amount of currency needed at home and the amount
produced by the mines should be investigated so as to obtain a basis
for limiting the foreign trade at the open ports of Nagasaki,
Tsushima, and Satsuma, and for fixing the maximum number of foreign
vessels visiting those places."

IMPEACHMENT OF HAGIWARA SHIGEHIDE

In connexion with Arai Hakuseki's impeachment of the Treasury
commissioner, Hagiwara Shigehide, it was insisted that an auditor's
office must be re-established, and it was pointed out that the yield
of rice from the shogun's estates had fallen to 28.9 per cent, of the
total produce instead of being forty per cent., as fixed by law.
Nevertheless, the condition of the farmers was by no means improved,
and the inevitable inference was that the difference went into the
pockets of the local officials. Similarly, enormous expenses were
incurred for the repair of river banks without any corresponding
diminution of floods, and hundreds of thousands of bags of rice went
nominally to the bottom of the sea without ever having been shipped.
During the year that followed the reconstruction of the auditor's
office, the yield of the estates increased by 433,400 bags of rice,
and the cost of riparian works decreased by 38,000 ryo of gold,
while, at the same time, the item of shipwrecked cereals disappeared
almost completely from the ledgers. In consequence of these charges
the commissioner, Shigehide, was dismissed. History says that
although his regular salary was only 3000 koku annually, he embezzled
260,000 ryo of gold by his debasement of the currency, and that
ultimately he starved himself to death in token of repentance.

Ienobu and his able adviser, Hakuseki, desired to restore the
currency to the system pursued in the Keicho era (1596-1614), but
their purpose was thwarted by insufficiency of the precious metals.
They were obliged to be content with improving the quality of the
coins while decreasing their weight by one half. These new tokens
were called kenji-kin, as they bore on the reverse the ideograph ken,
signifying "great original." The issue of the new coins took place
in the year 1710, and at the same time the daimyo were strictly
forbidden to issue paper currency, which veto also was imposed at the
suggestion of Arai Hakuseki.

THE SEVENTH SHOGUN, IETSUGU

The seventh Tokugawa shogun, Ietsugu, son of his predecessor, Ienobu,
was born in 1709, succeeded to the shogunate in April, 1713, and died
in 1716.