THE HISTORY OF COMMERCE
by Japan from her neighbour were always intrinsically more trustworthy than those struck by herself, and the people showed their appreciation of the fact by circulating the former at four times the exchange value of the latter. Strenuous efforts were made by the Government to prevent such discrimination. It seems to have been regarded as a species of lèse-majesté that a farmer or a trader, a "common fellow," should venture to prefer a foreign coin to a domestic, or, in the matter of Japanese tokens, should exercise a right of choice between pieces which, whatever their variations of intrinsic value, were uniformly franked by sovereign sanction. Of course the victory ultimately rested with the people. Many were scarred in the fight, and carried to their graves stigmata branded on their cheeks by official irons; others paid the penalty of three days' exposure on the public highway, and had the chagrin of seeing every member of their village fined for their sin of "shroffing." But in Tokugawa days the Government abandoned the fight, and Chinese cash were definitely recognised as possessing four times the value of their Japanese contemporaries.
Many notices of the price officially fixed for rice are found in the old chronicles. Almost without exception it was one cash (mon) per go, or a thousand cash per koku. This very convenient assessment at once suggests an important fact; namely, that rice itself was a standard of value.
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