The facts were, briefly, as follows. In 1929 the Conservative Government appointed a Commission to enquire into the possibility of introducing into England the decimal system of coinage, weights, measures, etc. Its sittings were interrupted by the accession of the Labour Government in the early thirties, which, among its first and most unpopular actions, drastically cut down the expenses allowed to the members of Royal Commissions. “It comes to this,” said Professor Drywater of Aberdeen, “that if I want to serve my country I shall have to serve it at my own expense.” Under the Independent Government the Commissions were revived, but little interest was shown in this particular enquiry. It was when the Conservatives returned to power in ’44 that the stimulus of public interest made the Commissioners redouble their efforts, and in less than ten years they had produced a series of recommendations which are still on record[10]. The shilling was only to count ten pennies, the half-sovereign and the “fiver” being retained at their present value in shillings as the units of gold coinage. There were to be ten inches to the foot, three and a third feet to the yard, and a thousand yards to the mile. The hundredweight would contain its exact 100 pounds, and the ton would weigh twenty-five hundredweight, or a hundred quarters—and so on. The scruple, the noggin, the chaldron, the hogshead, the gill, the pipe, and the rod, pole or perch disappeared altogether. Mr. Holroyd was not of that narrow, factious spirit which would refuse to adopt a measure because that measure had been first suggested by an opponent. It was characteristic of the man that, when he was elevated to the peerage, he selected FAS EST ET AB HOSTE DOCERI for his family motto. The programme was adopted, not in the form of a private member’s Bill, but with the full backing of the Front Bench. The whole weight of the Tory opposition was immediately thrown into the scale against it. Readers of _Punch_ will remember the cartoon of Lord Hopedale defending, in classical costume, the walls of Troy Weight against a serried rank of circular shields. The issue was a critical one; the battle was to be fought, not on the merits of the case, but as a test of Party strength. The by-elections had, for some time, been looking ominous; urgent “whips” were broadcasted by the Mechanics of either party; the Tories appealed to popular prejudice by asserting that they were fighting for the tankards of old England; and in many constituencies, it is believed, the whole proposal was obscurely identified with some measure of Temperance reform.