Page:British Weights and Measures - Superior to the Metric, by James W. Evans.djvu/32

24 interfered with its chances of successful progress for years, but after making due allowance for all this, the awkward fact remains that nearly half a century elapsed before it became firmly established. The stage of transition was marked with much friction, to the accompaniment of petty frauds (such as those alluded to by Adams), and harsh official compulsion.

The system was ﬁrst imposed on Belgium in 1795, and obtained full force in 1816, and its friends admit there were great difficulties in securing its adoption by the people. So late as 1862 M. Auguste Visschers, a distinguished Belgian official and an ardent admirer of metricalisation, admitted that the old customs had not altogether died away, and that resistance to the new order of things continued to lead to prosecutions and punishments.

That this should be the experience of a country situated on the borders of France, akin to it in speech and associations, and having great intercourse therewith, is not a recommendation which encourages us to enter upon a sea of troubles with no adequate reward in prospect.

In Austria-Hungary, we read, the Government appointed a strong adjusting Commission, “which was armed at all points, and had officers all over the country.”

Backed by the strong arm of forces always at the command of central authorities, and used in a fashion to which we as a people are not accustomed, the metric