DAVIS. — CERTAIN OLD CHINESE NOTES. 279 



meetings we should call them. A petition is presented, let us say for 

 the emission of more notes or perhaps for the extension of the area 

 within which certain of the notes were allowed to circulate; or, again, 

 perhaps the emperor may call attention to the evil condition of the 

 currency. After this there follows a discussion of the subject thus 

 raised. The opinion of each of the advisers present and speaking is 

 preserved in the archives and if the historian thinks it worth while 

 is handed down to posterity in his book. 



Saburo quotes from a petition in the twelfth century, in which the 

 petitioner sets forth his opinions as to the causes of the depreciation 

 of the notes and points out the fact that the notes being easily torn and 

 defaced, the people prefer to keep in their possession the copper cash, 

 and consequently get rid of the paper money and hoard the metallic 

 coins. He then adds : " Now that the government has known only the 

 necessity to issue the note and has not known the advisability of redeem- 

 ing them, is the reason why the value of cash is daily enhanced and the 

 note is depreciated proportionally. Hence it is clear that the depreci- 

 ation of the notes is not created by the people, but it is the govern- 

 ment themselves who have created it, and nothing is more consis- 

 tent, in the opinion of this petitioner, than to withdraw part of the 

 notes from circulation, the amount of notes corresponding to the 

 excess in issue, so that in the alternate process of issue and withdrawal, 

 the people may become trained to perceive the necessity of the use 

 of paper and attach value to it, but if it be attempted to check the 

 depreciation of the notes by means of a new issue, not only will it 

 never accomplish the object but it is much to be feared that the notes 

 newly issued will soon share in the same lot as the old ones." Whether 

 the confusion of thought and expression in the foregoing is to be 

 attributed to Saburo or to the petitioner, it is at any rate evident 

 that the underlying opinion of the latter was that inflation was the 

 cause of the depreciation, and that the remedy was a reduction of the 

 amount in circulation, and a restoration of confidence by redemption. 



Another writer quoted by Saburo says that "the greatest evil of 

 the administration of the paper currency consists in too much inflation 

 and the absence of contraction. "This is so much the case that un- 

 limited issue coupled with no withdrawal is often the result. It is 

 too late to discuss the renewing of the issue when the paper is already 

 beginning to fall. The people are choked with it and the paper is 

 speedily depreciated." 



There are numerous recorded opinions indicating that there were 

 from time to time Chinese statesmen of the class of those just quoted, 



