日本軍占領下のビルマにおけるインフレについて ()

 

永井先生

GHOCのMarket Historian宛に以下のメールを送りました。

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Dear Sir,

I am writing this email to inquire about the information you published in the freely-accessible part of your GHOC site.

My name is ****, a Japanese biological scientist working in Germany. I am participating in a web-based discussion forum about Japanese military comfort women system during WWII, and one of the topic we are investigating at the moment is about how inflation and economy affected lives of comfort women. One of the case we picked up from WWII records was so called "Japanese Prisoner of War Interrogation Report No. 49" published by the psychological warfare team of the US office of war information (dated October 1, 1944) . The full English text is accessible in our web site (Other parts of our site is mostly in Japanese).

http://ianhu.g.hatena.ne.jp/keyword/Japanese%20Prisoner%20of%20War%20Interrogation%20Report%20No%2e%2049%2e?kid=4#p1

• quote

PREFACE

This report is based on the information obtained from the interrogation of twenty Korean "comfort girls" and two Japanese civilians captured around the tenth of August, 1944 in the mopping up operations after the fall of Myitkyin a in Burma.

The report shows how the Japanese recruited these Korean "comfort girls", the conditions under which they lived and worked, their relations with and reaction to to the Japanese soldier, and their understanding of the military situation.

A "comfort girl" is nothing more than a prostitute or "professional camp follower" attached to the Japanese Army for the benefit of the soldiers. The word "comfort girl" is peculiar to the Japanese. Other reports show the "comfort girls" have been found wherever it was necessary for the Japanese Army to fight. This report however deals only with the Korean "comfort girls" recruited by the Japanese and attached to their Army in Burma. The Japanese are reported to have shipped some 703 of these girls to Burma in 1942.

• end of quote

In the main part of the text, there are information on the payment "comfort girls" received from the military-associated manager of the "comfort house". We are trying to evaluate the value of the wage, but we are confused by the parallel use of several different currencies (Burma rupee, Japanese Military Yen, Southern Development bank rupees) and also inflation that was constantly affecting the actual value of the money they received.

For this reason, we started to study the monetary system in Burma during the Japanese Occupation period. One of the information we could access was your GHOC site. In the web page for the Myanmar, we found the following useful description:

• quote:

When invading Burma during the Second World War, from about 31 January 1942, Japanese forces initially carried Japanese military dollars issued in Malaya. A decree of the Japanese military administration dated 1 May 1942 stated that Japanese military dollars would continue to be legal tender. By the same decree, the Japanese military rupee (BUG) became a decimal currency. By the regulation of 15 March 1943, the Burmese rupee continued to be legal tender, as a Japanese tactic to win local support, but the rupee was inconvertible into pound sterling. Limited amounts of (Burmese) Indian rupees were apparently accepted by the Japanese at 4 (Burmese) Indian rupees = 1 Japanese military rupee. The prewar exchange rate had been about 1.3 Japanese yen = 1 (Burmese) Indian rupee. On 1 May 1942, the Japanese military commander-in-chief in Burma declared that Japanese military dollars for Malaya and Singapore would also be allowed to circulate in Burma.

The Japanese also created the Burma State Bank on January 15, 1944 to issue banknotes. The Japanese divided the Rupee into 100 cents, whereas the British had divided the Rupee into 16 Annas as in India. The British demonetized Japanese occupation currency on 1 May 1945. The market exchange rate had fallen to 100 Southern Development Bank rupees = 1 Indian rupee.

• end of quote

We compared this information available in Japanese resources and most of them could be found there. But for two points we could not find elsewhere but in the above text.

(1) " Limited amounts of (Burmese) Indian rupees were apparently accepted by the Japanese at 4 (Burmese) Indian rupees = 1 Japanese military rupee. "

Was this the official rate stated by the Japanese military administration? In which report this was mentioned?

(2) "By the regulation of 15 March 1943, the Burmese rupee continued to be legal tender, as a Japanese tactic to win local support, but the rupee was inconvertible into pound sterling. Limited amounts of (Burmese)."

In a Japanese literature we have, titled "Studies on the history of Japanese military administration in Burma" written by Tunezo Ohta (1967), most of the information in the above GHOC text could be also found. However, there could be one mistake, either in your text or Ohta's book. We could not find "the regulation of 15 March 1943" but "the regulation of 15 March 1942", which also states " the Burmese rupee continued to be legal tender, as a Japanese tactic to win local support," in the chapter 27 of the regulation.

Would it be possible for you to see your original information source and check if the year is really 1943?

Thank you very much, and I will be waiting for your answer.

Sincerely,

■ *****