Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/24

 to exist. The first duty of a centralised, progressive administration should have been to reform the currency: to substitute uniform and sound media of exchange for these unsecured tokens, which hampered trade, destroyed credit, and opposed barriers to commercial intercourse between neighbouring provinces and districts. The political leaders of the time appreciated that duty, but instead of proceeding to discharge it, they saw themselves compelled by stress of circumstances to adopt the very device which, in the hands of the feudal chiefs, had produced such bad results. It was an irksome necessity, and the new Government sought to relieve its conscience and preserve its moral prestige by pretending that the object of the issue was to encourage wealth-earning enterprise, and that the notes would be lent to the fiefs for the purpose of promoting commerce and industry. The people appraised these euphemisms at their true worth, and the new notes fell to a discount of fifty per cent. Then ensued a brief but sharp struggle between rulers and ruled. The Government resorted to arbitrary measures, sometimes of great severity, to force its notes into circulation at par with silver. But there was no continuity of policy. One day, men were imprisoned for discounting paper tokens; the next, they were released. In December the authorities officially recognised a depreciation of twenty per cent; in the following April they withdrew the recogni-