Mr. Rose of gold now in circulation, which would require
to be recoined, would be all brought to England for that purpose, as the
coining would there be done for nothing. The Commissioners also
recommended that any change should be carried out by means of a convention or treaty,
into which the various nations should enter, and
suggested a number of matters, such as the remitting of coin which had
lost by sweating or use, as to which there must be internal arrangements. He
understood that it was now the impression, both in France and the United
States, that the recommendation of the English Commissioners had
much merit in them, if they should not wholly be accepted, and the
English sovereign adopted as the standard. This would cause very little
inconvenience to these countries, for the pound sterling had been practically
the standard throughout the world up to the time of the French
Revolution, and in the United States during the suspension of specie payments, it
was of little consequence what particular coin was
taken as the standard, whereas the investigations of the Commissioners had shewn
that the world at large would be more inconvenienced by
changing from the English sovereign than the United States by a change
from their five dollar piece, or France by assimilating her 25 franc piece
to the sovereign. Under these circumstances he thought we should submit a
little longer to the inconvenience arising from the difierence of currency
in these Provinces. He supposed his hon. friends from Nova Scotia would not
like for a month or two, or a year or two to change the Nova Scotia
currency, by assimilating it to ours, and then have to go back
again to their present system in the event of France and the United States
adopting the English sovereign.
Hon. Mr. Rose—Perhaps they won't refuse one financially.
(Hear, hear.) He thought it would be necessary under the circumstances he
had explained, that we should subject ourselves for some days longer to the
inconvenience of having different systems of money and
accounts prevailing in the different Provinces. He hoped we would soon get
Newfoundland into the Confederation. Newfoundland also had a
different standard of money, differing both from Nova Scotia and the rest
of the Dominion. In Newfoundland, the sovereign, he believed, was worth $4.80,
while in Nova Scotia it was worth $5, and here, $4.86 3/4. The Hudson's
Bay Territory again, which we hoped soon to incorporate [...]
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