THE POUND STERLING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17902, 6 April 1920, Page 9

THE POUND STERLING

"What is the pound sterling—that majestic entity in praise of which Sir Robert Peel once kept the House of Commons spellbound fox a full hour, though now sadly fallen from its high estate? Sterling, as some fervid patriots will grieve to know, has been derived from Easteriing, a name for the Hanseatio merchants, states a writer in thi Manchester Guardian, Bat the pound was originally an actual pound weight in silver—-5760 grains of a standard of fineness fixed at 925 in 1000—and was coined into 240 pence. Over a long period the standard was maintained, but it fell grievously under the early Tndors, and by 1551 it had fallen as low as 250. Nine years afterwards Elizabeth undertook its reinstatement, "a matter indeed weighty and great," says Camden, "which neither Edward VI could nor Maty dtsrst attempt" Elizabeth proceeded on generous lines. She called in the old money, and every person was given the nominal value of the base com in fee new good coinage, the State bearing the toss. Thus the coinage of England was reinstated, and, since English silver was better and purer than that of other nations, it was necessary to issue enactments against trafficking in the coin or melting it down, just as fdmflar enactments are enforced now in respect of the sovereign. Another coinage crisis came in 1695, owing to the fact that all the new milled money went overseas where it had a real value, •and the dipped, bad old money, stayed in England, where it had a fictitious value. This . process went on until at last no one knew what was the purchasing power of any one of a dozen coins in his possession. Looke and Montague solved the problem anew, and in 1816 the gold standard, with the gold sovereign was enthroned. The word "pound" was retained, but it no longer has any actual (relation to facts, '