To say, however, that the land tax was lenient is not equivalent to saying that it was the most reasonable source for an increased imposition. That it was so, in the opinion of the fair-minded people, remains now to be shown. It should be remembered, in the first place, that although in 1881 the income of the land tax amounted to more than four-sevenths of the total revenue of the government, it had not since increased, but rather fallen from over forty-two millions of _yen_ to less than forty, while, on the other hand, the expenditures of the state had risen from seventy-one and one-half millions in 1881 to eighty-five and three-tenths in 1895, and then, so rapidly after the advent of the _post-bellum_ measures that in 1899 they stood at 254 millions, or more than three and one-half times as large as they were less than two decades before. Such items of taxes as had been created or increased to meet a part of these enormously swollen expenditures had nearly all fallen on the urban population. The public bonds which were issued from time to time and could not be much multiplied by fresh issues were also absorbed mainly by the merchants and manufacturers, and the burden of the indirect taxes, which in 1899 brought in the considerable sum of sixteen millions, was borne by the consumers of foreign goods, who for the most part lived in the cities. This increased assessment of the urban population can be appreciated in contrast with the greatly lightened land tax of the landowners, who gained much and lost little by the rapid development of the economic resources of the country. Their interests were further strengthened by the new régime, under which the lower house of the imperial diet championed their cause with such a decisive majority of its members that no dissolution could change the situation. Some of the peers may have represented urban interests, but their voice in financial measures was as small as the control over them by the representatives was secure.