Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/178

 Their emissaries were even suspected of inciting mobs to raid merchants' houses, since in these violent proceedings bonds given by the Government in acknowledgment of debts were often destroyed. The toku-sei, or so-called "benevolent system," was another constant source of insecurity. Under pretence of relieving indigent debtors, curbing the oppression of rich creditors, and preventing undue accumulation of wealth in the hands of individuals, the authorities, from time to time, declared the cancelling of all monetary engagements. So long as this system was really guided by the considerations avowedly underlying it, the injustice it wrought was probably outweighed by the relief it afforded to the distressed. But the Ashikaga rulers, especially the dilettante Shōgun Yoshimasa, perverted it into an instrument for cancelling obligations incurred by their own extravagance. The abuse was further aggravated by lawlessness which the Government never took resolute steps to check. For the alleged purpose of destroying bonds and promissory notes which, though rendered invalid by an amnesty, their holders still retained, bands of roughs broke into the houses and strong-rooms of wealthy citizens, plundering and destroying on an extensive scale. Even temples and shrines did not escape these depredations. Neither security of property nor sanctity of engagement can be said to have existed. Commerce suffered in other ways also. "Transport dues" (dansen) and