ABSTRACT
CHANGES IN THE SYSTEM OF FOREIGN TRADE AT NAGASAKI.-In the later years the Portuguese were driven out of foreign trade at Nagasaki by the Dutch and the Chinese merchants, who consequently monopolized trading with the Japanese at Nagasaki. At first foreign trade at Nagasaki was a free trade, and every merchant, foreign and Japanese, was given an equal opportunity in trading there, but there soon grew up systems by which the freedom of trade was limited. When the Portuguese came first to Nagasaki to trade with the Japanese, trading there was perfectly free, except that under a system called Ito Warifu Ho or Silk Checking System, which was then in force, the raw silk business was handled co-operatively only by those merchants specially licensed by the Shogunate. The same system was later adopted for other imported merchandise at Nagasaki. In 1655, the 1st year of Meireki, however, the Shogunate discontinued the Ito Warifu Ho, and adopted instead another system, whereby the perfect freedom of trade was assured. But under the free trading system the prices of the imported articles tended to go up, and the Shogunate discontinued it in 1672, the 12th year of Kwanbun and adopted in its place another system called Shiho Baibai, or Municipal Trading, under which all the imported goods were purchased from the foreign traders by the Nagasaki Kaisho, a sort of a chamber of commerce at Nagasaki, which then resold them to the Japanese merchants. This system, in its turn, was discontinued in 1682, the 2nd year of Teikyo, and the old Ito Warifu Ho was again revived. In the same year the Tokugawa Shogunate, surprised by the increasing excess of imports over exports in the trade turnover at Nagasaki, attempted to check the growth of foreign trade in that port. The value of the trade by the Chinese ships at Nagasaki was limited by order to 8,000 kwamme in silver, and that by the Dutch ships to 50,000 ryo in gold a year. In 1688, the 1st year of Genroku, the Shogunate limited the number of Chinese ships entering the port of Nagasaki to 70 a year, which, however, was increased to 80 in 1698, the I rth year of Genroku. Two years later the number of Dutch ships entering the port of Nagasaki was limited also by order to four or five a year. The currency revision carried out by the Tokugawa Shogunate in the era of Genroku, whereby the currency was debased,
as had been stated elsewhere, did a good deal to rob the Japanese of profit in the trade with the Dutch merchants.
