TEN SHILLING NOTES.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 1066, 12 July 1917, Page 9

TEN SHILLING NOTES.

| STATE OF" THE ISSUE. i | THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY. | On Saturday T;ir. Run published some details regarding the insanitary state of the ten shilling note issue, and pointed out that the condition of some of the uotcs in circulation was becoming a I menace to the public health. Further particulars have been.' supplied regarding the matter, which go to show that the issuing bank is hardly to blame for (lie present state of affairs. |Ten shilling- notes were first issued by the Bank of New Zealand nearly a year (ago, and more, recently by the Commercial Bank of Australasia. The other I Banks, for reasons best known to themselves, held aloof. Probably it was because the Government taxes bank notes so heavily that their issue is unprofitable. But although they decline to share in the expense and trouble of a | ten shilling note issue these banks make [the fullest use of the notes issued by the Bank of New Zealand. It enables thcin to conserve their half-sovereign j issue, and that appeals to them more i -, ! i-.«-1,-!.- ■{).••; jiii. hygienic considerable i.;:ii\ oi Isew Zealand keeps a staii' constantly engaged on calling in and cancelling soiled notes, but the other banks do not release them Jill.they ;-:re in the last stages of dilapidation. j In proof of this we are informed that out of 43,C:!0 ten shilling notes extant, only 327fi were in the hands of the | tellers on Tuesday, showing that over 140,000 were cither in circulation or i were being held by the other banks. It is quite open to any person who j ha* a soiled ten shilling note in his jposscssion to walk into the Bank of jXew Zealand an.l exchange it for a! I clean one. but it would appear that unless the Government steps in and brings I pressure to bear on all the banks in the matter little improvement is likely to 'bo effect.