ABSTRACT
HAKUSEKI'S VIEWS ON THE FOREIGN TRADE AT NAGASAKI.-In those days our foreign trade was confined to Nagasaki and Hirado. Foreign merchants who were permitted to trade at these ports were limited to the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Chinese. 'What effect the trade at these places had upon the financial and economic doings of Japan is an important question in our economic history. Nevertheless, very little has been said on this important subject in our past histories, and reliable historical material in this respect, too, is very scanty. The only material relied upon by historians on the subject is the views of Arai Hakuseki, according to whom our foreign trade at these two places was entirely a failure, and the cause of the financial distress from which Japan suffered for many years in the time of the Tokugawa Shogunate. His views, as embodied in his book, Oritaku-Shiba-no-'~i (Fireside Talks), may be outlined as follows :-
Since Hakuseki himself was principally connected with the readjustment of the Shogunate finances in the middle part of the Tokugawa period, and he is as famous as a writer as he is as a statesman, many people believe in his views, which, in consequence, are sometimes exaggerated. It is generally held that a huge amount of gold flowed out of the country on account of our foreign trade, with the consequent result of long-standing financial distress, but that was not necessarily a historical fact.
