AUSTRALIAN FLORINS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21548, 20 July 1933, Page 12

AUSTRALIAN FLORINS

SHIPMENT WORTH £25,000 ARRIVAL BY WANGANELLA COIN SHORTAGE IN AUCKLAND About £25,000 worth of Australian silver was brought from Sydney by tho Wnuganella yesterday. Tho consignment, which consisted of Austra-lian-minted florins, was unloaded at Queen's Wharf and motor-lorries distributed tho coins, packed in boxes, to various trading banks. The florins will bo used to meet tho present shortage of silver coin. This is the second shipment of Australian coins to reach New Zealand this month. The Maunganui brought a largo consignment to Wellington last week. Altogether, £50,000 worth of silver has now been imported, tho greater proportion being florins, with a smaller proportion of coins of lesser denomination. The importations are intended to tide over the period that must elapse before the arrival from London of the new silver coins which are being specially minted for New Zealand. 'J ho first shipment of these coins is expected to arrive in the Dominion before the eud of the year. Soon after the Wanganella berthed yesterday morning a start was made to unload the silver. Boxes measuring about 14in. by 9in. were brought up from the vessel's strongroom, placed in slings and loaded on to lorries which were waiting on the wharf. Except for tho fact that each box was numbered and bore tho name of the bank to which it was to be delivered, there was little to indicate the valuable nature of the cargo, and the unloading operations wero not in the least spectacular. None of the passengers knew that plain-clothes police officers were watching tho boxes being transferred, and tho tally-clerks who checked the boxes as they were taken out of tho strongroom and removed to the lorries went about their task in a perfectly unostentatious manner.

To legalise the importation of tho coins, the entry, as well as the export, of which is prohibited by law, tho regulations had to be temporarily suspended by the Minister of 1* inance.