ABSTRACT
ORIGIN OF THE MYOMOKU-KIN.-Its origin can be traced back to the early days of the Tokugawa era. The Tokugawa family had their own large estates scattered over all the provinces, such feuds or estates being called Tenryo, and managed by deputies appointed by the Shogun. These deputies, the Gundai or Daikwan, received the tax rice from the farmers and dispatched part of it to Osaka or Edo. The remainder they sold locally, the understanding being that the money thus raised, together with such taxes as were paid in money, should be forwarded to the Treasury of the Shogunate. The cash, however, lay in their hands for some time, and they utilized this period
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by lending it at interest to money-brokers who had the entree of their office. In order to protect themselves they stipulated that when the broker in his turn made advances out of the money it should be stated in the bond that the money was Government money and therefore entitled to preferential rights of repayment and certain privileges in lawsuits. When the money from Daikwans in the Tenryos in the south-western provinces reached Osaka, the Lord Tribune there sent it by pack-horses guarded by samurais to Edo, and it will be remembered that the forefather of the present Mitsui family, representing to the Shogunate the waste of labour and expense involved in thus sending the Government money from Osaka to Edo, successfully petitioned for the right to borrow it in Osaka, on a promise to repay it in Edo 150 days later. The Mitsui House utilized this money partly in buying dry goods in Kyoto and Osaka, which they sent to Edo and sold there for cash, and partly in loaning it at interest, incurring no risk in the latter case as the money was Government money and entitled to preferential rights. The Mitsui had no monopoly in this application of Government funds to commerce, and many large merchants in the era of Genroku, who had means of approaching the Shogunate, shared in the privilege, as is proved by the official announcement issued in September 1683, by which it was prohibited to mention in the bond of borrowing that the money borrowed was Government money.
