POUND AND MIL SCHEME.

The Committee devote a portion of their report to setting forth the difficulties of the adoption of the pound and mil scheme of Lord Southwark’s Bill. The pound and mil, it is pointed out, provides no exact equivalent of the penny, which is still the real popular standard of value on which most small transactions are based. A 4mil penny fare would, in the opinion of witnesses, drive tramways out of business. The question of altering over 50,000,000 contracts in industrial life assurance policies is referred to, as are the difficulties and increased contributions that would be involved in National Health Insurance. It is clear, the Committee say, that the ideal of a common currency throughout the Empire would not be advanced by the scheme. As for effect on the Mint, the report remarks: “To replace by mil-value coins the whole of those which Lord Southwark’s Bill entirely discards, viz., the crown, half-crown, threepence, penny, halfpenny, and farthing, might require the whole output of the Mint, at its present capacity for some thirteen years.”