Page:British Weights and Measures - Superior to the Metric, by James W. Evans.djvu/50

42 to be computed to new scales. If in the domain of private interests only, the alteration would cause disquietude, widespread annoyance, outlay, perhaps litigation—how much greater would be the burdens thrown upon the different Lands Departments in having to revise all surveys. The prospect opened up is an appalling one, and the immensity of labour involved, which would not be completed for tens of years to come, not to speak of the money it would cost, is likely to have a deterrent effect in adopting a system, not only strange to us, but which is not wanted, and is inferior to the one we are acquainted with.

No one can even approximate what it would cost to instalinstall [sic] new weights and measures throughout the length and breadth of the Empire to replace those now in use. The thousands upon many thousands who in some way or other have recourse to weights and measures in the pursuance of their avocations, would not only have to face new methods of working, and fresh forms of calculations, but would have to do so with implements of unfamiliar dimensions. It would be impossible to catalogue them—the engineer’s gauge, the carpenter’s rule, and the milkman’s pint, the butcher’s lb., the tailor’s tape, the warehouseman’s appliances for determining weight, qualities and values, all would have to be swept away; and sums of money, great and small, would have to be spent in obtaining new material, or in having present plants altered.