HOW MUCH DID HE LOSE?

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 52, Issue 3771, 19 June 1936, Page 9

HOW MUCH DID HE LOSE?

A HOUSE OF COMMONS PUZZLE <■ When Dr G. A Morrison, Liberall National M.P. for the Scottish universities puzzled the House of Commons recently with his poser about the shoe-maker and the counterfeit note, he thought that was the end of the matter. He was wrong. A special correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says the little problem has produced: Forty letters from all over Great Britain; inquiries from several European countries; speculation in foreign newspapers; and an earnest letter from a Berlin doctor. It has also shattered the political illusions of at least one English schoolboy. The problem itself was simple:— A man bought a 16/- pair of boots with £1 note. The shoemaker got change from a butcher, and gave the customer the boots and 4/- change. Then the butcher found the note was counterfeit, and the shoemaker had to give him a. genuine one. How much did he lose? Answer: The shoes and 4/-. And that, it seemed at the time, was that. Instead, Cabinet Ministers discussed it heatedly, and a learned member of the Treasury bench got it wrong. So many letters have reached Dr Morrison that he has reserved a special compartment in his despatch case for them, and the accuracy of the answer he gave has been gravely questioned. Mr W. Gallacher, the only Communist in the House, complained bitterly that he had been accused of giving the wrong answer. He was alleged to have replied “16/-,” when in fact he was deriding the answer given by a neighbour on the back benches. “My son will throw me out of Parliament if he thinks I gave the wrong answer,” he assured me dismally. “I knew it, and a lot more when I was a schoolboy.” More than half of Dr. Morrison’s correspondents give the correct answer, but one ingenious mathematician declares that the shoemaker, lost not only the boots and A/-, but the profit he would have made if he had sold the boots for cash. Among those who have written is a schoolboy, who says:—“l solved the problem, in one minute. I always thought M’s. P. were clever.” His solution was correct. A German doctor writes from Berlin giving the correct answer, asking Dr Morrison to tell him if he is right, and enclosing an international postal order for reply. Two Swedish girls have also inquired about it, and some people have even caught Dr Morrison on the telephone at his home in Aberdeen. With true Scottish thoroughness, he has replied to every letter and inquiry, but he said to me last night, “I hope this will be the end of the matter. I am glad my puzzle made people think, but I am a little tired of answering letters.” Dr Morrison should be used to setting problems. He was rector of Inverness ißoyal Academy for ten years, and head master of Robert Gordon’s College, Aberdeen, for three.