'A Bill has been introduced into the Canadian Parliament for the regulation of the currency of that country, in which provision is made for the adoption by Canada of the system of the Convention, in the event of the measure above referred to becoming law in the United States.
'Another Bill has been introduced into the Congress of the United States, in order to assimilate the coinage to that of this country, making the half eagle equal to our sovereign.
'The Federal Parliament of the North German Confederation has passed a resolution declaring necessary the adoption of a decimal monetary system.
'Finally, we have received a communication from the Foreign Office, by which it appears that the Government of Sweden have proposed to strike a gold coin equivalent to ten francs, and further to coin pieces of twenty-five francs as soon as such a coin shall be struck in France.'—Report from the Royal Commission on International Coinage, 1868.
The Spanish Government has recently given notice of being willing to join the Convention (Nov., 1869), and the pattern pieces of the twenty-five franc coin have already been struck at the Paris mint.
This brief résumé of what has actually been done by several other nations, suffices of itself to show that the question deserves, as Mr. Lowe has stated in Parliament, very careful consideration.
Four nations, with more than sixty-six millions of inhabitants, already possess an international coinage. That is to say, any merchant in the furthest point to which the Convention extends knows at once, if he takes up a paper with the prices current at Paris, Marseilles, Bordeaux, or any of the great centres of commerce, what those prices mean, and how nearly they correspond with his own. Other nations besides France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, are prepared to join in this uniform coinage. It is not unlikely that the sixty-six millions may be more than doubled shortly. Will it not be a great disadvantage to the thirty or thirty-two millions inhabiting these islands to be outside this great confederation?
The values of the gold in the pound sterling and in twenty-five francs approximate very closely. To enable this country to join the confederation, it would be needful for the values to be equalized. This must be done in one of two ways.
Either the amount of gold contained in the proposed coin of twenty-five francs must be increased by twenty centimes to make it the equivalent of the English full-weight sovereign. Or, the weight of gold in the English sovereign must be diminished to make it equal to that contained in the 25-franc piece. The Royal Commissioners on International Coinage appear to have entertained an aspiration—it can hardly be termed a hope—that the former plan would be adopted; but it can scarcely be looked for. The inconvenience to the nations who have already joined the Convention would be so great as to preclude the idea. The other alternative alone practically has to be considered. It amounts to this: that 2d. in value should be taken out of every sovereign. But to do this without due compensation would be to alter every existing contract. A seigniorage to be charged on all bullion taken to the mint to be coined, is proposed as a method of bridging over this difficulty. To effect this such a charge or seigniorage would have to be proportionate to the amount of bullion subtracted from each sovereign.
It is desirable to trace out what effect such a charge would have. It would be—