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The Small Monetary Unit
The advantage of a small monetary unit which will be continualy kept in sight by the changeing of the silver coins of 25 will be [indecipherable] in all transactions between the buyer & the seller where an advance or a [indecipherable] is made in the value of any wholesale article or where Tax is laid upon the more facility there is of dividing into minute parts the gain or the loss the more will both parties be satisfied with each other or pays heed if one contains 504 pints, if a duty of 20/ is laid upon this quantity this it requires some arithmetic, more possibly then every consumer has at hand an opportunity to decide the amount but if the duty of is 10 cents equal to 1000 units or farthings every man who knows the number of Pints, is at once aware that it amounts to a small fraction only above 2 units a pint. The government can also at pleasure levy on the Tax by the pint with the utmost facility by fixing the Tax the duty as expected at 10 cents & 8 units which & this would briefly & accurately explain declare to the Public the actual amount of the impost laid upon the dealer & effectively prevent him from seizing an additional Tax burthen upon the consumer under a false pretence statement of the amount of the Tax which has of late ever too frequently been practisd.
To the poor especially, the minute production of money is of the utmost consequence, to them it is very important whether they give a farthing or a halfpenney more or less for a pound of potatoes or a peck of meal & at present a farthing is seldom if ever admitted in the reconning either of a farmer or a miller, potatoes are 2d/ 3d/ 4d/ &c a pound & sometimes 2½ &c but no one ever heard of their being 2¼ if valued by units the price will regularly move through all even & odd numbers & never move at one leap from 8 units equal to 12d to 12 equal to 13d. In China they have cash for the use of their poor, equal in value to of a farthing each, in India they have Cowries or shells of much less value, in England humane as we are we have not been sufficiently attentive to this great work of Benevolence.