Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/236

Rh system, and as the ratio stood at five to one, whereas the ratio then in Europe was fifteen to one, it resulted that the foreigner acquired the right of purchasing gold with silver in Japan at one-third of the former metal's silver price in the Occident. To state the facts more explicitly: the treaty enabled foreigners to buy with one hundred and twenty-five dollar-cents—or six shillings worth of silver—four Japanese silver tokens (called bu), which, in the Japanese coinage system, were exchangeable for a gold coin (called koban) intrinsically worth eighteen shillings. Of course the treaty could not have been framed with the deliberate intention of securing to foreigners such an unjust advantage. As a result, partly of long isolation and chiefly of currency debasements made to replenish the Treasury, the precious metals were not connected in Japan by the relation governing their inter- changeable values in Europe, and foreign statesmen, when negotiating commercial treaties with her, cannot be supposed to have had any idea of holding her to that particular outcome of her isolation and inexperience. Indeed, the treaty did not create any explicit right of the kind, for although it provided that foreign coins should be exchangeable against Japanese, weight for weight, it contained no provision as to the denominations of Japanese coins or the ratio of the precious metals in the Japanese monetary system. The Japanese Government,