[24] The Bank of Japan was established as a joint-stock company in 1882. The capital in 1909 was 30,000,000 yen. In it alone is vested note-issuing power. There is no limit to its issues against gold or silver coins and bullion, but on other securities (state bonds, treasury bills and other negotiable bonds or commercial paper) its issues are limited to 120 millions, any excess over that figure being subject to a tax of 5% per annum.
[25] The amounts include the payments made in connexion with what may be called the disestablishment of the Church. There were 29,805 endowed temples and shrines throughout the empire, and their estates aggregated 354,481 acres, together with 1¾ million bushels of rice (representing 2,500,000 yen). The government resumed possession of all these lands and revenues at a total cost to the state of a little less than 2,500,000 yen, paid out in pensions spread over a period of fourteen years. The measure sounds like wholesale confiscation. But some extenuation is found in the fact that the temples and shrines held their lands and revenues under titles which, being derived from the feudal chiefs, depended for their validity on the maintenance of feudalism.
[26] This sum represents interest-bearing bonds issued in exchange for fiat notes, with the idea of reducing the volume of the latter. It was a tentative measure, and proved of no value.
[27] In this is included a sum of 110,000,000 yen distributed in the form of loan-bonds among the officers and men of the army and navy by way of reward for their services during the war of 1904-5.
[28] When war broke out in 1904 the local administrative districts took steps to reduce their outlays, so that whereas the expenditures totalled 158,000,000 yen in 1903-1904, they fell to 122,000,000 and 126,000,000 in 1904-1905 and 1905-1906 respectively. Thereafter however, they expanded once more.
[29] This includes 22¼ millions of loans raised abroad.
[30] The problem was to induce the co-operation of a feudatory whose castle served for frontier guard to the fief of a powerful chief, his suzerain. The feudatory was a Christian. Nobunaga seized the Jesuits in Kiōto, and threatened to suppress their religion altogether unless they persuaded the feudatory to abandon the cause of his suzerain.
[31] The mutilation was confined to the lobe of one ear. Crucifixion, according to the Japanese method, consisted in tying to a cross and piercing the heart with two sharp spears driven from either side. Death was always instantaneous.
[32] See A History of Christianity in Japan (1910), by Otis Cary.
[33] The Imperial cities were Yedo, Kiōto, Osaka and Nagasaki. To this last the English were subsequently admitted. They were also invited to Kagoshima by the Shimazu chieftain, and, had not their experience at Hirado proved so deterrent, they might have established a factory at Kagoshima.