asking for Hong Kong dollars to be printed and kept in readiness for re-establishment of British rule. However, when the war ended, the nearest stocks of Hong Kong dollars were in Columbo and the British administration had no choice but to allow (what the British official history of the Second World War calls) "depreciating" Japanese yen to continue in circulation. Stocks of ven were seized and inted from by the Government from Japanese plates. These were then over-printed for use as emergency currency.
It proved unnecessary to issue these as stocks of Hong Kong dollars began arriving on 12 September. On 13 September the Japanese yen was demonetized.
5.
On 23 November 1945, the FCO sent a telegram to Hong Kong and Malaya which included questions on what currencies the Japanese put into circulation, the quantity of currency issued and the extent to which it was issued for pure spoliation of the population. I have been unable to find a reply to this enquiry. However, an inward telegram from Hong Kong of 8 April 1946 notes
An
"No Imperial yen held by Administration or to the best of our knowledge by individuals. Not, however, considered desirable for political reasons to make detailed enquiries."
FCO telegram to Tokyo of 29 October 1946 gives the known holdings of Japanese yen, including that held privately, in Malaya and Singapore but makes no mention of holdings in Hong Kong. This would seem to suggest that there was no major effort to quantify the amount of military yen in circulation.
6.
The Far East Commission, an inter-Allied body responsible for policy formulation in occupied Japan, issued a policy statement, SC-042, on yen notes held outside Japan on 18 September 1946. This stated that:
On
"No Japanese currency held outside Japan whether by Governments or
by individuals, however acquired, should be converted into Japanese legal tender."
the basis of this and the opinion Office members involved in this issue, the FCO, in September 1949, proposed that the Custodian of Enemy Property in Malaya and Deputy-Paymaster FARELF (?) destroy their considerable holdings of Japanese military yen. The destruction of ordinary Imperial currency was going to be considered again after six months. This leads me to conclude that military yen which the Japanese had declared to be the unit of currency in Hong Kong, were considered worthless and never converted.
7.
Peace
There is nothing in immediately available files on the Treaty which makes any mention of holdings of yen in former Japanese-occupied territories. There is a telegram of 27 December 1946, from the War Office to SEALF, which states that Imperial yen should be held pending the outcome of a reparations
conference.
However, as Mr Bradley notes, the holding of currency had probably changed considerably in the few months after the end of the war due to the activities of spectulators and it would seem unlikely that any serious proposals can have been put forward to deal with the currency in a reparations conference after December 1947. I, therefore, very much doubt if it became an issue during the run up to the conclusion of the 1951 peace Treaty.
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