Some of the arguments for and against the substitution of the metric system for the system of weights and measures now in use in this country were summed up at a debate held by the Manchester Society of Chemical Industry last night. Mr J Hoseason was in the chair.

Mr W Thomson was the advocate of the metric system as a simple and scientific standard. After speaking of the share which Commons and Lords had had in discussing the question, he put forward as reasons for a change from existing standards, that the metric system was used by almost all civilised countries, that it would save children a great deal of time and labour at school, and that in all departments of life it would make the calculation of weights and measures an easier and quicker task.

Mr Thomson made many points against present-day methods, and mentioned some of the anomalies of the system – the bushel of potatoes that weighs 224lb in Cornwall but weighs only 84lb in Nottingham, the stone that equalled 14lb in a live animal but only 8lb when the animal was killed, and so forth.

An official of the Bank of England had stated, he said, that if this country had decimal coinage – another reform to be sought – the country would save £20,000 a year in the clerical staffing of its Customs department alone. All those points and many others were explained and elaborated in detail.

Mr J Moore, of the Weights and Measures Association, took the opposite side. He asked why it was that America, one of the most pushful and modern of nations, had stuck to the inch and foot and pound as standards. He argued, moreover, that though the metric system was made compulsory by law in several European countries, the tendency of manufacturers and others is those countries was to get back to the British standard. In France, he said, there was more manufacturing done in units other than metric units than there was in metric units.

In the woollen industry of France there was the English system; it was the same in the linen and, with a few exceptions, in the cotton industry. The change was simply the survival of the fittest. In Germany, too, several large chambers of commerce were agitating to get the mark divided other than decimally as a means of facilitating “the giving of change.” Mr Moore went into a long defence of English methods as they are, though he admitted that some improvements were necessary and were being sought by the Weights and Measures Association.