session 01 - Bakumatsu currency crisis.md

Keywords

• isolationism, opening up, arbitrage, Gresham's Law.

A Timeline of Events

• see here
• The Currency Museum of the Bank of Japan has its own handy timeline. See here for Japanese.

Points of discussion

• a critical text examination: list the characteristics of Matsukata's report; who is his audience? what does he try to accomplish? how does all this affect our interpretation of his text?
• why could the pre-modern monetary system continue for so long? List the conditions for this; who or what was to gain from this set-up?
• why is it important to know that silver and gold were not mere commodities, but the country's currency as well?
• try to explain how Japan's adoption of the gold standard as a monetary standard is not a neutral event, but reflects the norms associated with a Great-Britain led world-order.
• do you see parallels with other past and/or contemporary happenings?
• The Kanagawa Treaty and the Harris Treaty (together with appendices) can be found in full-text version online (Wikisource contains only parts of the text): make sure to read these originals and point out the relevant articles. Students with a sufficient level of Japanese are strongly invited to consult the Japanese originals on the Wikipedia-pages (including ウィキソース), the Diet Library, or in JACAR.

Note: Japanese era-names tend to confuse even the seasoned historian; for reference, see the following template (and a Japanese equivalent. For a more extensive exploration, see: William Bramsen. 1880. Japanese Chronological Tables. [Printed at the “SeishiBunsha” office]. http://archive.org/details/japanesechronol01bramgoog.

Readings

Note: compulsory readings have been marked in bold

• McMaster, John. 1960. “The Japanese Gold Rush of 1859.” The Journal of Asian Studies 19 (3): 273–87. https://doi.org/10.2307/2943487.
• Metzler, Mark. 2006. Lever of Empire: The International Gold Standard and the Crisis of Liberalism in Prewar Japan. Twentieth-Century Japan 17. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pp. 14-28.
• Ohkura, Takehiko, and Hiroshi Shimbo. 1978. “The Tokugawa Monetary Policy in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” Explorations in Economic History 15 (1): 101–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/0014-4983(78)90040-2.

How arbitrage in the bakumatsu currency crisis worked:

Source: “Currency Museum Bank of Japan - Contents.” n.d. Accessed October 19, 2019. http://www.imes.boj.or.jp/cm/english/history/content/#EarlyModern.

Primary sources

• Alcock, Rutherford. 1863. The Capital of the Tycoon: A Narrative of a Three Years’ Residence in Japan. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. (seek references with respect to gold and silver)
• Griffis, William Elliot. 1895. Townsend Harris, First American Envoy in Japan. Boston, New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Company. http://archive.org/details/townsendharrisf00grifgoog.
• Harris, Townsend. 1959. Complete Journal of Townsend Harris. Rutland, Vt.,: C. E. Tuttle co. http://archive.org/details/completejournalo00harr. (seek references with respect to gold and silver)
• Matsukata, Masayoshi. 1897. Reasons for the Adoption of a Single Gold Standard by the Empire of Japan [Microform]. [S.l. : s.n.]. http://archive.org/details/reasonsforadopti00mats.
• Masayoshi Matsukata. 1899. Report on the Adoption of the Gold Standard in Japan. Printed at the Government press. http://archive.org/details/reportonadoptio00matsgoog. Pp. 1-17.
• Satow, Ernest Mason. 1921. A Diplomat in Japan; the Inner History of the Criticial Years in the Evolution of Japan When the Ports Were Opened and the Monarchy Restored. London : Seeley, Service. http://archive.org/details/diplomatinjapani00sato.
• 佐藤雅美. 2003. 『「大君の通貨―幕末「円ドル」戦争』. 東京: 文藝春秋.

Audiovisual materials

• “銀座　地名の由来～貨幣制度の根幹をなした地 - YouTube.” n.d. Accessed October 1, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqrU5dtf4QA.

Links to other projects, websites, others

• Cullen, Louis M. 2009. “Statistics of Tokugawa Coastal Trade and Bakumatsu and Early Meiji Foreign Trade.” Japan Review, no. 21: 183–223. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25791334.
• Cullen, Louis M. 2010. “Statistics of Tokugawa Coastal Trade and Bakumatsu and Early Meiji Foreign Trade, Part 2: Trade in Bakumatsu and Early Meiji Times.” Japan Review, no. 22: 59–102. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25791342.
• “Apocalypse Now: An Alternate View of the Bakumatsu Years | M. William Steele – Digital Meijis.” n.d. Accessed September 28, 2018. https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/meijiat150/chapter/apocalypse-now-an-alternate-view-of-the-bakumatsu-years-m-william-steele/.
• 鎮目雅人 『銀貨の歴史〜激動の時代をささえた貨幣〜』 早稲田大学現代政治経済研究所〈WINPEC Working Paper〉、2016年、1-14頁。
• 武田晴人 「「両」制度の崩壊――幕末の金流出」、『にちぎん』 (日本銀行)24-27頁、2009年。

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Source: Anonymous, “A Compendium of Events and Record of the Rice Market from 1853 to 1868” (嘉永年間より米相場値段並年代記書抜大新版 Ka’ei nenkan yori bei sōba nedan narabi ni nendaiki kakinuki daishinpan), n.d., but perhaps (?) mid-1868. Source: Hachiro Yuasa Memorial Museum.

Source: As6673. 2008. English: Bunsei-Nanryo-2shu. Own work. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bunsei-nanryo-2shu.jpg. A nishugin 二朱銀 silver piece. Note the explicit reference to its convertibility into gold. This is a clear example of a 'banknote printed on silver'.

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Source: Utagawa Kunimaru, 1865. 「家内楽金銭遊セル図」. This print appears to poke fun at the vagaries of exchange rates among gold, silver, and copper coins in the bakumatsu period.