and the only real objection to the change that can be brought forward is that some expense would be incurred in changing the weights and weighing machines. This expense, however, would not be very great, and it would speedily be more than balanced by the decrease in the amount of clerical labor involved in commerce.