Dirty Little Bank Notes

Strong Protest From French Oceania

a RESIDENT of French Oceania sends A us a packet of extremely bat tered and bedraggled bank-notes; ind, in terms of great anger and indigna iion, asks why the people of the French erritories should be forced to handle ‘this filthy and disease-laden stuff” by ‘that soulless monopoly, the Banque de indochine.”

Our correspondent sends us two 2-franc ind one 20-franc notes; and we must ad nit that they are in the last stages of lirt and disintegration.

“We daily have seen the butcher carv ng a joint; and then, to give change, lauling off two or three notes for us. We lave seen the baker doing the same thing. !n the one case, one boils the meat and he dirt, and renders it harmless; but in he case of the bread, one eats the germs •aw!”

He adds that in October they had a vide epidemic of grippe; in January an mtbreak of measles; and now they were acing a suspected epidemic of polio.

“We are officially advised to do all kinds >f things to preserve cleanliness,” he says. ‘But there is not one word about the nenace of disease being carried by these mtrid banknotes. . . . This condition of iff airs should be brought under the notice >f the health section of the South Paci ic Commission.”

The Banque de Indochine cannot be )lamed for the condition of the bank lotes; but it might be worth while inquir ng as to who is responsible for the issue if banknotes of sucn absurdly small de lominations A Pacific franc is worth less han 2d. Australian; and no properly con rolled currency should have paper tokens if a lesser face value than 5/-. Amounts if less than 5/- move very rapidly in a rading population, and even the best iaper (and the paper of the French bank’s lotes is not very good) will not stand up o the wear and tear. Nearly all countries lave coins of cheap metal as tokens of mall value, and—even if the coins collect ome dirt in the same way as paper—they ;ertainly do not appear dirty, and they lo not become dilapidated.