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ONE of the problems which invited the attention of the new Government early in the Meiji era had been handed down from the days of feudalism. In those days, neither Yezo nor Saghalien nor the Kurile Islands were under effective Japanese administration. The feudatory of Matsumae had his castle at the extreme south of Yezo, but the jurisdiction he exercised was only nominal.
They took under their own immediate control the eastern half of Yezo, entrusting the western half to Matsumae. The next incident of note was a survey of the northern islands, made in 1800 by the famous mathematician, Ino Tadayoshi, and the despatch of another party of Bakufu investigators.
Its government changed from one hand to another in the centuries that separated the Kamakura epoch from the Tokugawa, and in the latter epoch we find the Matsumae daimyo ruling all the islands northward of the Tsugaru Straits. But the Matsumae administration contented itself with imposing taxes and left the people severely alone.
But he did not like to listen to advice. For this reason he became poor. Original communicated by Mr. Matsumae is a town in the south of Yezo. The lord or Daimyo resident there was formerly the chief Japanese authority in the country. xxxii. Drinking the Sea dry. There was the Chief of the Mouth of the River and the Chief of the Upper Current of the River.
But neither of these suggestions obtained approval, nor was anything done beyond removing the Matsumae feudatory and placing the whole of the islands under the direct sway of the Bakufu.
An official who had been sent to Matsumae, in the province of Mutsu, to observe the state of affairs, reported that the villages to the east of Nambu had been practically depopulated and the once fertile fields converted into barren plains. "Although farmhouses stood in the hamlets, not a solitary person was to be seen on the road; not a human voice was to be heard.
Yet the earliest explorers of Saghalien were certainly Japanese. As far back as 1620, some vassals of the Matsumae feudatory landed on the island and remained there throughout a winter. The supposition then was that Saghalien formed part of the Asiatic mainland.
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