§ MR. ALDERMAN SALOMONSsaid, he would beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If, in the Trial of the Pyx which had just been made, Australian sovereigns coined at the Branch of the Royal Mint at Sydney were submitted for assay, and if the quality of such sovereigns was equal to those coined at Tower Hill?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEOUERstated, in reply, that the Australian sovereign was not a legal tender or part of the coin in this Realm, and was not, therefore, by law or usage subject to the trial of the Pyx conducted under the auspices of the Goldsmiths' Company, and did not receive the benefit, whatever the benefit was of that ordeal. There was a period when the trial of the Pyx was considered one on which the country could depend for the goodness and adequacy of the coin, which there now existed sufficient means of ascertaining independent of that trial. It must not. however, on this account be supposed that Australian sovereigns were submitted to no trial, for they were as sayed regularly by the Royal Mint, and he believed that the result was most satisfactory, and that those sovereigns were found on every occasion fully equal to the standard coin.
§ MR. ALDERMAN SALOMONSgave notice that he would, early in next Session, bring this subject under the notice of the House.