DAVIS. — CERTAIN OLD CHINESE NOTES. 277 



silver. To further the circulation of these latter notes, which were of 

 large denominations, it was ordained that in all payments exceeding 

 ten kwans, use should be made of notes to the extent of at least one 

 half. The career of these silver notes was short, the depreciation 

 rapid, and the total disappearance from circulation a matter of but 

 a few years. Failure of the government to provide for their redemp- 

 tion is the alleged cause, but the rapidity of the decline suggests 

 inflation. 



So far as it might be revealed by an examination of the phraseology 

 of the inscriptions upon certain actual notes, and also upon a few of 

 the representations of notes in the Chinese numismatical work which 

 has been referred to, there was no effort made to inform the holder 

 of the note, whether it was a seven-year, a three-year, or a one-year 

 note, or indeed whether it was redeemable at any time or at any place. 

 It is difficult to conceive, how the currency of notes could have been 

 affected by failure on the part of the government to provide redemp- 

 tions if no such agreement was to be found on the face of the note. 

 The specimens and the pictorial representations, with their inscrip- 

 tions to the effect that they were to be received as so much copper or 

 so much silver, closely resemble in substance, though not of course 

 in appearance, the fiat-money made use of in Massachusetts during 

 the first half of the eighteenth century. 



The temptation is strong to assert on the strength of this examina- 

 tion that there were no notes containing a redemption clause. Bushel), 

 however, translates an inscription on a Kin note of 1214, to the effect 

 that it was redeemable at certain offices, and Saburo quoting from a 

 Chinese historian also asserts that certain of the Kin notes were 

 redeemable on demand. These notes were emitted by the Tartars 

 during their participation in the contest with the Southern Sung 

 dynasty. 



It is not of importance to follow the meagre details of the various 

 emissions placed at our command by Chinese historians. It is not 

 possible to fix the time when the government awoke to the fact that 

 they could in an emergency emit an unsecured and unprotected paper 

 currency at will. A versatile nation would have made the experiment 

 long before the Chinese did, but this people were fixed in their habits 

 and followed year after year and century after century the customs 

 of their ancestors. It is evident, however, that under pressure of wars 

 and the need of money to purchase supplies and to pay the soldiers, 

 fiat-money was finally issued, only to be followed by depreciation and 

 monetary troubles. Morse says, " For the twelfth and the first half of 



