People should use the opportunity of the 400th anniversary of the establishment of Tokugawa Shogunate to consider the culture and social stability of the Edo Period, participants of a symposium in Tokyo said Friday.

Toru Haga, president of Kyoto University of Art and Design, said many Japanese intellectuals have held a negative image of the Edo Period (1603-1867), saying people were exploited under the shogunate.

But people of the time actually enjoyed the peace, according to Haga. The shogunate introduced such effective policies as maintaining stability in the balance of power between the central government and feudal domains.