Kim loai tien Nhat Ban va chuyen bien kinh te - xa hoi Dang Ngoai the ky XVII (tiep theo va het). (Vietnamese)

The second part of this paper examines the impact of the Japanese monetary metals (silver and copper coins) imported by the Dutch, Chinese and so forth on the economy and society of the seventeenth-century Tonkin, focusing on three major aspects: the fluctuation of the silver/cash ratio, the impact on prices, and the impact on labour. Based on the figure of Japanese silver and zeni imported by the VOC as well as the comparative graph of the fluctuation of the silver/cash ratio during the period 1637-1697, it is concluded that the great amount of silver the VOC shipped to Tonkin prior to the early 1650’s contributed greatly to the fall of the silver/cash exchange rate. The import of Japanese zeni, however, helped revive the tumbling ration and stabilized the exchange ratio in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Similarly, the price of both provisions and commodities also rose and fell at some certain periods owing partly to the fluctuation of the exchange rate and partly to the condition of the harvest. Yet, the general trend of price was relatively stable in the long run. For the most part of the seventeenth century, the number of labours employed in the silk handicraft industry depended closely on the amount of money the Dutch and other foreign merchants brought to Tonkin during the trading season, Deduced from the Dutch description of the annual amount of silk produced in Tonkin, it is estimated that, by the early 1640s, at least 45,000 people (around 1 per cent of the population of Tonkin) were employed, either fully of partly, in the silk industry in order to produce 90 tons of raw silk, not to mention another considerable number of people working as weavers, bleachers, dyers, and so forth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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