ABSTRACT
IN ancient days the land was distributed among the cultivators by the State. It was not to be mortgaged or alienated. But by and by, as private ownership was recognized, the land was mortgaged to a large extent. The heavily indebted people lost the ownership by default, and became pauperized, some almost enslaved. In order to remedy this state of things, a law to prohibit land mortgages was promulgated in 751 A.D. Evasion of the law was, however, very common, and in 783 A.D. it was enacted that the offender should be severely punished. But the law proved inoperative, and by the time of Kamakura Shiogunate, in the twelfth century, the system of land mortgage prevailed to an enormous extent and was the occasion of frequent lawsuits. The term was usually twenty years within which the debt was to be paid off. By the time of Ashikaga Shiogunate, in the fourteenth century, if the interest reached to the same amount as the principal, the land was to be returned to the mortgagor. The Tokugawa Shiogunate undertook to prevent the aggregation of land ownership in the hands of the few after it assumed power in 1614 A.D. It prohibited the permanent alienation of land, allowing only its sale for a certain number of years, except in case of newly reclaimed lands and those belonging to people with no fixed domicile. Mortgage and pledging were allowed when the term was fixed and the location defined, and permission was given signed by the head man of the village. If ten years elapsed after the expiration of the term, the ownership was transferred to the mortgagee, such land being termed “liquidated land.” Penalties were inflicted on those who mortgaged the same land to more than one creditor at the same time. Days of grace for the payment were thus fixed: if below five yen or five koku of rice, at thirty days; if below ten yen or ten koku, * at sixty days; if above ten yen or ten koku, at one hundred days; if between fifty yen or koku and one hundred yen or koku, two hundred and fifty days; if above one hundred yen or koku, ten months; if above two hundred yen or koku, thirteen months.
