THE HISTORY OF COMMERCE
copper, and iron were struck, though it must be noted that neither the silver nor the gold tokens were made from metal produced in Japan. From a commercial point of view it may be said that the first coinage operations took place during the Wado era (708 A.D), and that the tokens then struck were almost entirely of copper. A silver piece was, indeed, issued, but in quantity too limited to affect general transactions of trade. Interesting and suggestive measures were adopted by the authorities to put an end to the method of barter hitherto in vogue, and to induce the people to accept the new coins as media of exchange, measures evidently dictated by economical principles of Chinese origin. One imperial edict urged farmers and merchants to appraise their products and commodities in terms of the new tokens, of which the unit was a mon (cash), and promised that steps of official rank should be given to persons who accumulated stores of copper cash; a second made the possession of a fortune of six thousand cash an essential preliminary to promotion in office; a third directed that land sales effected by process of barter, and not by transfer of coin, would involve confiscation of the land; a fourth ordered travellers to carry a stock of coin instead of a store of goods for defraying the expenses of their journey; and a fifth enacted that taxes might be received in coin instead of in kind. Such legislation was quickly followed by the consequences that might natur-
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