... to raise more revenue from the maritime customs, but it learned a great deal about Western politics and the whole world balance of power. This information was actually more important that treaty revision would have been, for it gave these leaders the ammunition with which to crush the reckless expansionist policies of some of their more eager and less informed colleagues. Failure to secure a revision of the treaties made it more necessary to take drastic measures to solve the financial problem. It was costing the government twenty million yens a year merely to meet the bill for pensions for the feudal lords and the samurai. The most important step in the modernization of Japan's financial structure was the institution in 1873 of a nation wide tax on land which actually became the main basis of the state revenue. In contrast to the feudal system of rice dues and labour service, ...

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