In the eighteenth century, Japan’s
feudal overlords, from the shogun to the humblest samurai, found themselves
under financial stress. In part, this stress can be attributed to the overlords’
failure to adjust to a rapidly expanding economy, but the stress was also due to
factors beyond the overlords’ control. Concentration of the samurai in castle
towns had acted as a stimulus to nude. Commercial efficiency, in turn, had put
temptations in the way of buyers. Since most samurai had been reduced to
idleness by years of peace, encouraged to engage in scholarship and martial
exercises or to perform administrative tasks that took little time, it is not
surprising that their tastes and habits grew expensive. Overlords’ income,
despite the increase in rice production among their tenant farmers, failed to
keep pace with their expenses. Although shortfalls in overloads’ income resulted
almost as much from laxity among their tax collectors (the nearly inevitable
outcome of hereditary office-holding) as from their higher standards of living,
a misfortune like a fire or flood, bringing an in crease in expenses or a drop
in revenue, could put a domain in debt to the city rice-brokers who handled its
finances. Once in debt, neither the individual samurai nor the shogun himself
found it easy to recover.
It was difficult for individual
samurai overlords to increase their income because the amount of rice that
farmers could be made to pay in taxes was not unlimited, and since the income of
Japan’s central government consisted in part of taxes collected by the shogun
from his huge domain, the government too was constrained. Therefore, the
Tokugawa shoguns began to look to other sources for revenue. Cash profits from
government-owned mines were already on the decline because the most easily
worked deposits of silver and gold had been exhausted, although debasement of
the coinage had compensated for the loss. Opening up new farmland was a
possibility, but most of what was suitable had already been exploited and
further reclamation was technically unfeasible. Direct taxation of the samurai
themselves would be politically dangerous. This left the shoguns only commerce
as a potential source of government income.
Most of the
country’s wealth, or so it seemed, was finding its way into the hands of city
merchants. It appeared reasonable that they should contribute part of that
revenue to ease the shogun’s burden of financing the state. A means of obtaining
such revenue was soon found by levying forced loans, known as goyo-kin; although
these were not taxes in the strict sense, since they were irregular in timing
and arbitrary in amount, they were high in yield. Unfortunately, they pushed up
prices. Thus, regrettably, the Tokugawa shoguns’ search for solvency for the
government made it increasingly difficult for individual Japanese who lived on
fixed stipends to make ends meet. |
