d in
Tokio to-day by the Mitsui Hofukuten. Subsequently, at the beginning
of the seventeenth century, a member of the same house invented and
introduced the system of retailing for cash, which was an absolute
revolution of business methods at that time in Japan. In addition to
that he organised an excellent system for the remittance of money from
one part of the country to the other, as also a carrier's
business--two very remarkable facts when one remembers in what a
primitive and elementary condition of development the monetary
business of Japan was at that period. In the year 1687 the Mitsuis
were appointed by the Government purveyors and controllers of the
public exchange, and in recognition of the excellent manner in which
the duties were performed, they were given the grant of a large estate
in Yeddo.

In 1723 the head of the family, carrying out the verbal wishes of his
father, assembled his brothers and sisters and then and there drew up
in writing a set of family rules which have ever since been
practically the articles of association of the house of Mitsui. These
rules embodied on business-like lines and in business-like language
the principle that the family and not the individual forms the
ultimate union in Eastern life. It was not one or the other of the six
brothers of which the family consisted when these rules were drawn up
that was to trade, but the whole family as one unit. There was to be
unlimited liability as far as the property of each one was concerned,
and the profits of all were to be divided. This agreement is the
identical one under which the great house of Mitsui is run to-day.
Under it the family prospered exceedingly, so that when Japan decided
to take on some portion of Western civilisation, the Mitsuis acted as
the principal financial agents of the Government, and it was mainly
owing to the enormous financial resources of the house placed by them
at the disposal of the Government that the country was enabled at the
period of the revolution to pass successfully through what might have
been a most disastrous crisis. As some reward for the great services
rendered at the time, the present head of the house was created a
peer. Since the opening of Japan to Western influence the business of
the Mitsuis has enormously increased, and has been extended in various
directions. In 1876 their money exchange business was converted into a
Bank on the joint stock system, but with unlimited liability as f