Of late years, the European governments of
Java made various injudicious attempts to establish
a paper currency in that island. The want of
credit and stability in these governments themselves,
and the excessive issues of notes, occasioned
to the public the greatest confusion and distress.
The notes were often at a discount in the market,
which reduced them to a fifteenth part of their nominal
value. The establishment of a paper currency,
notwithstanding these failures, would be
productive of much advantage as a measure of economy
to the state, and of facility and dispatch in
commercial transactions. In framing regulations
for such currency, the ignorance, supineness, and
inexperience of the great bulk of the native population
should be considered, The notes should be confined
to large payments,—they should be convertible
into gold or silver at pleasure,—they should be
fabricated with a skill adequate to defeat the clumsy
forgeries of the Chinese ; and the inscription
might, as well with this view, as for general information,
be in the Chinese, in two native languages,
and an European one.
UVf