counter demonstration. Early in the morning, when the Independents were
numerically at their weakest, the Pedlars attacked them and drove them off.
On attempting to return they found the way barred by police. Fight after
fight occurred during the next few days between the popular party and the
Conservatives, and then, to bring peace, the Emperor promised his people a
general audience in front of the palace. The meeting took place amid every
surrounding that could lend it solemnity. The foreign representatives and
the heads of the Government were in attendance. The Emperor, who stood on a
specially built platform, received the leaders of the Independents, and
listened to their statement of their case. They asked that the monarch
should keep some of his old promises to maintain the national integrity and
do justice. The Emperor, in reply, presented them with a formal document,
in which he agreed to their main demands.
The crowd, triumphant, dispersed. The organization of the reformers
slackened, for they thought that victory was won. Then the Conservative
party landed some of its heaviest blows. The reformers were accused of
desiring to establish a republic. Dissension was created in their ranks by
the promotion of a scheme to recall Pak Yung-hio. Some of the more extreme
Independents indulged in wild talk, and gave excuse for official
repression. Large numbers of reform leaders were arrested on various
pretexts. Meetings were dispersed at the point of the bayonet, and the
reform movement was broken. The Emperor did not realize that he had, in the
hour that he consented to crush the reformers, pronounced the doom of his
own Imperial house, and handed his land over to an alien people.
Dr. Jaisohn maintains that foreign influence was mainly responsible for the
destruction of the Independence Club. Certain Powers did not wish Korea to
be strong. He adds:
"The passing of the Independence Club was one of the most
unfortunate things in the history of Korea, but there is one
consolation to be derived from it, and that is, the seed of
democracy was sown in Korea through this movement, and that the
leaders of the present Independence Movement in Korea are mostly
members of the old Independence Club, who somehow escaped with
their lives from the wholesale persecution that followed the
collapse of the Independence Club. Six out of the eight cabinet
members elected by the people this year, (1919) were the former
active members of the Independence Club."
Among the Independents arrested was Syngman Rhee. The foreign community,
which in a sense stood sponsor for the more moderate of the Independents,
brought influence to bear, and it was understood that in a few days the
leaders would be released. Some of them were. But Rhee and a companion
broke out before release, in order to stir up a revolt against the
Government By a misunderstanding their friends were not on the spot to help
them, and they were at once recaptured.
Rhee was now exposed to the full fury of the Emperor's wrath. He was thrown
into the innermost prison, and for seven months lay one of a line of men
fastened to the ground, their heads held down by heavy cangues, their feet
in stocks and their hands fastened by chains so that the wrists were level
with the forehead. Occasionally he was taken out to be tormented, in
ancient fashion. He expected death, and rejoiced when one night he was told
that he was to be executed. His death was already announced in the
newspapers. But when the guard came they took, not Rhee, but the man
fastened down next to him, to whom Rhee had smuggled a farewell message to
be given to his father after his death. His sentence was commuted to life
imprisonment.
Lying there, the mind of the young reformer went back to the messages he
had heard at the mission school He turned to the Christians' God, and his
first prayer was typical of the man, "O God, save my country and save my
soul." To him, the dark and foetid cell became as the palace of God, for
here God spoke to his soul and he found peace.
He made friends with his guards. One of them smuggled a little Testament in
to him. From the faint light of the tiny window, he read passage after
passage, one of the under-jailers holding the book for him--since with his
bound hands he could not hold it himself--and another waiting to give
warning of the approach of the chief guard. Man after man in that little
cell found God, and the jailer himself was converted.
After seven months of the hell of the inner cell, Rhee was shifted to
roomier quarters, where he was allowed more freedom, still, however,
carrying chains around his neck and body. He organized a church in the
prison, made up of his own converts. Then he obtained text-books and
started a school. He did not in the least relax his own principles. He
secretly wrote a book on the spirit of Independence during his imprisonment
His old missionary friends sought him out and did what they could for him.
Rhee met plenty of his old friends, for the Conservatives were in the
saddle now, and were arresting and imprisoning Progressives at every
opportunity. Among the newcomers was a famous old Korean statesman, Yi
Sang-jai, who had formerly been First Secretary to the Korean Legation at
Washington. Yi incurred the Emperor's displeasure and was thrown into
prison. He entered it strongly anti-Christian; before two years were over
he had become a leader of the Christian band. In due course Yi was released
and became Secretary of the Emperor's Cabinet. He carried his Christianity
out with him, and later on, when he left office, became Religious Work
leader of the Seoul Y.M.C.A. Yi was one of the most loved and honoured men
in Korea. Every one who knew him spoke of him in terms of confidence and
praise.
Syngman Rhee was not released from prison until 1904. He then went to
America, graduated at the George Washington University, took M.A. at
Harvard, and earned his Ph.D. at Princeton. He returned to Seoul as an
official of the Y.M.C.A., but finding it impossible to settle down under
the Japanese régime, went to Honolulu, where he became principal of the
Korean School. A few years later he was chosen first President of the
Republic of Korea.
When Russia leased the Liaotung Peninsula from China, after having
prevented Japan from retaining it, she threw Korea as a sop to Japan. A
treaty was signed by which both nations recognized the independence of
Korea, but Russia definitely recognized the supreme nature of the Japanese
enterprises and interests there, and promised not to impede the development
of Japan's commercial and industrial Korean policy. The Russian military
instructors and financial adviser were withdrawn from Seoul.
The Emperor of Korea was still in the hands of the reactionaries. His Prime
Minister and favourite was Yi Yung-ik, the one-time coolie who had rescued
the Queen, and was now the man at the right hand of the throne.
After a time Russia repented of her generosity. She sought to regain
control in Korea. She sent M. Pavloff, an astute and charming statesman, to
Seoul, and a series of intrigues began. Yi Yung-ik sided with the Russians.
The end was war.
One personal recollection of these last days before the war remains stamped
on my memory. I was in Seoul and had been invited to an interview with Yi
Yung-ik. Squatted on the ground in his apartment we discussed matters. I
urged on him the necessity of reform, if Korea was to save herself from
extinction. Yi quickly retorted that Korea was safe, for her independence
was guaranteed by America and Europe.
"Don't you understand," I urged, "that treaties not backed by power are
useless. If you wish the treaties to be respected, you must live up to
them. You must reform or perish."
"It does not matter what the other nations are doing," declared the
Minister. "We have this day sent out a statement that we are neutral and
asking for our neutrality to be respected."
"Why should they protect you, if you do not protect yourself?" I asked.
"We have the promise of America. She will be our friend whatever happens,"
the Minister insisted.
From that position he would not budge.
Three days later, the Russian ships, the _Variag_ and the _Korietz_, lay
sunken wrecks in Chemulpo Harbour, broken by the guns of the Japanese
fleet, and the Japanese soldiers had seized the Korean Emperor's palace. M.
Hayashi, the Japanese Minister, was dictating the terms he must accept.
Korea's independence was over, in deed if not in name, and Japan was at
last about to realize her centuries' old ambition to have Korea for her
own.
V
THE NEW ERA
Japan was now in a position to enforce obedience. Russia could no longer
interfere; England would not. A new treaty between Japan and Korea, drawn
up in advance, was signed--the Emperor being ordered to assent without
hesitation or alteration--and Japan began her work as the open protector of
Korea. The Korean Government was to place full confidence in Japan and
follow her lead; while Japan pledged herself "in a spirit of firm
friendship, to secure the safety and repose" of the Imperial Korean House,
and definitely guaranteed the independence and territorial integrity of the
country. Japan was to be given every facility for military operations
during the war.
The Japanese at first behaved with great moderation. Officials who had been
hostile to them were not only left unpunished, but were, some of them,
employed in the Japanese service. The troops marching northwards maintained
rigid discipline and treated the people well. Food that was taken was
purchased at fair prices, and the thousands of labourers who were pressed
into the army service as carriers were rewarded with a liberality and
promptitude that left them surprised. Mr. Hayashi did everything that he
could to reassure the Korean Emperor, and repeatedly told him that Japan
desired nothing but the good of Korea and the strengthening of the Korean
nation. The Marquis Ito was soon afterwards sent on a special mission from
the Mikado, and he repeated and emphasized the declarations of friendship
and help.
All this was not without effect upon the Korean mind. The people of the
north had learnt to dislike the Russians, because of their lack of
discipline and want of restraint. They had been alienated in particular by
occasional interference with Korean women by the Russian soldiers. I
travelled largely throughout the northern regions in the early days of the
war, and everywhere I heard from the people during the first few weeks
nothing but expressions of friendship to the Japanese. The coolies and
farmers were friendly because they hoped that Japan would modify the
oppression of the native magistrates. A section of better-class people,
especially those who had received some foreign training, were sympathetic,
because they credited Japan's promises and had been convinced by old
experience that no far-reaching reforms could come to their land without
foreign aid.
As victory followed victory, however, the attitude of the Japanese grew
less kindly. A large number of petty tradesmen followed the army, and these
showed none of the restraint of the military. They travelled about, sword
in hand, taking what they wished and doing as they pleased. Then the army
cut down the rate of pay for coolies, and, from being overpaid, the native
labourers were forced to toil for half their ordinary earnings. The
military, too, gradually began to acquire a more domineering air.
In Seoul itself a definite line of policy was being pursued. The Korean
Government had employed a number of foreign advisers. These were steadily
eliminated; some of them were paid up for the full time of their
engagements and sent off, and others were told that their agreements would
not be renewed. Numerous Japanese advisers were brought in, and, step by
step, the administration was Japanized. This process was hastened by a
supplementary agreement concluded in August, when the Korean Emperor
practically handed the control of administrative functions over to the
Japanese. He agreed to engage a Japanese financial adviser, to reform the
currency, to reduce his army, to adopt Japanese military and educational
methods, and eventually to trust the foreign relations to Japan. One of the
first results of this new agreement was that Mr. (now Baron) Megata was
given control of the Korean finances. He quickly brought extensive and, on
the whole, admirable changes into the currency. Under the old methods,
Korean money was among the worst in the world. The famous gibe of a British
Consul in an official report, that the Korean coins might be divided into
good, good counterfeits, bad counterfeits, and counterfeits so bad that
they can only be passed off in the dark, was by no means an effort of
imagination. In the days before the war it was necessary, when one received
any sum of money, to employ an expert to count over the coins, and put
aside the worst counterfeits. The old nickels were so cumbersome that a
very few pounds' worth of them formed a heavy load for a pony. Mr. Megata
changed all this, and put the currency on a sound basis, naturally not
without some temporary trouble, but certainly with permanent benefit to the
country.
The next great step in the Japanese advance was the acquirement of the
entire Korean postal and telegraph system. This was taken over, despite
Korean protests. More and more Japanese gendarmes were brought in and
established themselves everywhere. They started to control all political
activity. Men who protested against Japanese action were arrested and
imprisoned, or driven abroad. A notorious pro-Japanese society, the II Chin
Hoi, was fostered by every possible means, members receiving for a time
direct payments through Japanese sources. The payment at one period was 50
sen (1s.) a day. Notices were posted in Seoul that no one could organize a
political society unless the Japanese headquarters consented, and no one
could hold a meeting for discussing affairs without permission, and without
having it guarded by Japanese police. All letters and circulars issued by
political societies were first to be submitted to the headquarters. Those
who offended made themselves punishable by martial law.
Gradually the hand of Japan became heavier and heavier. Little aggravating
changes were made. The Japanese military authorities decreed that Japanese
time should be used for all public work, and they changed the names of the
towns from Korean to Japanese. Martial law was now enforced with the utmost
rigidity. Scores of thousands of Japanese coolies poured into the country,
and spread abroad, acting in a most oppressive way. These coolies, who had
been kept strictly under discipline in their own land, here found
themselves masters of a weaker people. The Korean magistrates could not
punish them, and the few Japanese residents, scattered in the provinces,
would not. The coolies were poor, uneducated, strong, and with the
inherited brutal traditions of generations of their ancestors who had
looked upon force and strength as supreme right. They went through the
country like a plague. If they wanted a thing they took it If they fancied
a house, they turned the resident out.
They beat, they outraged, they murdered in a way and on a scale of which it
is difficult for any white man to speak with moderation. Koreans were
flogged to death for offences that did not deserve a sixpenny fine. They
were shot for mere awkwardness. Men were dispossessed of their homes by
every form of guile and trickery. It was my lot to hear from Koreans
themselves and from white men living in the districts, hundreds upon
hundreds of incidents of this time, all to the same effect. The outrages
were allowed to pass unpunished and unheeded. The Korean who approached the
office of a Japanese resident to complain was thrown out, as a rule, by the
underlings.
One act on the part of the Japanese surprised most of those who knew them
best. In Japan itself opium-smoking is prohibited under the heaviest
penalties, and elaborate precautions are taken to shut opium in any of its
forms out of the country. Strict anti-opium laws were also enforced in
Korea under the old administration. The Japanese, however, now permitted
numbers of their people to travel through the interior of Korea selling
morphia to the natives. In the northwest in particular this caused quite a
wave of morphia-mania.
The Japanese had evidently set themselves to acquire possession of as much
Korean land as possible. The military authorities staked out large portions
of the finest sites in the country, the river-lands near Seoul, the lands
around Pyeng-yang, great districts to the north, and fine strips all along
the railway. Hundreds of thousands of acres were thus acquired. A nominal
sum was paid as compensation to the Korean Government--a sum that did not
amount to one-twentieth part of the real value of the land. The people who
were turned out received, in many cases, nothing at all, and, in others,
one-tenth to one-twentieth of the fair value. The land was seized by the
military, nominally for purposes of war. Within a few months large parts of
it were being resold to Japanese builders and shopkeepers, and Japanese
settlements were growing up on them. This theft of land beggared thousands
of formerly prosperous people.
The Japanese Minister pushed forward, in the early days of the war, a
scheme of land appropriation that would have handed two-thirds of Korea
over at a blow to a Japanese concessionaire, a Mr. Nagamori, had it gone
through. Under this proposal all the waste lands of Korea, which included
all unworked mineral lands, were to be given to Mr. Nagamori nominally for
fifty years, but really on a perpetual lease, without any payment or
compensation, and with freedom from taxation for some time. Mr. Nagamori
was simply a cloak for the Japanese Government in this matter. The
comprehensive nature of the request stirred even the foreign
representatives in Seoul to action. For the moment the Japanese had to
abandon the scheme. The same scheme under another name was carried out
later when the Japanese obtained fuller control.
It may be asked why the Korean people did not make vigorous protests
against the appropriation of their land. They did all they could, as can be
seen by the "Five Rivers" case. One part of the Japanese policy was to
force loans upon the Korean Government. On one occasion it was proposed
that Japan should lend Korea 2,000,000 yen. The residents in a prosperous
district near Seoul, the "Five Rivers," informed the Emperor that if he
wanted money, they would raise it and so save them the necessity of
borrowing from foreigners. Soon afterwards these people were all served
with notice to quit, as their land was wanted by the Japanese military
authorities. The district contained, it was said, about 15,000 houses. The
inhabitants protested and a large number of them went to Seoul, demanding
to see the Minister for Home Affairs. They were met by a Japanese
policeman, who was soon reënforced by about twenty others, who refused to
allow them to pass. A free fight followed. Many of the Koreans were
wounded, some of them severely, and finally, in spite of stubborn
resistance, they were driven back. Later, a mixed force of Japanese police
and soldiers went down to their district and drove them from their
villages.
The Japanese brought over among their many advisers, one foreigner--an
American, Mr. Stevens--who had for some time served in the Japanese Foreign
Office. Mr. Stevens was nominally in the employment of the Korean
Government, but really he was a more thoroughgoing servant of Japan than
many Japanese themselves. Two foreigners, whose positions seemed fairly
established, were greatly in the way of the new rulers. One was Dr. Allen,
the American Minister at Seoul. Dr. Allen had shown himself to be an
independent and impartial representative of his country. He was friendly to
the Japanese, but did not think it necessary to shut his eyes to the darker
sides of their administration. This led to his downfall. He took
opportunity, on one or two occasions, to tell his Government some
unpalatable truths. The Japanese came to know it. They suggested indirectly
that he was not _persona grata_ to them. He was summarily and somewhat
discourteously recalled, his successor, Mr. E.V. Morgan, arriving at Seoul
with authorization to replace him. The next victim was Mr. McLeavy Brown,
the Chief Commissioner of Customs. Mr. Brown had done his utmost to work
with the Japanese, but there were conflicts of authority between him and
Mr. Megata. Negotiations were entered into with the British authorities,
and Mr. Brown had to go. He was too loyal and self-sacrificing to dispute
the ruling, and submitted in silence.
As the summer of 1905 drew to a close it became more and more clear that
the Japanese Government, despite its many promises to the contrary,
intended completely to destroy the independence of Korea. Even the Court
officials were at last seriously alarmed, and set about devising means to
protect themselves. The Emperor had thought that because Korean
independence was provided for in various treaties with Great Powers,
therefore he was safe. He had yet to learn that treaty rights, unbacked by
power, are worth little more than the paper upon which they are written.
The Emperor trusted in particular to the clause in the Treaty with the
United States in 1882 that if other Powers dealt unjustly or oppressively
with Korea, America would exert her good offices to bring about an amicable
arrangement In vain did the American Minister, his old friend Dr.
Allen--who had not yet gone--try to disillusion him.
Early in November the Marquis Ito arrived in Seoul on another visit, this
time as Special Envoy from the Emperor of Japan. He brought with him a
letter from the Mikado, saying that he hoped the Korean Emperor would
follow the directions of the Marquis, and come to an agreement with him,
for it was essential for the maintenance of peace in the Far East that he
should do so.
Marquis Ito was received in formal audience on November 15th, and there
presented a series of demands, drawn up in treaty form. These were, in the
main, that the foreign relations of Korea should be placed entirely in the
hands of Japan, the Korean diplomatic service brought to an end, and the
Ministers recalled from foreign Courts. The Japanese Minister to Korea was
to became supreme administrator of the country under the Emperor, and the
Japanese Consuls in the different districts were to be made Residents, with
the powers of supreme local governors. In other words, Korea was entirely
to surrender her independence as a State, and was to hand over control of
her internal administration to the Japanese. The Emperor met the request
with a blank refusal. The conversation between the two, as reported at the
time, was as follows.
The Emperor said--
"Although I have seen in the newspapers various rumours that
Japan proposed to assume a protectorate over Korea, I did not
believe them, as I placed faith in Japan's adherence to the
promise to maintain the independence of Korea which was made by
the Emperor of Japan at the beginning of the war and embodied in
a treaty between Korea and Japan. When I heard you were coming to
my country I was glad, as I believed your mission was to increase
the friendship between our countries, and your demands have
therefore taken me entirely by surprise."
To which Marquis Ito rejoined--
"These demands are not my own; I am only acting in accordance
with a mandate from my Government, and if Your Majesty will agree
to the demands which T have presented it will be to the benefit
of both nations and peace in the East will be assured for ever.
Please, therefore, consent quickly."
The Emperor replied--
"From time immemorial it has been the custom of the rulers of
Korea, when confronted with questions so momentous as this, to
come to no decision until all the Ministers, high and low, who
hold or have held office, have been consulted, and the opinion of
the scholars and the common people have been obtained, so that I
cannot now settle this matter myself."
Said Marquis Ito again--
"Protests from the people can easily be disposed of, and for the
sake of the friendship between the two countries Your Majesty
should come to a decision at once."
To this the Emperor replied--
"Assent to your proposal would mean the ruin of my country, and I
will therefore sooner die than agree to it."