ABSTRACT
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE KURAYASHIKI.-The organization of the Kurayashiki was in all cases nearly the same. Besides the Representative, who was a merchant, there were Kuramoto and Kakeya in charge of the receiving, delivering, and selling of rice and other products shipped to Osaka from each clan territory, collecting the money for the goods sold, and all business connected with sales. Each clan dispatched its own officer called Rusuyaku, who was stationed at the Kurayashiki in Osaka, and superintended the Kuramoto and the Kakeya. He changed every year. The organization of the Kurayashiki was so simple, because the system grew up under economic necessities, and not for any political reasons. Of the rice shipped to Osaka from the different rice-producing districts in Japan in those days, three-fourths were first taken into the Kurayashiki godowns of the different Daimyo before disposal. The rice from the Kurayashiki
godowns was called Kuramono, and that from other godowns Nayamono. Both kura and naya mean warehouse or godown, and mono means things or goods, and the two different prefixes were applied simply in order to distinguish rice from one source from that from the other in the market. The Rice Exchange at Osaka dealt in Kuramono rice, and daily quotations there fluctuated in accordance with changes in the quantity and price of rice in the Kurayashiki godowns of the different clans.
