RULERS AND PEOPLE
A just appreciation of the mental and moral characteristics of alien
races is a delicate and difficult task to achieve, even for the
experienced student of such subjects. From others it is scarcely fair, no
matter how favorable the opportunities for observation may have been, to
expect any large measure of real success in the accomplishment of this
task. The more important reasons for the failure of most attempts in
race psychology may be resolved into the following two: a limitation of
the observer’s own experiences, which prevents sympathy and, therefore,
breadth of interpretation; and the inability to rise above the more
strictly personal point of view. In both these respects, women are on
the whole decidedly inferior to men; accordingly, their account of the
ethnic peculiarities—of the ideas, motives, and morals—of foreign peoples
is customarily less trustworthy. The inquirer after a judicial estimate
of the native character will find this fact amply illustrated in Korea.
But what is more weighty in its influence as bearing upon such a problem
as that now under discussion is this: all the inherent difficulties
are enhanced when it is required to understand and appreciate an
Oriental race by a member of a distinctively Western civilization.
It is without doubt true that all men, of whatever race or degree of
civilization, are essentially alike; they constitute what certain
authorities in anthropology have fitly called “a spiritual unity.” But
for the individual who cannot expect to find within himself whatever
is necessary to understand and interpret this unity, and especially
for the observer who does not care even to detect and recognize the
existence of such a unity, the difference between Orient and Occident is
a puzzle—perpetually baffling and seemingly insoluble.
Now in some not wholly unimportant aspects of Korean character and Korean
civilization, these difficulties exist in an exaggerated form. Korea
is old in its enforced ignorance, sloth, and corruption; but Korea is
new to rawness, in its response to the stimulus of foreign and Western
ideas, and in its exposure to the observation, either careless and casual
or patient and studious, of visitors and residents from abroad. Korea
has not yet been awakened to any definite form of intelligent, national
self-consciousness. At the same time, neither its material resources,
nor its physical characteristics, nor its history and antiquities, nor
its educational possibilities, nor the distinctive spirit of its people,
have ever been at all thoroughly investigated by others. No wonder,
then, that the views expressed by the “oldest residents” in Korea
regarding the characteristics of its rulers and its people—Emperor, late
Queen, Yang-bans, pedlers, and peasants (for there is almost no middle
class)—are strangely conflicting. Diverse and even contradictory traits
of character are, with equal confidence and on the basis of an equally
long and intimate acquaintance, ascribed by different persons to all
these classes.
The true and satisfactory account of these differences of opinion is not,
however, to be found by wholly denying the justness of either of the
opposite points of view. Contradictions are inherent in that very type of
character of which the Koreans afford so many striking examples. Indeed,
all peoples, when at ascertain stage of race-culture, and the multitudes
in all civilizations, are just that—bundles of confused and conflicting
ideas, impulses, and practices, which have never been unified into a
consistent “character.” The average Korean is not only liable to be
called, he is liable actually _to be_, kindly and yet cruel, generous
and yet intensely avaricious, with a certain sense of honor and yet
hopelessly corrupt in his official relations. Accordingly, as one puts
emphasis on this virtue to the exclusion or suppression of that vice, or
turns the eye upon the dark and disgusting side of the picture and shuts
out the side that might afford pleasure and hope, will one’s estimate be
made of the actual condition and future prospects of the nation.
But let us begin our brief description with the man who has been for
more than a generation the chief ruler of Korea, the now ex-Emperor. He
is a typical Korean—especially in respect of his characteristic weakness
of character, his taste for and adeptness at intrigue, his readiness to
deceive and corrupt others, and himself to be deceived and corrupted. For
all this no specially occult reasons need to be assigned. With a weak
nature, his youth spent under the pernicious influence of eunuchs and
court concubines and hangers-on, his manhood dominated by an unceasing
and bloody feud between his wife and his father, his brief period of
“independence” one orgy of misrule, and his latest years controlled by
sorceresses, soothsayers, low-born and high-born intriguers, and selfish
and unwise foreign advisers: what but incurably unsound character,
uncontrollable instability of conduct, and a destiny fated to be full of
disaster, could be expected from such a man so placed?
The father of the ex-Emperor was Yi Ha-eung, Prince of Heung Song, who
was long the so-called “Regent” or “Prince-Parent,” and is best known in
history as the “Tai Won Kun.” It has been said of him that “he was the
grandson of a great and unfortunate crown prince, the great-grandson of a
famous king, the nephew of another king, and the father of still another
king.” The lineal ancestor of the Tai Won Kun was Yong-jong, who reigned
from 1724 to 1776. This sovereign quarrelled with his own son and had
him put to death as insane; but other issue failing, the crown descended
through the murdered crown prince, and from him through three lines of
monarchs. Until his son was chosen to occupy the throne, the Tai Won Kun,
although he had married into the powerful Min family, does not seem to
have exercised much influence in politics. But in 1864, on the death of
the king, without male issue the Dowager Queen Cho, by what is reported
to have been a not altogether legitimate procedure, proclaimed the second
son of the Tai Won Kun, then a boy of only twelve years, as the successor
to the throne.
Little is exactly known as to the care or education of the boyish king
during his earliest years. It is commonly reported that he was fond of
outdoor sports, especially of archery, and disinclined to study. Yet he
is reputed to be a fine Chinese penman and to be well acquainted with the
Chinese classics. His father was a strict disciplinarian and, although
he was never legally in control of affairs during his son’s minority,
his influence was dominant so long as he kept on good terms with the
wily Queen Dowager and the Ministers of her selection. The failure of
all foreign attempts to enter into friendly relations with the Koreans,
and the persecution and slaughter of foreign Christian priests and of
thousands of Korean Christians during this period, are customarily
attributed to the influence of the Tai Won Kun.
When thirteen years of age, the new king was married to a girl selected
for him from the Min family. But until 1873 his position as ruler was
only nominal; on the attainment of his majority, however, the deadly
struggle between the wife and the father, the Queen and the Prince
Parent, began to be revealed. A word as to the character of the woman
is necessary in this place, in order to understand the conduct of the
King and, as well, the recent history of Korea. The Queen was, without
doubt, an unusually gifted and attractive woman, with the ability to
attach others to her, both men and women, in a powerful way. But a more
unscrupulous and horribly cruel character has rarely disgraced a throne,
whether in ancient or in modern times. Her rivals among the women of the
court were tortured and killed at her command; the adherents of the Tai
Won Kun were decapitated and their bodies thrown into the streets or
their heads used to festoon the gateway. One of the Koreans acquainted
with court affairs during her reign informed a friend of the writer that,
by careful calculation, he had reckoned the number of 2,867 persons put
to death as the victims of her personal hatred and ambition. The number
seems incredible, and there is no way to verify it; but no one who knows
the history of the Korean Court, even down to very recent years, will
assert that it cannot be correct. The tragic death of this woman, not
improperly, drew temporarily a veil over these atrocities. But their
existence is a part of the proof that, pernicious as was much of the
father’s influence over the king, the influence of the wife and her
family was yet more pernicious.
It was under influences such as these that the royal character of
Yi-Hy-eung, now ex-Emperor, developed, and that all the earlier part of
his reign was concluded. The result was to be expected—namely, an amiable
and weak nature rendered deceitful, cruel, and corrupt. The impression
made by his presence—as already described (see p. 46 _f._)—is not one
of dignity and strength of character; but the voice is pleasant, the
smile is winsome, the willingness to forgive and to do a good turn, if
either or both can be done without too much sacrifice or inconvenience,
is prompt and motived by kindly feeling. His Majesty is usually ready
to listen without malignant anger or lasting resentment to unwelcome
advice and even to stern rebuke. On the other hand, as already said, he
is a master of intrigue; and more than once, until very lately, he has
succeeded in quite surpassing at their own tricks the wily foreigners who
thought to get an advantage over him. On the other hand, his ignorance
and credulity have often rendered him an easy victim to the intrigue of
others. As one foreign minister, a stanch friend, said of him: “You may
give His Majesty the best advice, the only sensible advice possible under
the circumstances; he will assent cordially to all you say, and you leave
him confident that your advice will be followed. Then some worthless
fellow comes in, tells him something else, and what you have said is all
wiped off the slate.”
[Illustration: The Ex-Emperor and Present Emperor.]
In spite of his natural amiability this ruler has frequently shown
a cold-blooded and calculating cruelty, made more conspicuous
by ingratitude and treachery; and his reign has been throughout
characterized by a callous disregard of the sufferings of the people
through the injustice of his own minions. To quote again the estimate of
a foreign minister: “His Majesty loves power, but seems color-blind when
it comes to the faculty of distinguishing between the true and the false.
He would rather have one of the Government Departments pay 20,000 _yen_
in satisfaction of a debt which he owes than pay 5,000 _yen_ out of his
own purse.[43] And he allows himself to be cheated with the same sense
of toleration which he has for those who cheat the Government, provided
that the culprit has the saving grace of a pleasing deportment.” One of
his most able and upright Korean officials once declared: “It is true
I am devoted to His Majesty, and I am sure he likes me; but if I were
to be executed for some crime of which I was completely innocent, and a
friend were to come to His Majesty, while he was at dinner, and implore
his intercession, if it meant any danger, even the slightest, to him, he
would leave me to my fate and go on eating with a good appetite.” During
the Boxer troubles in China a plot was devised by the reigning favorite
of the Emperor, Yi Yong-ik, to kill all the foreigners in Korea; the
plot was exposed, but the favorite did not suffer in his influence over
the Emperor. Over and over again, in earlier days, the missionaries have
appealed to him in vain to secure their converts against robbery and
death at the hands of imperial favorites. It was formerly his custom to
have at stated intervals large numbers of persons executed—inconvenient
witnesses, political suspects, enemies of men in power. This custom of
indiscriminate “jail-cleaning” was, as far as it was safe and allowable
under the growing foreign influences, continued down toward the present
time.
That the foregoing account of the character of the man who came to the
throne of Korea, as a boy of twelve, in 1864, and abdicated this throne
in 1907, is a true picture needs no additional evidence to that now
available by the world at large. Strangely inconsistent in some of its
features as it may seem to be, the portrait is unmistakably true to life.
No wonder then, that, after exhausting all his resources of advice,
rebuke, and warning, the Resident-General was regretfully forced to
this conclusion: no cure for the temperament and habits of His Majesty
of Korea could possibly be found. But this had long been the conclusion
of his own Cabinet Ministers and all others among the wiser of the
Korean officials. It was finally by these Ministers, without the orders,
consent, or even knowledge of the Marquis Ito, that in order to save
the country from more serious humiliation and disaster, movements were
initiated to secure his abdication of the throne he had disgraced for
more than forty years.
As to the Korean ruling classes generally, the Yang-bans so-called, it
may be said that for centuries they have been, with few exceptions, of a
character to correspond with their monarchs. The latter have also been,
with few exceptions, such in character as to represent either the weak
side or the corrupt and cruel side, or both, of the ruler just described.
This truth of “like king, like nobles,” was amply illustrated by the case
of Kwang-ha, in the early years of the seventeenth century. When the monk
Seung-ji induced this king to build the so-called “Mulberry Palace,”
thousands of houses were razed, the people oppressed with taxation,
and the public offices sold in order to raise the funds. When the same
monarch, yielding to the influences of his concubine and her party,
committed the infamy of expelling the Queen-Dowager from Seoul, only one
prominent courtier, Yi Hang-bok, with eight others, stood out against 930
officials and 170 of the king’s relatives who were ready to vote for the
shameful deed.[44]
The proportion of courageous and honest officials connected with the
Korean Court had not greatly increased up to the time when Marquis
Ito undertook the task of its purification. This fact, in itself, so
discouraging to the effort at instituting reforms from above downward
on the part of the Koreans themselves, is made obvious in a striking
way by the analysis of a brief, confidential description (a sort of
official Korean “Who is Who?”) of ninety-six persons, prepared by one
well acquainted with the men and their history, but favorably disposed
toward—even prejudiced in favor of—the side of Korea. Of these ninety-six
officials, only five are pronounced thoroughly honorable and trustworthy
characters; twenty-seven are classed as fairly good; the remainder are
denominated very weak, or very bad. Subsequent developments have revealed
the weakness or corruption of most of those whom this paper less than
ten years ago pronounced to be on the whole either hopeful or positively
good. What this means for Korea to-day can be judged by the following
selected examples: (1) “A rather proud and rich member of the ⸺ Clan;
a notorious squeezer, and one whose services may always be had for a
price; absolutely unreliable and incapable of patriotic impulses.” (2) “A
contemptible but rich member of the ⸺ Clan; a most detestable oppressor
of the people as shown in Pyeng Yang; incapable of good impulses
apparently.” (3) “A slippery self-made man; Emperor’s private treasurer;
Vice-Minister of Interior for many years; rose through influence of his
cousin, but not loyal to latter’s memory; cannot be influenced except
through fear or favor.” (4) “A self-made man who might better have let
out the job; has courage, and is unmercifully, cruel and oppressive; is
the most ignorant official in high office during twenty years.” Yet this
low-born and ignorant fellow had almost absolute control of the Emperor
and of the country’s finances for several years.
The examples given above may serve to describe the one-third of the
ninety-six officials characterized by extreme immorality. Of the other
one-third, whose services to their country are rendered available only
for evil on account of their weakness, the following examples afford a
sufficiently accurate description: (1) “Foreign Minister repeatedly; very
deficient in intelligence, but says little and looks wise; too feeble
to be dishonest, but an easy tool for one who cares to use him.” (2)
“Governor of ⸺; a weak, abominable man, who has done well at ⸺, because
kept in check by the Japanese; would be a scoundrel if the opportunity
offered; a tool of Yi Yong-ik” (a man notorious for his corruption and
oppression, on account of which some of the highest officials knelt
before the Palace gate during the entire day and night of November
28, 1902, praying for his trial and punishment; but he was saved by
the Emperor, who feared him; he was even subsequently brought back
from banishment and restored to his post as “Director of the Imperial
Estates”). (3) “An old man of remarkable history; has been on all sides
of the political fence; is good at times, and apparently a patriot, and
then he will turn up on quite the opposite side.”
It cannot be supposed that an official class, so constituted and so
thoroughly imbued with such unwholesome characteristics, would easily
form within itself a party loyal to reform, and brave and strong enough
to carry its loyalty out into practical effect. As a matter of fact
no such political party has ever been formed and maintained to any
successful issue, in the history of Korea. For this we may take the word
of Mr. Homer B. Hulbert, who says,[45] regarding the formation of parties
in 1575: “These parties have never represented any principle whatever.
They have never had any platforms, but have been, and are, simply
political clans bent upon securing the royal favor and the offices and
emoluments that go therewith.” In another work of the same author we are
told: “From that day onward (middle of the sixteenth century) politics
has been a war of factions, struggling for wealth and power, with no
scruples against murder or other crime.” The Koreans are, indeed, given
to the formation of societies and parties of various descriptions; the
more improper or nearly impossible are the ends to be reached, and
the more clandestine and illicit the means employed, the greater the
temporary enthusiasm which they are likely to excite. All these parties
have therefore one plank and one plan of action: to get the ear of the
king, to seize upon and control the office-making power, and so to put
in every lucrative or honorable position their own partisans. It is “the
spoils system sublimated”; for there is “absolutely no admixture of any
other element.”[46]
On the other hand, this same factional and corrupt spirit among the
ruling classes has made it certain that, “however good a statesman a
man might be, the other side would try to get his head removed from his
shoulders at the first opportunity; and the more distinguished he became,
the greater this desire would be. From that time (again the middle of the
sixteenth century) to this, almost all the really great men of Korea have
met a violent death.”... “No matter how long one lives in this country,
he will never get to understand how a people can possibly drop to such
a low estate as to be willing to live without the remotest hope of
receiving even-handed justice. Not a week passes but you come in personal
contact with cases of injustice and brutality that would mean a riot in
any civilized country.”[47]
As to the public justice when administered by such a ruling class, this
has actually been what might have been expected. The one judicial
principle universally recognized is that justice is worth its price;
the side which can offer the largest bribe of money or influence
will uniformly win its case. Of justice in Korea, to quote from Mr.
Hulbert again,[48] there is “not much more than is absolutely necessary
to hold the fabric of the commonwealth from disintegration.” Until
the Chino-Japan war, when Japanese influence made itself felt in a
controlling way, the brutal spectacles were not infrequent of men having
their heads hacked off with dull swords, or their bones broken by beating
with a huge paddle. Death by poison with extract made by boiling the
centipede was administered to prisoners. It was not till 1895 that the
law was abolished which required the poisoning of mother, wife, and
daughter for the man’s treason, the poisoning of wife for his crime
of murder or arson, and the enslaving of wife for his theft. When the
reformers of 1894 ordered the restoration to their lawful owners of the
lands and houses which had been illegally seized, numerous officials—some
of whom were well known in foreign circles as partners of concessions
obtained through influence—lost large fractions of their wealth because
of the decree.
After describing the Yang-ban as one sees him upon the streets or meets
him in social gatherings at Seoul in the following terms—a “dignified,
stately gentleman, self-centred, self-contented, naïvely curious about
the foreigner, albeit in a slightly contemptuous fashion”—a writer
well acquainted with the Korean gentry goes on to say: “Experience
teaches that this fine gentleman is not ashamed to live upon his
relatives, to the remotest degree; that he disdains labor and knows
nothing of business; that he is not a liar from malice, but that he is
a prevaricator by instinct and habit. Even when he wishes to tell the
truth, and nothing but the truth, it leaves his lips so embroidered with
fanciful elaborations that the Father of lies would be glad to claim it
for his own. With all that, he may, according to the accepted standards
of his class, be an upright citizen, a kind husband, and a conscientious
parent. And just as likely as not, he may possess qualities which endear
him to the foreign observer.”
Under centuries of subjection to a ruling class having the character
described above, the mental and moral characteristics of the Korean
people have been developed as might have been expected. The ethnic
mixture from which the race has sprung is possessed of fine physical
and spiritual qualities. The male members of the race, especially,
are in general of good height, well formed, and capable of endurance
and achievement in enterprises demanding bodily strength. They are
undoubtedly fond of their ease and even slothful—for man when not
stimulated by hope or necessity is naturally a lazy animal—as the
impression from the rows of coolies and peasants squatted upon the
ground and sucking their pipes, or lying prone in the sunlight, during
the working hours of the day, bears witness. As for the Yang-ban, on
no account will he do manual work. But, on the other hand, the lower
classes make good workmen, when well taught and properly “bossed”; and
their miners, for example, are said by experts to be among the best in
the world. The success in manual pursuits of those who emigrated to
Hawaii some years ago testifies also to their inherent capacity. As has
already been said, the Koreans are much given to forming all manner of
associations; they are “gregarious in their crimes as in their pastimes.”
When well treated they are generally good-natured and docile—easy to
control under even a tolerably just administration. Nor are they,
probably, such cowards that they cannot be trained to acquit themselves
well in war.
The prevailing, the practically universal vices and crimes are those
which are inevitable under any such government, if long continued,
as that which has burdened and degraded the Korean populace from the
beginning of their obscure history as a complex of kingdoms down to the
present time. What their vices and crimes are can be learned even better
from the lips of their professed friends than from those whom they regard
as their open or secret enemies. Of the average Korean Mr. Hulbert[49]
affirms: “You may call him a liar or a libertine, and he will laugh it
off; but call him mean and you flick him on the raw.” “In Korea it is
as common to use the expression, ‘You are a liar’ as it is with us to
say, ‘You don’t say.’... A Korean sees about as much moral turpitude in
a lie as we see in a mixed metaphor or a split infinitive.” As to his
good nature: “Any accession of importance or prestige goes to his head
like new wine and is apt to make him offensive.” The same author, after
saying of the Korean bullock, “This heavy, slow-plodding animal, docile,
long-suffering, uncomplaining, would make a fitting emblem of the Korean
people,” goes on to describe his own disgust at the frequent sight of the
drunken, brutal bullock-driver, venting his spleen on some fellow Korean
by cruelly beating his own bullock. Torturing animals is a favorite
pastime for both children and adults. The horrid brutality of the Korean
mob, to which reference has already been repeatedly made, has been more
than once witnessed by those now living in Seoul; it would speedily be
witnessed again, if the hand of the Japanese Protectorate were withdrawn.
For the Korean, when angry, is recklessly cruel and entirely careless
of life, and resembles nothing else so much as a “fanged beast.”[50]
When combined with the superstition and the incredible credulity which
prevail among the populace, this brutality constitutes a standing menace
to the peace and life of the foreign population residing in the midst of
them. It was as late as 1888 that the mob, excited by the report that
the Americans and Europeans were engaged in the business, for profit, of
killing Korean babies and of cutting off the breasts of Korean women to
use in the manufacture of condensed milk, were scarcely repressed from
wholesale arson and murder.[51]
The anti-Japanese natives and foreigners have with more or less good
reason complained that an increase of sexual impurity and of licensed
vice has resulted from the Japanese Protectorate over Korea. Without
entering upon the discussion of the difficult problem involved in
these charges, it is enough to say that “corruption of the Koreans”
in this regard is scarcely a proper claim to bring forward, under any
circumstances. It is of no particular significance to determine whether
the statement of a recent writer that the exposure of their breasts on
the streets is characteristic of Korean women generally, is a libel,
or not. It is true, indeed, that the foreign lady who has done much to
encourage among the natives of her own sex in Seoul a certain regard
for the decencies of civilization, was accustomed, not many years ago,
to provide herself with safety-pins and accompany their use upon the
garments of the lower classes (women of the higher classes do not appear
upon the streets) with a moral lecture. But to one acquainted with the
unimportant influence of such exposure upon really vicious conduct among
peoples of a certain grade of race-culture, the charge, whether true or
not, is comparatively petty. Much more determinative is it to learn from
their friendly historians that only one in ten of their songs could with
decency be published; that almost all their stories are of a salacious
character and, “however discreditable it may be, they are a true picture
of the morals of Korea to-day”; and that among the lower classes the
utmost promiscuity prevails. “A man may have half-a-dozen wives a
year in succession. No ceremony is required, and it is simply a mutual
agreement of a more or less temporary nature.”[52]
As to business honesty or respect for property rights, as such, there
is almost none of it among the people of Korea. But what else could be
expected of pedlers, peasants, and coolies, who have lived under the
corrupt and oppressive government of such rulers during centuries of
time? To quote again from the friendly historian:[53] “In case a man
has to foreclose a mortgage and enter upon possession of the property,
he will need the sanction of the authorities, since possession here,
as elsewhere, is nine points of the law. The trouble is that a large
fraction of the remaining point is dependent upon the caprice or the
venality of the official whose duty is to adjudicate the case. In a land
where bribery is almost second nature, and where private rights are of
small account unless backed by some kind of influence, the thwarting of
justice is exceedingly common.” More astonishing still, from our point
of view, is the use made of the public properties, which until recently
prevailed even in the city of Seoul, by the lowest of the people. Any
Korean might extend his temporary booth or shop out into the street, and
then, when people had become accustomed to this, quietly plant permanent
posts at the extreme limit of his illicit appropriation. On being
expostulated with, “he will put on a look of innocence and assert that
he has been using the space for many years”;[54] indeed, “he inherited
it from his father or father’s father.” To this day the making of false
deeds, or the deeding of the same property to two different purchasers
(by one false deed and one genuine, or by both false) is an exceedingly
common occurrence. If the native wanted a place for the deposit of his
filth, and the drain near his house was already full, he dug a hole
in the street; if he wanted dirt for his own use, he took it from the
street. “Scores of times,” says Hulbert, “I have come upon places where a
hole has been dug in the street large enough to bury an ox.” Meanwhile,
petty stealing and highway robbery have been going on all over the
land. This, too, is the practical morality of the Korean populace, when
unrestrained by foreign control, even down to the present time.
A curious confirmation of the foregoing estimate of the mental and moral
character of the people of Korea was afforded by the “confessions”
which poured forth in perfervid language, ending not infrequently in
a falling fit or a lapse into half-consciousness, from thousands of
native Christians during the revival of 1906-1907. The sins which were
confessed to have been committed since their profession of Christianity,
were in the main these same characteristic vices of the Korean people.
They included not only pride, jealousy, and hatred, but habitual lying,
cheating, stealing, and acts of impurity.
It is, then, no cause for surprise that a recent writer[55] affirms: “If
it seems a hopeless task to lift the Chinaman out of his groove, it is
a hundred times more difficult to change the habits of a Korean.... The
Korean has absolutely nothing to recommend him save his good nature.
He is a standing warning to those who oppose progress. Some one has
said that the answer to Confucianism is China; but the best and most
completely damning answer is Korea.”
Can Korea—such a people, with such rulers—be reformed and redeemed? Can
her rulers be made to rule at least in some semblance of righteousness,
as preparatory to its more perfect and substantial form? Can the people
learn to prize order, to obey law, and to respect human rights?
Probably, yes; but certainly never without help from the outside. And
this help must be something more than the missionary can give. It must
lay foundations of industrial, judicial, and governmental reform: it
must also enforce them. Such political disease does not, if left alone,
perfect its own cure. The knife of the surgeon is first of all needed;
the tonic of the physician and the nourishment of good food and the
bracing of a purer air come afterward. We cannot, therefore, agree with
the small body of Christian workmen—now, happily, a minority—who try to
believe that the needed redemption of Korea could be effected by their
unaided forces. A union of law, enforced by police and military, with the
spiritual influences of education and religion, is alone available in so
desperate a case as that of Korea to-day.
It is to the task of a political reformation and education for both
rulers and people in Korea that Japan stands committed before the
world at the present time. As represented by the Marquis Ito, she has
undertaken this task with a good conscience and with a reasonable
amount of hope. Among the administrative reforms in Korea[56] one of
the most important is the “Purification of the Imperial Court.” This
“singular operation the Resident-General caused to be resolutely carried
out in July, 1906.” At that time “men and women of uncertain origin
and questionable character ... had, in a considerable number, come to
find their way into the royal palace, until it had become a veritable
_rendezvous_ of adventurers and conspirators. Divining, fortune-telling
and spirit-incanting found favor there, and knaves and villains plotted
and intrigued within the very gates of the Court, in co-operation with
native and foreign schemers without. By cheating and chicanery, they
relieved the Imperial treasury of its funds, and in their eagerness to
fill their pockets never stopped to think of what dangerous seeds of
disorder and rapine they were scattering broadcast over the benighted
peninsula.”
It must doubtless be confessed that under the ex-Emperor the efforts of
the Residency-General to effect the needed reforms were successful only
to a limited extent. But with his last piece of intriguing to “relieve
the Imperial treasury of its funds,” by sending a commission to the
Hague Conference, “in co-operation with native and foreign schemers,”
the old era came quickly to an end. The history of its termination will
be told elsewhere; but the fact has illumined and strengthened the hope
that Korea, too, can in time produce men fit to rule with some semblance
of honesty, fidelity, and righteousness. Meantime, they must be largely
ruled from without.
How this hope of industrial and political redemption may be extended to
the people at large and applied to the different important interests
of the nation, both in its internal and foreign relations, will be
illustrated in the several following chapters. Now that the Emperor[57]
is publicly committed to an extended policy of reform; that the Ministers
are for the first time in the history of Korea really a Cabinet
exercising some control; that the Resident-General has the right and
the duty to guide and to enforce all the important measures necessary
to achieve reform; that the foreign nations chiefly interested have
definitively recognized the Japanese Protectorate; and that the leaders
of the foreign moral and religious forces are so largely in harmony with
the plans of Japan;—now that all this is matter of past achievement,
the prospects for the future of Korea are brighter than they have ever
been before. One may reasonably hope that the time is not far distant
when both rulers and people will be consciously the happier and more
prosperous, because they have been compelled by a foreign and hated
neighbor to submit to a reformation imposed from without. That they
would ever have reformed themselves is not to be believed by those who
know intimately the mental and moral history and characteristics of the
Koreans.