Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/210

RV 184 consisted of three hundred and ninety-one whole-sale merchants and two hundred and forty-six brokers. There were three markets in the city, but none could compare with that of Nihon-bashi in magnitude and importance. The main purpose of Sukegoro's system was to prevent the consumer from dealing direct with the producer. Thus in return for the pecuniary accommodation granted to fishermen to buy boats and nets, they were required to give every fish they caught to the wholesale merchant from whom they had received the advance; and the latter, on his side, had to sell in the open market at prices fixed by the confederation. A somewhat similar system applied to vegetables, though in this case the monopoly was never so close. All products of the garden had to be carried to the market and sold there by auction, none being disposed of privately. But as the vegetable-grower's circumstances rendered him more independent than the fisherman, he was never brought completely within the meshes of the organisation.

It will be observed that this confederation of fishmongers approximated closely to a "trust," as the term is now understood; that is to say, an association of merchants engaged in the same branch of trade and pledged to observe certain rules in the conduct of their business and to adhere to fixed rates. The idea obtained wide vogue from the first half of the eighteenth century. It was extended to nearly every domain