Shedding Shillings

No one has ever been able to discover exactly how, when or even why the British decided to divide a pound of silver into 20 shillings and 240 pence, but everyone agrees that the system is a bedeviling bother. It irritates international bankers, confuses tourists and even sends British shoppers away muttering in frustration. To escape from its complicated structure (-L-2 8s. 6d. for a bottle of Scotch), many Commonwealth and former Commonwealth countries are switching to the decimal currency system used by 95% of the world's people. Barbados and other sterling bloc territories in the British West Indies converted in 1955, South Africa in 1961. The Bahamas will switch this year, New Zealand next year. Even Britain is considering a change.

Last week, after five years of planning and preparation, Australia took the plunge into decimals. The government tried to make the transition as painless as possible, preceded it with a long education campaign. To replace the Australian pound, it picked as the new major unit the dollar, which will be valued at half a pound and will be circulated in denominations of $1, $2, $10 and $20. In turn, there will be 100 pennies to the dollar, coined in 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500 pieces. As conversion day--or C-day--drew near, the government launched a radio, television and press campaign to explain the conversion, mailed out millions of booklets and hired "Dollar Jills" in dozens of cities to answer questions by telephone. The old pounds, shillings and pence will continue as legal tender for another two years.

When C-day finally arrived last week, many Aussies still could not make head or tail of the new money. Store clerks and customers bickered over conversions, and some stores, having advertised in the new dollars, switched back to sterling when business fell off. Commuters, confused by small-change transactions on buses, tossed their odd pennies out of the windows while crossing Sydney Harbor Bridge. Most of the country's 500,000 coin-handling and tabulating machines, from pay telephones to cash registers, still have to be changed, a move that will be made over the next two years with about $60.5 million in aid from the government.

Still, the turnover went more smoothly than anyone had hoped and, in a light mood, Australians did a little coining of their own. The 20 piece, which has Queen Elizabeth's profile on one side and a frilled-neck Australian lizard on the other, was nicknamed "the Twin Lizzie." The 100 piece, imprinted with the Australian lyrebird, was called "the fib." The 200 piece, which features a waterlogged-looking platypus, became "the Holt"--after Prime Minister Harold Holt, an avid beach enthusiast.

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