DOLLAR CERTIFICATES AND THE SECOND NATIONAL BANK.
The privilege of issuing dollar certificates
was first granted to the Yokohama Kawase Kwaisha
in March, 1870, in order to satisfy a want felt
by Yokohama traders, who, not being accustomed
to the use of bills issued by foreign banks, were
cheated by forged bills, and to whom the actual
carrying about of dollars in their pockets was burdensome.
The original certificates were made by the Tsushioshi
(the Board of Trade). They were poor in design and material.
Hence, through the medium of tiie Oriental Banking
Corporation, the manufacture of s. 10, 20, 50, 100,
5oo, and 1000 dollar certificates, to the amount of
1,5oo,ooo dollars, was ordered from
Perkins &Bacons, of London; the old H'a were
withdrawn after the arrival of the new ones
from England. The plan was to issue the
certificates to the full amount for dollars
received froii foreign banks in payment of
bills presented
to them by exporters. The Government
exercised the utmost watchfulness over
these transactions, insisting on seeing
whether dcllan, were reserved as declared,
and even going so far as t j seal up all the
reserve except 6o.ckx) yen which was left to
meet casual demands. Under the National Bank Act
of 1872, the above-mentioned company
transformed itself into the Second National Bank,
and although the issue of notes except bank notes
was pro- habited by the act, the practical need felt
among Yokohama traders made it impossible to do away
at c nee with the dollar certificates. An act was
passed in 1874, Law No. 100. to regulate them. by
this act Government bonds or land certificates to
tiie amount of one-third of the circulation had to
be invested in the Treasury, and it was consequently
ordered that the business of the certificate department
should be clearly separated from the general banking business.
Though these certificates circulated fairly well, and very few,
as shown in the table on following pages, were actually presented
for conversion, they became no longer admissible after the
of the Convertible Bank Note Act (Law No. 18) in May, 1884,
according to which the issue of the
certificates was to cease within a year.
