The Yedo Court, however, clung tenaciously to its hereditary conservatism. Thus, in 1825, the Bakufu issued a general order that any foreign vessel coming within range of the coast batteries should at once be fired upon, and not until 1842 was this harsh command modified in the sense that a ship driven into a Japanese port by stress of weather might be given food, water, and provisions, but should be warned to resume her voyage immediately. Meanwhile, strenuous efforts were made to strengthen the littoral defences, and a very active revival of the study of the military art took place throughout the empire, though, at the same time, the number of patriots sufficiently brave and clear-sighted to condemn the policy of seclusion grew steadily.
ENGRAVING: "OHARAME" (A FEMALE LABOURER IN THE SUBURBS OF KYOTO)
ENGRAVING: TWO DRUMS AND TSUZUMI—A and D are Drums; B and C are
Tsuzumi.
CHAPTER XLV
FOREIGN RELATIONS AND THE DECLINE OF THE TOKUGAWA: (Continued)
THE TWELFTH SHOGUN, IEYOSHI (1838-1853)
FROM the period of this shogun the strength of the Bakufu began to wane steadily, and the restoration of the administrative power to the sovereign came to be discussed, with bated breath at first, but gradually with increased freedom. It is undeniable, however, that the decline of the Tokugawa was due as much to an empty treasury as to the complications of foreign intercourse. The financial situation in the first half of the nineteenth century may be briefly described as one of expenditures constantly exceeding income, and of repeated recourse by the Bakufu to the fatal expedient of debasing the currency. Public respect was steadily undermined by these displays of impecuniosity, and the feudatories in the west of the empire—that is to say, the tozama daimyo, whose loyalty to the Bakufu was weak at the best—found an opportunity to assert themselves against the Yedo administration, while the appreciation of commodities rendered the burden of living constantly more severe and thus helped to alienate the people.
SUMPTUARY LAWS
While with one hand scattering abroad debased tokens of exchange, the Bakufu legislators laboured strenuously with the other to check luxury and extravagance. Conspicuous among the statesmen who sought to restore the economical habit of former days was Mizuno Echizen no Kami, who, in 1826 and the immediately subsequent years, promulgated decree after decree vetoing everything in the nature of needless expenditures. It fared with his attempt as it always does with such legislation. People admired the vetoes in theory but paid little attention to them in practice.