But he cannot mean that Englishmen in general are so easily managed. And as to Jonathan, who is but John lengthened out a little, he would see creation whittled into chips before he would even split what may henceforth be called the Kidderminster difference. The House, not unmoved--for it laughed--with sly humor decided that the introduction of the florin had been "eminently successful and satisfactory."
The truth is that Mr. Lowe here attacks nothing except the coexistence of the florin and half-crown. We are endeavoring to abolish the half-crown. Let Mr. Lowe join us; and he will, if we succeed, be relieved from the pressure on his pocket which must arise from having the turn of the market always against him.
"From a florin they get to 2 Note the sophism of expressing 2-5ths of a penny, but who our coin in terms of the ever bought anything, who ever penny, which we abandon, reckoned or wished to reckon instead of the florin, which in such a coin as that?" we retain. Remember that this (Hear, hear.) 2 2-5ths is the hundredth part of the pound, which is called, as yet, a _cent_. Nobody buys anything at a cent, because the cent is not yet introduced. Nobody reckons in cents for the same reason. Everybody wishes to reckon in cents, who wishes to combine the advantage of decimal reckoning with the preservation of the pound as { 172} the highest unit of account; amongst others, a majority of the House of Commons, the Bank of England, the majority of London bankers, the Chambers of Commerce in various places, etc. etc. etc. "Such a coin could never come Does 2½d. never pass from hand into general circulation to hand? And is 2½d. so because it represents nothing precisely the modulus of which corresponds with any of popular wants, that an the wants of the people." alteration of 4 per cent. would make it useless? Of all the values which 2½d. measures, from three pounds of potatoes down to certain arguments used in the House of Commons, there is not one for which a cent would not do just as well. Mr. Lowe has fallen into the misconception of the person who admired the dispensation of Providence by which large rivers are made to run through cities so great and towns so many. If the cent were to be introduced to-morrow, straightway the buns and cakes, the soda-water bottles, the short omnibus fares, the bunches of radishes, etc. etc. etc., would adapt themselves to the coin. "If the proposed system were The confusion of ideas here adopted, they would all be exhibited is most instructive. compelled to live in decimals The speaker is under the for ever; if a man dined at a impression that _we_ are public house he would have to introducing fractions: the pay for his dinner in decimal truth is, that we only want to fractions. (Hear, hear.) He abandon the _more difficult_ objected to that, for he fractions which we _have got_, thought that a man ought to be and to introduce _easier able to pay for his dinner in fractions_. Does he deny this? integers." (Hear, hear, and a Let us trace his denial to its laugh.) legitimate consequences. A man ought to pay for his dinner in integers.