Parliamentary Bills
| DOI | 10.1177/002201836302700209 |
| Published date | 01 April 1963 |
| Date | 01 April 1963 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Parliamentary
Bills
A Parliamentary Bill
does
not always reach the Statute Book. Bills are
frequently amended before
becoming
Acts
of
Parliament. This section should be
read accordingly.
WEIGHTS
AND MEASURES
BILL
THE existing United Kingdom primary standardsof
the
yard
and
the
pound, which are the basic standards of length
and weight, are physical.
They
are, in fact, a bronze bar and a
platinum cylinder. Authoritative copies are kept at
the
Royal
Mint,
the
Royal Society,
the
Royal Greenwich Observatory,
the
Board of
Trade
and further copies are immured in
the
Palace of Westminster.
The
Bill provides
that
the
yard or metre shall be
the
unit
of measurement of length and
the
pound or kilogramme the
unit
of measurement of mass, and
that
the yard shall be
0.9144 metre and
the
pound 0.45359237 kilogramme.
Metre
and kilogramme "shall have the meaning from time to time
assigned by order of the Board being
the
meaning appearing
to
the
Board to reproduce in English
the
international defi-
nition of
the
metrejkilogramme in force at
the
date of making
of
the
order."
The
yard and pound will accordingly become variable
factors, depending on
the
current interpretation of
the
inter-
national definition by
the
Board of Trade.
This
may seem an
alarming prospect,
but
there is soothing assurance from
the
statement of
the
President of
the
Board of
Trade
that
the
metre has recently been defined in terms of
the
wavelength of
the
light of Krypton-86,
that
well-known isotope of an inert
gas discovered by Ramsey.
Two
Schedules list units of measurement of volume,
weight and capacity and linear, square and cubic measures
as
the
only ones
that
may be used for trade.
The
rod, pole
and perch is omitted and
the
bushel, peck and pennyweight
will disappear in five years.
The
Board of
Trade
may alter
the
Schedules.
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