THE HISTORY OF COMMERCE
vogue at that time. Six hundred of them received licences, and no unlicensed person was permitted to pursue the avocation. Four representatives of the chief exchanges met daily and fixed the ratio between silver and gold, the figure being then communicated to the various exchanges and to the Shōgun's officials. As for the prices of gold or silver in terms of copper, or of bank notes, twenty representatives of the exchanges met every evening, and in conjunction with four representatives of the gold and silver exchanges, an official censor also being present, settled the figures[1] for the following day and recorded the amount of transactions during the past twenty-four hours, full information on these points being at once sent to the City Governors and Street Elders. The exchanges in their ultimate form approximated very closely to the Occidental idea of banks. They not only bought gold, silver and copper coins, but they also received money on deposit, made loans, and issued vouchers which played a very important part in commercial transactions. The voucher seems to have come into existence in Japan in the fourteenth century. It originated in the Yoshino market of Yamato province, where the hilly nature of the district rendered the carriage of copper money so arduous that rich merchants began to substitute written receipts and engagements, which quickly became current. Among
- ↑ See Appendix, note 57.
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