more nearly equable. Professor Dill, the author of "Roman Society in the
Last Century of the Western Empire," has brought afresh to our mind that
one cause of the decadence of the Roman Empire, was the permission given
to the nobility to engage in trade, and the consequent monopoly of
wealth and power by a minority of the senatorial families.

Commerce, therefore, in feudal Japan did not reach that degree of
development which it would have attained under freer conditions. The
obloquy attached to the calling naturally brought within its pale such
as cared little for social repute. "Call one a thief and he will steal:"
put a stigma on a calling and its followers adjust their morals to it,
for it is natural that "the normal conscience," as Hugh Black says,
"rises to the demands made on it, and easily falls to the limit of the
standard expected from it." It is unnecessary to add that no business,
commercial or otherwise, can be transacted without a code of morals. Our
merchants of the feudal period had one among themselves, without which
they could never have developed, as they did, such fundamental
mercantile institutions as the guild, the bank, the bourse, insurance,
checks, bills of exchange, etc.; but in their relations with people
outside their vocation, the tradesmen lived too true to the reputation
of their order.

This being the case, when the country was opened to foreign trade, only
the most adventurous and unscrupulous rushed to the ports, while the
respectable business houses declined for some time the repeated requests
of the authorities to establish branch houses. Was Bushido powerless to
stay the current of commercial dishonor? Let us see.

Those who are well acquainted with our history will remember that only a
few years after our treaty ports were opened to foreign trade,