Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/36

 applying large surpluses of ordinary revenue to carry out enterprises which have nothing to do with the usual routine of administration, but also that when these post-bellum undertakings are brought to a conclusion, the State will find itself with an income greatly exceeding its outlays. It is further habitually alleged that Japan's revenue has been unduly increased during recent years, and that the burden of taxation is becoming intolerable. Perhaps the simplest way of dealing with that allegation is to quote the statement made by way of preface to this review, namely, that at the time of the mediatisation of the fiefs the people were paying a sum of at least 96,000,000 yen in the form of a grain tax alone, whereas the corresponding impost (land tax) amounts now to only 46,500,000. Besides, this 46,500,000 yen cannot justly be regarded as a tax in the ordinary acceptation of the term. Up to the time of the mediatisation of the fiefs, all the land in the Empire being the property of the State, its tenants could not dispose of it at will, nor had they any right of possession in it. The sum they paid in kind to their rulers consequently represented a rent for use of the land rather than a tax. That distinction became still more emphatic after the fall of feudalism, for the land was then declared the absolute property of its tenants, the only condition attached being perennial liability to pay as compensation to the original owner, namely, the State, an annual sum equal to about one and