CHAPTER XXXVIII
Further Decline of the Dutch Trade—Degradation of the Japanese Coins—The Dutch threaten to withdraw from Japan—Restrictions on the Chinese Trade—Probable Cause of the Policy adopted by the Japanese—Drain of the Precious Metals—New Basis upon which Future Trade must be arranged.
Notwithstanding the lamentations uttered by Kämpfer in the name of the Dutch factors, the trade to Japan had by no means in his time reached its lowest level, and it was subjected soon after his departure to new and more stringent limitations.
In the year 1696 appeared a new kind of koban. The old koban was twenty carats eight and a half, and even ten, grains fine; that is, supposing it divided into twenty-four parts, twenty parts and a half were fine gold.[35] The new koban was thirteen carats six or seven grains fine, containing, consequently, only two-thirds as much gold as the old one, and yet the Dutch were required to receive it at the same rate of sixty-eight mas of silver.
The old koban had returned on the coast of Coromandel a profit of twenty-five per cent, the new produced a loss of fifteen or sixteen per cent; but some of the old koban being still paid over at the same rate as the new, some profits continued to be derived from the gold, till, in 1710, the Japanese made a still more serious change in their coin, by reducing the weight of the koban nearly one-half, from forty-seven kanderins (two hundred and seventy-four grains) to twenty-five kanderins (one hundred and forty-six grains), which, as the Dutch were still obliged to receive these new koban at the rate of sixty-eight mas, caused a loss of from thirty-four to thirty-six per cent. From this time the old koban passed as double koban, being reckoned at twice their former weight. The koban of the coinage of 1730 were about five per cent better than the preceding ones; but the Dutch trade continued rapidly to decline, especially after the exportation of copper was limited, in 1714, to fifteen thousand chests, or piculs, and, in 1721, to ten thousand piculs annually. From this time, two ships sufficed for the Dutch trade.
For thirty years previous to 1743, the annual gross profits on the Japanese trade had amounted to five hundred thousand florins (two hundred thousand dollars), and some years to six hundred thousand (two hundred and forty thousand dollars); but in 1743 they sunk below two hundred thousand florins (eighty thousand dollars), which was the annual cost of maintaining the establishment at Deshima.
Upon this occasion, a “Memoir on the Trade of Japan, and the Causes of its Decline,” was drawn up by Imhoff, at that time governor-general at Batavia, which affords information on the change in the value of the koban, and other matters relating to the Dutch trade to Japan, not elsewhere to be found.[36] It is apparent from his memoir that the trade was not managed with the sagacity which might have been expected from private merchants. The cargoes were ill assorted, and did not correspond to the requisitions of the Japanese. They, on the other hand, had repeatedly offered several new articles of export, which the Company had declined, because, in the old routine of their trade, no profitable market appeared for these articles at the prices asked for them.
The Dutch attempted to frighten the Japanese by threatening to close their factory altogether, but this did not produce much effect, and, since the date of Imhoff’s memoir, the factory appears not to have done much more than to pay its expenses. That the Japanese were not very anxious for foreign trade, appears by their having restricted the Chinese, previous to 1740, to twenty junks annually, and at a subsequent period to ten junks.
The Dutch imagined that the above-mentioned changes in the coins of Japan were made solely with a view to their trade and to curtail their profits. Raffles suggests, on the other hand, that this degradation of the Japanese coins was the natural result of the immense export of the precious metals, which, in the course of the two hundred years from 1540 to 1740, must have drained Japan of specie to the value of perhaps not less than two hundred millions of dollars. The exports of foreign nations, as we have seen, were almost entirely metallic, and the mines of Japan were by no means so productive as to be able to withstand this constant drain. The export of silver was first stopped. Then gold was raised to such a value as effectually to stop the exportation of that, and restrictions were, at the same time, put upon the exportation of copper. This sagacious conjecture of Raffles is confirmed by a tract on the Origin of the Riches of Japan, written, in 1708, by Arai Chikugo-no-Kami [Arai Hakuseki], a person of high distinction at the emperor’s court, of which the original was brought to Europe by Titsingh, and of which Klaproth has given a translation, in the second volume of the “Nouveau Journal Asiatique.” The author of this tract states, perhaps from official documents, the amount of gold and silver exported from Nagasaki, from 1611 to 1706, as follows: Gold, 6,192,600 koban; silver, 112,268,700 taels. Of this amount, 2,397,600 koban and 37,420,900 taels of silver had been exported since 1646. The exports of copper from 1663 to 1708 are stated at 1,114,446,700 katties.
This export is represented as having commenced in the time of Nobunaga,[37] when the mines of Japan had first begun to be largely productive, and, previous to 1611, to have been much greater than afterwards, which is ascribed by this author in part to the amounts sent out of the country, by the Catholic natives, to purchase masses for their souls. Much alarm is expressed lest, with the decreased product of the mines, and continual exportation, Japan should be reduced to poverty. Titsingh ascribes the origin of this tract to the extravagance of the reigning emperor, which it was desired to check by good advice; but the exportation of the precious metals by foreigners is evidently the point aimed at.
View of Hakone
Lake Biwa
“There goes out of the empire annually,” says this writer, “about one hundred and fifty thousand koban, or a million and a half in ten years. It is, therefore, of the highest importance to the public prosperity to put a stop to these exportations, which will end in draining us entirely. Nothing is thought of but the procuring foreign productions, expensive stuffs, elegant utensils, and other things not known in the good old times. Since Gongen, gold, silver, and copper have been abundantly produced; unfortunately the greater part of this wealth has gone for things we could have done quite as well without. The successors of Gongen ought to reflect upon this, in order that the wealth of the empire may be as lasting as the heavens and the earth.” Ideas like those broached in this tract seem to be the basis of the existing policy of Japan on the subject of foreign trade; and, independently of this, the failure of the Japanese mines renders any return to the old system of the Portuguese and Dutch traffic quite out of the question. Japan has no longer gold and silver to export, and if a new trade is to be established with her, it must be on an entirely new basis, the exports to consist of something else than metallic products.