WHAT IS A POUND?

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 100, 30 March 1937, Page 8

WHAT IS A POUND?

A correspondent of the London Times writes: —Every one is familiar with the Bank of England greenbacks which are usually recognised as £1 notes, but how many people have read the inscription—“l promise to pay tne bearer on demand the sum of £1 - which is signed bv the cashier of tile Bank of England? A few inquisitive people have inquired from time to tune what is the pound that these notes promise to pay. It may surprise inanj people to know that there is no such pound, and that what is usually teamed “the pound sterling” is non-exist-e"when the fiduciary issue replaced the Treasury notes under the Act of 1928 many people supposed that the promissory notes referred to golden sovereigns, but those who applied at the Bank for redemption of these notes were met with a refusal. It was then found that only by presenting about 1700 of the £1 notes was it possible to get a bar of gold weighing 400 ounces, and this was the only form of “redemption” that became legalised. But, as I have pointed out on many occasions, gold is not money. It only becomes money after it lias been coined at the Mint, and as the sovereign to-day is worth over 30s, it follows that the “promise to pay” can have lio reference whatever to gold.