meetings and wonderful dinners in old forts in the then wild country, are all things of the past; and this great fertile country developing in population, in wealth and in influence is like the child grown too old and too determined, to live under the control of his foster parents any longer.

Long life then to this splendid and honourable Hudson's Bay Company. It had outlived all its contemporaries, and is still strong and full of energy. It stands before the whole world as a commercial giant to whom fair dealing is its first law; integrity is not only its foundation stone but is the very fabric from which it is built. Its history is one of the most fascinating and inspiring which one can read.

XXIII

JAPAN

F Japan's commerce under the Shoguns there is little to be written, for merchants were held in little respect, a short-sighted policy that has since filled with amazement many writers from the progressive countries of the West. However, an account of one of the most extraordinary families of Japan, the Mitsuis, who have given themselves to trade and commerce will be of interest.

This brief history has been supplied to the writer by his friend Mr. Y. Masuda, who has been intimately associated with the house in Tokio for many years. It affords one of the practical demonstrations of the Romance of Commerce that this great family should have climbed the long ladder of fortune and, in a country where such a thing is not so easy as with us in the West, has won enormous success, power and prestige.

The ancestors of the Mitsui belonged to the Fujiwara family. Tradition relates that in the latter part of the fifteenth century one Takahisa of the family Sasaki Daimio of Omi was adopted into the family of Mitsui, who were relatives of the same Daimio and attained to the rank of general. His descendants owned a castle on the famous lake of Biwa, in the province of Omi, and for many years the head of the family ranked among the seven chieftains of the Sasaki, which facts are fully narrated in the history of that clan.

Towards the end of the sixteenth century-the family meanwhile having forsaken their castle in Omi-one of

their descendants named Takayasu held the title of Lord of Echigo. He was a great "knight errant (Ronin) and had his home in Ise under the Ashikaga Shogunate, during which period the whole of Japan was in the throes of a great internecine struggle, from which, however, he kept aloof and lived quietly at his home until 1610. As the Mitsui seem to have fallen somewhat from their high estate during the three or four generations which preceded Takayasu, the Lord of Echigo is rightly regarded to-day as a restorer of the family fortunes, and is worshipped as a patron saint. In 1910, therefore, being the tercentenary of this grand old man, the Mitsui family built a new shrine to his memory at Shimogamo in Kyoto.

Henceforward the family history is more easily followed. Takayasu's eldest son was Sokubei, and it was in his lifetime that the family began to live at Matsu-zaka in Ise and took up the business of brewing saki-a Japanese drink. He died in 1643 leaving four children, of whom the eldest opened a shop for the sale of drapery and silks in Yedo (now Tokio). This shop existed until the middle of the eighteenth century. Hachirobei, the youngest son of Sokubei, lost his father when he was still very young and was brought up by his mother, a very intelligent and capable woman. came to Yedo when he was fourteen years old and worked as apprentice to his brother till he was twenty-eight. He then returned to Ise and engaged in money transactions for more than twenty years, during which time he underwent the training necessary to fit him in later life for the fulfilling of his duties as a merchant prince.

He

At this period Kyoto was the residence of the Mikado, while Yedo, where the Shogun lived, was the seat of government and the eastern economical centre of Japan. The western centre was, as at present, at Osaka, twenty miles from Kyoto.

Now Kyoto was famous in those days for the manufacture of beautiful Nishi-jin brocades, and it was during

Hachirobei's life that this manufacture came to be fully developed. Most of the Kyoto merchants, as also those of Yedo, like Hachirobei, boasted of Ise as their native place. Under this influence, therefore, he opened in 1673 a large shop for buying in Kyoto, and another for selling in Yedo. As one of his ancestors had at one time held the title of Lord of Echigo, he called his shop Echigoya.

Ten years later this shop in Yedo was removed to its present site on the Suruga-cho. A small money-exchange business which had been previously established in Yedo was removed next door. The site of the present building is the same, but the old structure has given place to a far more imposing edifice, built in the most approved modern style and possessed of noble proportions.

In this shop in the same year was originated a method of business entirely new to Japan, namely, "Cash Down at Fixed Prices." Till then in all shops customers had been in the habit of paying at stated times or just whenever they could. Accordingly merchants in quoting a selling price had to make allowance for bad debts, and charge interest on long-standing accounts. But the new method changed all this, and thus made it possible for goods to be sold much cheaper. Moreover, goods previously had always been sold in bulk:] now set in an era of "piece goods," and customers at the Echigoya found it far more convenient to buy just the required amount than to be saddled with more than they could hope to use before it was spoiled.

The Echigoya at once became immensely popular and customers crowded to the store in such numbers that gradually other merchants took up the idea and the words Gen-Gin (cash down) Kakene-Nashi_(fixed price) were to be seen on boards in every shop in Japan.

Surugacho in those days was supposed to be the best point in Yedo (from which to view Fuji-San, so [that the Echigoya, if only for that reason, became one of the centres of interest; and the building has been the