AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES. 



difference in the burdens of landed property among the various 

 estates, Hved quietly and in a docile manner, even when the harvest 

 was short and he had to surrender almost the whole crop, so that 

 he and his family were afterwards dependent upon the master's 

 good-will and store-house. 



The arable land was divided into four classes, of which the rice- 

 fields composed the first and most taxable. All returns and 

 revenues were reckoned in koku of rice,^ and those of the other 

 cereals were reduced to the equivalent in rice. A daimio of 

 10,000 koku, accordingly, was a feudal lord whose estate was 

 valued at a total of 10,000 koku of rice, even if a considerable part 

 of this sum was only an equivalent term for other crops. The 

 peasants had to surrender to him after harvest the high fixed per- 

 centage (one-third, one-half, or more) ; the rest was their own. 

 This rice-tax, however, went into the storehouse, from which not ^ 

 only the Daimio and his family, but also the Shogun, the Samurai 

 and priests received their allotted shares. Ten thousand koku, 

 however, was the revenue of the smallest Daimio estates, whereas, 

 the largest, for example, Kaga, with the most extended area (next 

 to the Shogun) was estimated at 1,027,000 koku. 



One of the first efforts of the new Government, after the restora- 

 tion of the Mikado to power, was to introduce a more just and 

 even taxation of landed property, and to substitute money for 

 taxes in kind as a medium of payment. This took place in 1872, 

 by means of a proclamation, for which its originators anticipated 

 great success. But it had the opposite effect upon the peasant 

 class— general discontent and passive resistance against the great 

 innovation, and in the following two years even excited public 

 tumults in certain provinces. These were, however, soon put 

 down ; and the great dislike to the changes also came gradually to 

 an end among thoughtful people. Nevertheless it is an interesting 

 question, What was the cause of such conduct on the part of a 

 class usually so obedient and subservient ? The right answer to it 

 was given in 1873 by Kido, one of the most prominent and acute 

 of the Mikado's supporters and advisers at the time of the restor- 

 ation. In a memorandum, in which he criticises sharply the revo- 

 lution of all things by new laws and ordinances, he writes: ''Another 

 evil is, that the laws are repealed without sufficient deliberation. 

 That which was yesterday accounted just, is condemned to-day ; 

 and even before a new statute comes into operation, another follows 

 and partly supersedes it. It must naturally be hard for the people 

 to reconcile all this." A number of regulations, some of them 

 ridiculous in the extreme, had been, in single ken, added to the 

 new and energetic laws, like the revenue reform and the new re- 

 cruiting act (which made all classes of society liable to military 

 service, hitherto the duty and privilege of the Samurai), and men's 



^ A koku holds 180-4 liters. The value of a koku of rice ranges from 2\ to 

 5 dollars. 



