Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/196

 the tax-paying capacities of the farmers, no trustworthy means existed of verifying the report, for an imperial inspector could either be thwarted with impunity or shown a course more profitable than sincerity, and, failing those expedients, a defaulting governor could count on the protection of some great magnate in the capital with whose family he was connected. The Court was thus gradually stripped alike of its authority and of its revenues.

This page of history deserves attention, for it lays bare the foundations of the feudal system destined to come into existence three centuries later, and to stand intact for eight hundred years. Closely connected with that system is the land question. Japanese rulers, though their practice tended to the adoption of the single tax, do not appear to have been guided by any economical principle in dealing with this problem. Their fundamental idea was to bring a maximum area of land within the range of the tax-collector. It was always a recognised rule, however, that lands granted as official emoluments or in recognition of public merit should be exempted from taxation. Hence hereditary office involved perpetual tenure of untaxed land, and every claim established on the Court's favour by great families meant a further reduction of the taxable area with a correspondingly increased impost on the remaining lands. These abuses were well illustrated at the commencement of the Heian epoch.