We could reply: Amend your own system and make it acceptable to your own people before you ask us to put aside a system which we find convenient and which is founded on better principles than ours. Our system has been carried to all countries; it is decimal wherever decimalisation is convenient; its international unit is the Ton-register of 100 cubic feet, or 100,000 ounces, as old as the first civilisation of the world, as the civilisation which established the Meridian mile used by your seamen as by ours. We reject an artificial system founded in hatred of the past, and only kept up in its native country by police-force. In the name of decimals you want us to abolish our pound, and use a kilogramme which your own people will not use. It should be enough for you that we have given your system a denizenship by the abuse of which we have been greatly annoyed.
3. The Reform of the Metric System
The defence must be active; then the attack would cease, and the French people, seeing its failure, would demand a reform of the system imposed on them; the other nations suffering under it would follow their example, if indeed the Teutonic peoples did not begin the reaction.
Modifications would be demanded, rendering the metric system less inconvenient for manufacturers, for trade, for the everyday business of life.
The metric standards would be retained, but the decimal system would be optional, left principally for scientific purposes. The divisions and multiples would be in harmony with the customs of each people, usually in sexdecimal series.
For France, the système usuel of Napoleon’s compromise would be revived. Incomplete a century ago, it could be rendered complete by the following arrangement of the metric system, suitable both to Northern and to Southern France.
1. The metre to be divided optionally either into 3 feet of 12 inches, or into 4 spans of 9 inches or 12 digits; 2 metres to be a toise and 10 toises a perch; 100 toises or 10 perches to be a centenié (furlong) and 800 toises or 8 furlongs a mile = 1741-3/4 yards. The meridian mile would be 926 toises or 9-1/4 cables.
2. Land to be measured by the square toise, 1/25 of an are; 1600 square toises to be an arpent of 16 vergées metriques or boisselées, each 10 toises square, = 4 ares.
3. The livre, = 500 grammes, to be divided commercially into 16 ounces of 8 drachms; and for medicinal purposes, the drachm to be 8 oboles of 8 grains. Grammes and decimal fractions of a gramme could be used for scientific purposes.
4. The hectolitre would be divided sexdecimally, into 4 boisseaux, of 4 gallons = 6-1/4 litres. The litre would be divided into 2 setiers or chopines, 4 half-setiers, and 32 ounces.