ation suggests that the signatories of these
laws--Takakage, Terumoto, Toshiiye, Hideiye, and Ieyasu--attached
some measure of credence to the indictment of treason preferred
against Hidetsugu.

AGRARIAN LAWS

The agrarian legislation of Hideyoshi is worthy of special attention.
It shows a marked departure from the days when the unit of rice
measurement was a "handful" and when thirty-six handfuls made a
"sheaf," the latter being the tenth part of the produce of a tan. In
Hideyoshi's system, all cubic measurements were made by means of a
box of accurately fixed capacity--10 go, which was the tenth part of
a koku (5.13 bushels)--the allowance for short measure was limited to
two per cent., and the rule of 360 tsubo to the tan (a quarter of an
acre) was changed to 300 tsubo.

At the same time (1583), land surveyors (kendenshi) were appointed to
compile a map of the entire country. A similar step had been taken by
the Ashikaga shogun, Yoshiteru, in 1553, but the processes adopted on
that occasion were not by any means so accurate or scientific as
those prescribed by the Taiko. The latter entrusted the work of
survey to Nazuka Masaiye, with whom was associated the best
mathematician of the era, Zejobo, and it is recorded that owing to
the minute measures pursued by these surveyors and to the system of
taking two-thirds of the produce for the landlord instead of one-half
or even less, and owing, finally, to estimating the tan at 300 tsubo
instead of at 360 without altering its taxable liability, the
official revenue derived from the land throughout the empire showed a
total increase of eight million koku, equivalent to about L11,000,000
or $54,000,000.

Hideyoshi has been charged with extortion on account of these
innovations. Certainly, there is a striking contrast between the
system of Tenchi and that of Toyotomi. The former, genuinely
socialistic, divided the whole of the land throughout the empire in
equal portions among the units of the nation, and imposed a land-tax
not in any case exceeding five per cent, of the gross produce. The
latter, frankly feudalistic, parcelled out the land into great
estates held by feudal chiefs, who allotted it in small areas to
farmers on condition that the latter paid sixty-six per cent, of the
crops to the lord of the soil. But in justice to Hideyoshi, it must
be owned that he did not devise this system. He was not even the
originator of its new methods, namely, the abbreviation of