A.— 4

370

10th Day.] Uniformity in Currency and Coinage Laws. [16 June, 1911. Sir JOSEPH WARD : Do I understand all the ordinary parts of a sovereign, sixpences, and so on, can be used in Canada ? Sir WILFRID LAURIER : They can, but they never are. Sir JOSEPH WARD : That is almost as bad as not being allowed to use it at all. However, I bring up the matter because we have it impressed upon us in New Zealand so much in connection with the forward movement made by Australia, which was quite r ght from the point of view and doing what it thought proper, but they have altered the coinage there, and we are so close that, so far as the component parts of the sovereign in silver are concerned, it has been a subject of discussion in New Zealand. The PRESIDENT : What is the extent of the practical inconvenience ? Is it that your half-crown is not circulated in Australia ? Where does the practical inconvenience come in beyond this matter of the half-crowns ? We do not see half-crowns very much here. We have them, but if you look in your pocket you will not find very many. Dr. FINDLAY : Australia happens to have power to mint its own coinage. The PRESIDENT : The half-crown is not a very common coin. Sir JOSEPH WARD : It is a pretty common coin out in our country. I find a good many half-crowns knocking about in England too —not so many as I would like to have. This system of having to be sure you get rid of your silver coins in one Dominion and g> ;t another form of coins before going to another is an unsatisfactory state of affairs. Ido not see why we should not be able to bring about uniformity as these other countries have done. It seems to me it would be a very great convenience if we could. Sir WILFRID LAURIER : Sir Joseph Ward has proposed a Commission to invest g&te this question. There is nothing to investigate, in my judgment, and the argument is all on one side ; it is against your coinage. I cannot see any reason why you stick to the pounds, shillings, and pence ; but I know an Englishman will stick to his pounds, shillings, and pence as long as he sticks to anything else, and so long as England continues to be the great lending country it is, it is no use trying to get them to conform to this new system. When they come to borrow in Canada and New Zealand we will compel them to borrow in dollars and cents, but with things as they are I do not see the possibility of getting an Englishman to change his views on this coinage* question any more than he will change his views on dogs and horses. Our system is a sensible one and the other system in not sensible. Ido not say it is absurd because it has the sanction of ages, but compared with our easy system of dollars and cents I think all the argument is on one side, and I will stand behind Sir Joseph Ward, though with little hope that it will do any good at this Conference. The PRESIDENT : lam not sure you are standing behind Sir Joseph. Your argument is in favour of the decimal system, and Sir Joseph said not a word about that. Mr. PEARCE : We in Australia are in favour of the decimal system, and we are waiting for the Home Government to move in the matter before we can reform our coinage. In connection with our silver coinage, we have dispensed with the use of half-crowns, but we have not made the half-crown cease to be legal tender ; certainly in our new coinage we do not use them, but there are plenty of half-crowns in circulation. There was a rather curious little incident which occurred to a member of our own party who came with us and presented to a certain cabman, a London cabman, an Australian shilling with a kangaroo on, and the London cabman said, " What are you trying to pass off here ? "