Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/268

 Japan partook largely of the military character, it was purely theocratic in its alleged beginnings, and thus the social problems connected with it refuse to be solved by precedents derived from simpler organisations. The "commoners" (heimin) certainly were not serfs or slaves, according to any acknowledged rendering of those terms, and even the "despised people," while some of them may unquestionably be classed as slaves, do not find their exact counterpart in any system that has come under the notice of Western historians. As far back as the middle of the fifth century of the Christian era, Japanese annals refer to semmin. They speak of a nobleman who, being convicted of plotting against the Court (460 ), was condemned to death, his posterity for eighty generations being degraded to the rank of common labourers. Thenceforth various incidents, legal enactments and ordinances exhibit six causes which operated to produce semmin; namely, crime, subjugation, debt, special circumstances of birth, naturalisation, and kidnapping. Treason in every form and armed conquest were sources of State slaves—corresponding to the Roman servi publici. A rebel or a conspirator against the sovereign suffered death—frequently shared by his sons and brothers—and all the rest of his family as well as his property were confiscated. As for conquest, the rights conferred by it held against Japanese as well as against aliens. Raids made by Japanese generals 238