Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/163

 dred and thirty-three days' supply of rice for an adult.

It is generally found, in comparing ancient times with modern, that the advantage is on the side of the former in cheapness of living. The opposite appears to have been the case in Japan. During the eighth century the ten days' labour which a farmer had to perform annually to official order was declared commutable for fifteen mon; in the ninth century the figure was doubled, and under Tokugawa rule labour was assessed at five mon per diem, the equivalent of five go of rice, or the quantity consumed by an adult male of the working class. At present, a labourer's daily wage is at least forty sen, which purchases twenty-seven or twenty-eight go of rice. Thus a day's work procures from five to six days' sustenance now, whereas formerly it only produced one day's sustenance at most. On the other hand, a thousand mon being the fourth part of a ryo, which was equivalent to thirty-two shillings, it follows that a koku of rice cost only eight shillings in ancient times, whereas to-day it costs about thirty shillings.

The coins spoken of above are those that circulated among the lower orders of the people until very recent times, and among all orders until the last quarter of the sixteenth century—rough copper tokens such as may now be seen in China, where a coolie trundling a wheelbarrow laden with strings of cash is an every-day spec-