are doing to the solvency of the country, adopt every means to circulate these depreciated coins. Until quite lately the circulation of nickel pieces was confined to the capital and the vicinity of two or three Treaty ports, the old copper cash being current elsewhere. With a view to extending their use, however, the magistrates throughout the Empire were ordered to accept redemption of taxes only in this currency. But as wages are generally paid in the nickel currency, and as the purchasing power of the nickel Korean dollar is less than half it was with copper cash, while the standard of payment remains the same, the bulk of the nation is paid no better than formerly, while the purchasing power of their earnings is infinitely less. There appears no prospect of any immediate improvement, since the Government contracted for the issue of a further forty million nickels. With this accomplished, the face value of the coinage in circulation, as against the Japanese gold yen, will be fourteen million yen, or nearly one million and a half pounds sterling. There is, of course, no gold or silver reserve with which to redeem this gigantic sum.
To such a pitch has this condition of affairs attained that in Chemulpo quotations are current for:—
- (1) Government nickels;
- (2) First-class counterfeits;
- (3) Medium counterfeits; and
- (4) Those passable only after dark.
There is little wonder, therefore, that the currency question is engaging the earnest attention of the foreign representatives. Awakening at last to some sense of its responsibilities in this matter, the Japanese Government issued, on November 7th, 1902, an Imperial ordinance, which came
