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Rh due apportionment of central and local authority. At no previous period of Japanese history was the power of the Central Government more effectively maintained in all essential matters, although in other respects the Daimios were allowed a large measure of independent action. Under this régime Japan increased amazingly in wealth and population, and made great progress in all the arts of civilisation.

As a consequence, the new capital of Yedo rose rapidly to importance. Under the regulation, established by Iyeyasu's grandson Iyemitsu, which compelled the Daimios to reside there for part of the year, leaving their wives and children as hostages during the remainder, its population attained to at least a million, and is believed to have been at one time considerably more.

It is not surprising that the enhanced political and commercial importance of Yedo should have brought about a displacement of the literary centre of Japan. Kiōto, especially during the early part of the Yedo period, continued to be a place of some literary activity, and Osaka became the cradle of a new form of drama, but Yedo attracted to itself all the principal learning and talent of the country. For the last two hundred years Yedo has been to Japan for literature what London is to the United Kingdom, or Paris to France.

There is another feature of the literature of the Yedo period which is traceable to the improved condition of the country. Authors now no longer addressed themselves exclusively to a cultured class, but to the people generally. The higher degree of civilisation which was rendered possible by an improved administration and a more settled government included a far more widely extended system of education than Japan had ever known