Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/235

Rh to foreign officials, diplomatic and consular, serving in Japan. It is necessary now to consider the impression conveyed to the Japanese by the incidents of foreign trade and by the behaviour of those engaged in it.

From the very outset a troublesome complication occurred in the field of commerce. In order to conduct tradal operations in a country with an altogether special monetary system such as Japan had, some arrangements were necessary with regard to tokens of exchange. The plan pursued by the Dutch at the Deshima factory in Nagasaki from the seventeenth century had been based on the weight of precious metal contained in Japanese coins, independently of their denominations, and without any attempt to bring about the circulation of foreign monetary tokens. The same system, so far as concerned weight, was adopted in 1858, but was supplemented by a provision that foreign coins should have currency in Japan. Foreign coins, the treaty said, must pass current for corresponding weights in Japanese coins of the same kind,—gold for gold, silver for silver,—and, during a period of one year after the opening of the ports, the Yedo Government was pledged to furnish to foreigners Japanese coins in exchange for foreign, equal weights being given and no discount taken for recoinage. This arrangement altogether ignored the ratio between the precious metals in the Japanese coinage