Why the overwhelming power of the Fujiwara should have waned may only be understood as we observe the conditions of local administration. Within Kyōto reigned luxury and pomp, but without it, unrest and discontentment. The principal cause of this sharp contrast between the capital and country was the inevitable and utter failure of the system of equal land allotment upon which the great Taikwa reformation had been constructed. Uncultivated lands, however, were suffered to remain in the possession of local officials and farmers who reclaimed them. Originally the term of service for the governor of a province (_kuni_) was fixed at four years, but in the reign of the Empress Kōken it was extended to six. Reappointment was generally an object of keen desire to these officials. They employed every possible means to compass it, since to remain in administrative control of a province for a long period signified opportunities of appropriating extensive lands and ultimately acquiring large territorial possessions. In the case of the headman of a district (_kōri_), the office was originally held for life, but even that limit soon fell into neglect, and the post was handed down from father to son through many generations. To check the abuses arising out of such a state of affairs, itinerant inspectors were appointed in the reign of the Empress Gensho, who were chosen from among the ablest of the provincial governors. In a report addressed by one of them to the throne in 762, it is declared that "No such thing as justice is now executed by any provincial governor in the realm." From this time on, provincial governors not only continued to tread the old wonted paths, but their selfish arbitrariness became more unbridled in proportion as the prestige of the administration in the capital grew feebler and the official organization more lax.