EDUCATION AND THE PUBLIC JUSTICE
Until recently neither public education nor public justice, in the
modern meaning of these terms, has had any existence in Korea. Even
those who were regarded as preferred candidates for government positions
in educational and judicial fields were not really fitted for the
intelligent and faithful performance of their duties—supposing (what,
in most cases, was not true) that they really desired efficiency and
true success. For the common people of Korea, indeed for all except the
most highly privileged classes, there was no opportunity for learning
and no conception or experience of the fair, legal safeguarding of human
interests and human rights. The older educational methods, so far as
method existed at all, were patterned after those of China; but they were
never so thorough or excellent of their kind as were the Chinese. Civil
service examinations were indeed required for official preferment. These
examinations were exceedingly superficial, and were not guarded against
fraud; so that the selection of successful candidates was too frequently
made on quite other grounds than those of superior excellence in passing
the examinations. To this latter fact the Korean stories of poor and
worthy candidates who have been unjustly deprived of the offices to which
they were entitled bear an ample and often dramatically pathetic witness.
While, as to the almost total absence of even-handed justice, from the
central government at the Court down to the most petty of the local
magistrates, the entire history of Korea is one continued pitiful story.
With regard to the condition of the public education as late as just
previous to, and even after the attempted reforms of 1894, we quote the
following description from the _Korean Review_ of November of 1904:
According to Korean custom and tradition, any man who knows
Chinese fairly well can become a teacher. There is no such
thing as a science of teaching, and the general average of
instruction is wretchedly poor. The teacher gets only his
deserts, which are extremely small. The traditional Korean
school-teacher, while receiving some small degree of social
consideration because of his knowledge of the Chinese
characters, is looked upon as more or less of a mendicant.
Only the poorest will engage in this work, and they do it on
a pittance which just keeps them above the starvation line.
It has been ingrained in the Korean character to reckon the
profession of pedagogy as a mere makeshift which is only better
than actual beggary. If you examine the pay-list even of the
Government schools, you will find that the ordinary wage is
about thirty Korean dollars. This means about fifteen _yen_
a month, and is almost precisely the amount that an ordinary
coolie receives. This wretchedly low estimate of the value of a
teacher’s services debauches the whole system. The men who hold
these positions are doing so because nothing better has turned
up, and they get their revenge for the inadequacy of the salary
by shirking their work as much as possible.
It would seem from this account that the contemplated reforms of the
educational system, which had been inaugurated ten years before, when the
old-fashioned civil-service examinations were abolished, had remained,
as is customary with all reforms in Korea if not enforced from without,
merely matters of so much paper. Another writer[72] about midway in this
decade gives a somewhat better account of Korean educational affairs
after the Chino-Japan war. The “present favorable aspect of education”
at that time this writer attributes to the influence of the war. It is
to be noted, however, that the “favorable aspect” covers, for the most
part, only the special schools established in Seoul and does not regard
the unimproved and still deplorable state of the public education in
the country at large. Stricter attention to the extent of this alleged
improvement, even within the city of Seoul, shows how limited it really
was. Besides well-deserved praise bestowed upon the few missionary
schools, only the governmental so-called “Normal School,” in which
30 scholars were enrolled, and which was presided over by Mr. Homer
B. Hulbert, and a school for teaching English to the sons of nobles,
numbering 35 pupils, are given as examples. Inasmuch as the latter
school had the same teacher, and he was justly complaining that his
obligation to teach the young Yang-bans interfered with his legitimate
work, the cause of the _public_ education could not have made any
considerable advances at this time. The same report speaks of a Japanese
school maintained in Seoul by the Foreign Education Society of Japan,
in the following significant way: “It was organized in April, 1898, as
a token of the sincere sympathy for the lack of a sound educational
basis in Korea, with the view of giving a thorough elementary course of
instruction to Korean youths, and ‘thus aiming to form a true foundation
of the undisputed independence of that country.’”
In further proof of the undoubted fact that the reforms of 1894 had
accomplished little in Seoul itself, and almost nothing at all in Korea
outside of the capital, we may appeal again to the testimony of the
writer in the _Korean Review_: “We do not see,” says this writer, “how
the government can be made to realize the importance of this work. When
no protest is made against the appropriation of a paltry $60,000 a year
for education as compared with $4,000,000 for the Korean army, there is
little use in expecting a change in the near future. The government could
do nothing better than reverse these figures; but the age of miracles is
past.”
“Before suggesting a possible solution of the question,” this writer
goes on to say, “we should note with care what is at present being done
to provide young men with an education. There are the seven or eight
primary schools in Seoul with a possible attendance of forty boys each.
This means a good deal less than 500 boys in this city of over 200,000
people, including the immediate suburbs. At the least estimate there
ought to be 6,000 boys in school between the ages of ten and sixteen.
Practically nothing is being done. As for intermediate education there is
a Middle School, with a corps of eight teachers and an average attendance
of about thirty boys. The building, the apparatus, and the teaching staff
would suffice for about four hundred pupils. There are several foreign
language schools, with an attendance of anywhere from twenty to eighty
each, and they are fairly successful.... Then there are the several
private schools, almost every one of which is in a languishing condition.
A Korean will start a private school on the least provocation. It runs
a few months and then closes, nobody being the wiser, though some be
sadder. When we come to reckon up the number of young Koreans who are
pursuing a course of instruction along modern lines, we find that they
represent a fraction of less than one per cent. of the men who ought to
attend, and might easily be doing so.” Such was then the condition of
the public education in Korea even down until after the beginning of the
Russo-Japanese war, or in November of 1904.
The foregoing true account of educational matters in Korea is further
confirmed and expanded by the Official Report more recently given out
in the name of the Residency-General.[73] The report, however, notices
the existence of the accepted means of education for the village
children in the provinces. These means were employed, after a debased
Confucian system, in so-called _Syo-bang_ by a sort of village dominie,
who gathered about him the children of the neighborhood and taught them
the rudiments of reading and writing the vernacular. There were in 1894
some ten thousand of these schools scattered throughout the peninsula.
In the barest rudiments of the native language the instruction they
gave was deficient; of modern education in other matters, there was
nothing. In Seoul there was also a high-school of Confucian learning (a
_Syöng-Kyūn-Koan_); where the students were taught the three “Primary”
and the four “Middle Classics,” and were given some lessons in history,
geography, composition and mathematics.
The same Report further agrees with the Article in the _Korean Review_
in considering the reforms proclaimed in 1894 by the government as
ineffective. The schools which sprung up under the “Primary School
Ordinance,” with the intention of introducing the Western system of
education, were almost without exception of the old (_Shobo_) character.
And, indeed, how could it be otherwise, when there were no teachers
who could give the rudiments of a modern education, and few pupils who
desired such an education? As for the middle-grade education which the
Seoul schools professed to give, there was little or nothing to bear out
their pretensions.
[Illustration: Street Scene in Seoul.]
The Residency-General aims, therefore, “at nothing less than the
establishment of an entirely new system of education for Korea.” But the
system does not propose to interfere with, much less wholly to close,
the existing old-fashioned Confucian institutions. It will, the rather,
gradually displace them by something better. The Government system as now
planned contemplates supplying the nation with the necessary schools of
the different grades, in accordance with the outline of reforms given
below.
1. The former “Primary Schools” have been renamed “Common
Schools.” The Common School Ordinance and Regulations have
been drawn up and put in practice; the ten primary schools
of various kinds in Seoul having been turned into Government
Common Schools, and the thirteen Primary Schools in the
provinces into Public Common Schools. The class work under
the new _régime_ was begun in September, 1905, in all these
schools. It has been arranged, further, to establish Public
Common Schools in twenty-seven principal cities and towns of
the provinces in April this year.
2. The former “Middle Schools” have been renamed “High
Schools”; and the “High School” Ordinance and Regulations
issued. The period of study in these schools has been fixed
at four years, and graduates of the Common Schools are to be
taken without the examination, which is, however, required
in the case of other candidates for admission. The number of
regular course students in each of these schools is fixed at
200, with the proviso that they may open a _Hoshu-kwa_ class
(or _interim_ class for those who need to complete their
qualification before taking up the regular course).
3. Reforms and the expansion of the scope of work, judged
necessary and advisable, have been effected for the Normal,
and the Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Schools, which
all retain their old names, while the Medical School has been
attached to the _Tai-han-ui-won_ (or “Great Korean Hospital”).
4. Out of the 500,000 _yen_ provided for the extension of the
educational system, a sum of 340,000 _yen_ has been expended in
newly constructing, renovating, or enlarging the Common School
buildings. The remaining 160,000 _yen_ has been put in part to
the service of new buildings for the Normal, the Agricultural
and Forestry, and the Commercial Schools; and in part to the
fund for necessary construction work and equipment for the
schools of the Middle Grade.
5. Besides the schools described above, a special institution
having the name of _Syu-hak-won_ has been established
for giving education to the children of the Imperial
and aristocratic families. It has been placed under the
superintendence of the Minister of the Household. The regular
number of scholars received into this institution is fixed at
twenty. The course of instruction given is not dissimilar to
that in the common schools.
Any account of educational reforms in Korea would be quite inadequate if
it did not include mention of the new provisions for medical and surgical
treatment and for the education of native physicians and surgeons.
Incredible as it may seem, it is true that there was in the spring of
1907 only one native in all Korea who had received a thorough modern
medical education; and this one was a woman who had studied in the United
States and was connected with the medical work of the Methodist Mission
at Pyeng-yang. In connection with one of the three small hospitals
hitherto existing in Seoul there has been for some seven years a Seoul
Medical College, with only one Japanese instructor. The hospitals are
now to be united in a single large institution, for which 280,000 _yen_,
to be spent in construction, and 123,600 _yen_, for maintenance, have
already been provided. This hospital will also have charge of training
for the medical profession and for hygienic and sanitary administration.
The site has been secured and the construction of the buildings begun,
with the expectation of having them completed during the year 1907.
The educational work thus far actually accomplished in Korea has been
chiefly done by the missionary schools. Among these schools those
belonging to the Korean Mission of the Presbyterian Church in the United
States are most numerous and effective. The Annual Report of this Mission
for the year 1906, under the head of “Educational Work,” furnishes
information as to the following among other particulars. The total
enrolment of the “Academy” was 160, of whom 104 remained in school till
the close of the year. In the autumn of 1905, twelve of the students,
“contrary to advice and orders, left the school and joined the throng at
Seoul, who wanted to lay their lives on the altar of their country in the
effort to retain their national independence. The twelve were suspended
for the year. Order was finally restored, and the remaining pupils
returned to their work with renewed zeal.” The class which graduated
in June, 1906, consisted of four members. In the fall of 1906 a sum of
money amounting to somewhat more than $2,000 was collected with a view
to starting a so-called “college.” The theological instruction which was
carried on at Pyeng-yang during the months of April, May, and June, of
the same year, became the germ of a developing “Theological Seminary”
for the training of an educated native ministry. An advanced school
for girls and women had an enrolment of 53 for the year. The number
of local primary schools was 4 for boys and 3 for girls, with a total
attendance of 494; to these should be added, of the “country schools,”
62 for boys and 8 for girls, with a total attendance of 1,266. Such is
the report of the “Pyeng-yang Station.” In the “Seoul Station,” for the
same year (1906) the report shows a total of 105 boys, in 4 schools,
under 5 teachers, and of 48 girls, in 4 schools, under 4 teachers (rated
as “Primary Schools”), in the city of Seoul; and 27 schools with 303
boys and 35 girls, belonging to the churches in this station, outside of
Seoul. There was also in this district one “Intermediate and Boarding
School,” with 60 boys and 23 girls numbered among its pupils. While
the building to accommodate the boys of this school was in process
of erection, they were combined with those of a corresponding school
belonging to the Methodist Mission; and the united work carried on in
the building belonging to the latter Mission thus attained a total
enrolment of 150 pupils. Without mentioning the educational work done
in less important stations of this Mission, it is enough to say that in
the year 1906 there were 7 schools of a grade above the primary, giving
instruction to 255 boys and 125 girls, and 208 schools of the lower grade
with an enrolment of 3,116 boys and 795 girls as the aggregate number of
their pupils. Most of the schools of the primary grade, however, consist
of “classes” somewhat irregularly taught, insufficiently supplied with
teachers, and wholly without adequate permanent accommodations.
Into the actual condition of educational work in Korea, so far as such
work is dependent upon the attitude of the Koreans themselves, the
following extract from the Report of the Union High School gives a
significant glimpse:[74]
Union school work was opened up in the building known as
_Pai-chai_, and was carried on there during the year. As is
usually the case in opening a term in Korea, the first two
weeks were a period of growth. The students who were with us
last year came straggling along, while those who came for
initial matriculation found their way to us from day to day,
until about 130 names were on the roll. It will be a day of
rejoicing when Korean students come to appreciate the opening
day and are to be found in their places on that day, ready
for work. As it is now, a day or two, a week or two, or even
a longer period, matters little to them; they come to take up
their work when it is wholly convenient to them. It is easy
to see that this slip-shod way of doing things is a serious
drawback in school work, and it is hoped that in some way it
may be brought about that every day late at opening will be
counted a day lost by the student himself. But this can be
secured only when a higher value is placed upon time than it
now has. Now that our boys are fairly well classified, it is
hoped that the difficulty may in a measure be remedied by
compelling those students to drop back one form whose general
attendance grade, class-room work, and examinations do not come
up to the prescribed standard.
The Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Korea, in its Conference
Report for the year 1906, gives the number of its so-called “High
Schools” as 2, with 3 teachers and 93 pupils, and of its “other schools”
as 54, with an enrolment of 1,564 day scholars. A year later the
statistics presented to the Conference stated: “The Mission maintains 106
schools with 3,787 pupils under instruction.”
In connection with the hospitals under both these Missions at Seoul and
at Pyeng-yang, a beginning has been made in the preparation of medical
text-books for native use, and in the training of natives for the medical
profession.
The showing made by the facts just stated is meagre enough, when we
consider that it is the best that can honestly be made for a modern
nation of about ten millions. There is reason to believe, however, that
the statistics exaggerate, rather than minimize, the results already
achieved along educational lines. There has, indeed, been a beginning,
but only a beginning. There are generous plans adopted and set in
operation; but the effectual working of these plans on any considerable
scale remains for the future to bring about. The interest of the Emperor
and his Court in the educational reform of Korea was no more to be
depended upon than was their interest in any other reform, or real and
substantial good, accruing to the benefit of the Korean public. So far
as these influences prevailed, the Korean system was in 1904, and would
have remained, an affair of paper only. But the Korean Department of
Education, under the Residency-General, has co-operated faithfully in
efforts to give to the country an efficient system of public education.
The former Minister of Education, now (1907) Prime Minister Yi, has
been at once the strongest and the most sincere of the Korean officials
under the Japanese Protectorate. The hope of Korea, and the realization
of the hopes of the Marquis Ito for Korea, depend upon the initiation
and execution of a wise Government policy of education more than upon
any other one influence. Unaided by Japan, Korea would never bring this
about. As said Mr. Hulbert, when in his better mind:[75] “_What Korea
wants is education_; and until steps are taken in that line there is
no use in hoping for a genuinely independent Korea. Now we believe
that a large majority of the best informed Koreans realize that Japan
and Japanese influence stand for education and enlightenment; and that
while the paramount influence of any one outside power is in some sense
a humiliation, the paramount influence of Japan will furnish far less
genuine cause for humiliation than has the paramount influence of Russia.
Russia secured her predominance by pandering to the worst elements in
Korean officialdom. Japan holds it by strength of arm, but she holds it
in such a way as to give promise of something better. The word reform
never passed the Russian’s lips. It is the insistent cry of Japan. The
welfare of the Korean people never showed its head above the Russian
horizon, but it fills the whole vision of Japan; not from altruistic
motives mainly, but because the prosperity of Korea and that of Japan
rise and fall with the same tide.”[76]
In the future development and administration of educational affairs in
Korea two principles are especially important to be kept in mind. The
first is the necessity for co-operation on the part of all the educative
forces under some system or general plan. On the one hand, the private
and missionary schools could never suffice for the educational reform
of the nation; neither could they supply adequately the needed number
or kind of schools for its proper educational development. In general,
missionary schools belong to the planting and earlier stages of religious
propagandism among peoples who have either no system of public education
or a system which is hostile to religious influences. Missionary schools
are of necessity foreign schools; when they have effectually performed
their initial work, they should somehow become a part of the native
equipment for educating the people. As we have already said, they have
until recently been almost the only—though exceedingly meagre and
faulty—means for giving the rudiments of a modern education to a small
fraction of Korean youth. They never could be developed, if they remain
simply missionary schools, so as to cope with the entire educational
problem in this land of public ignorance and of intellectual and moral
degradation. Those who are in charge of them, therefore, should be among
the most forward to welcome cordially, and effectively to assist, the
organization and advance of a national system of public education in
Korea. Otherwise their highest service can never be rendered to the
country; their most important and ultimate purpose of contributing toward
the evolving of an intelligent Christian nation can never be realized.
On the other hand, any plans for the establishing and developing of a
system of education in Korea at the present time should be wise and
generous in the matter of taking into its confidence, and availing
itself of, the assistance of the mission schools. So miserably poor is
Korea in all resources of this character, that the barest principles
of economics enforce the necessity of her availing herself of all
possible helps. Moreover, the converts to Christianity—although a very
considerable proportion of them are ignorant of the truths, and negligent
of the morals, of the foreign religion they suppose themselves to have
espoused—are multiplying rapidly, and are destined to become of more
and more political and social significance in the near future. Some
sort of regulated co-operation and conformity to a general plan should,
therefore, as speedily as possible be secured between the Government and
the private Christian schools. The Japanese and Korean Governments and
the Missionary Boards should speedily agree upon some common plan for
the requirements of the primary and secondary grades of instruction, and
thus actively assist each other in the attainment of their common end.
That this cannot be done without sacrificing the special interests deemed
most important to each, it would be in contempt of the good sense and
sincerity of both to affirm.
The second most important principle to set in control of the educational
system of Korea is this. At first, and for a long time to come, it
should be pretty strictly limited to fitting the Koreans themselves
for a serviceable life, in Korea, and under the conditions, physical,
social, and economic and political, of Korea. To educate—after the
fashion followed too much by Great Britain in India—thousands of Korean
_babus_, who thus become unfitted for the pressing needs of their country
at this present day, and inclined to idleness rather than any hard and
disagreeable but useful work, would be a mistake which neither the
Government nor the Missions can afford to make. It is a fact, however,
that, up to the present time, too large a proportion of the Korean youth,
whether educated abroad or in the missionary schools at home, have
lapsed into this worthless class. When called upon to _work_—manfully,
faithfully, persistently, doing with his might what his hand finds to
do—the Korean, like the Indian _babu_, is likely to show that his modern
education has the more unfitted, rather than the better fitted, him
for the effectual service of his country. If this should be the result
of modern education, it would be scarcely more to be commended, under
existing conditions in Korea, than was the education of the old-time
Confucian schools.
The extension of the educational system of Korea ought, therefore,
for some time to come to be almost exclusively limited to these two
lines—namely, to providing the barest elements of a modern education
for all the children of Korea, and to the equipping and developing of
the means for fitting the youths of both sexes for the most needed
forms of public service. The time to spend large sums of money on the
higher branches of a liberal culture has not come as yet for Korea. The
present urgent need of the country is for men who will tend her fields
and forests, develop her mines and manual arts and manufactures with
intelligence; run her railroad trains with safety; who will occupy her
magistracies with some knowledge of ethics and of law; and care for
her sick and injured with skill in medicine and surgery. Colleges and
universities for rearing scholars, authors, philosophers, or gentlemen of
learned leisure with Government sinecures, can bide their time.
The deplorable condition of the Public Justice in Korea, from the
beginnings of the history of the United Kingdom down to the present
time, has been both assumed and illustrated in the preceding pages.
It is difficult to give any adequate picture of this condition in few
words. The restraints of a constitution or a recognized legal code have
had no existence. Court and local magistrates have been alike, with rare
exceptions, either inefficient or wholly corrupt. The administrative
and judicial functions have not been distinguished, and both have been
under the control of “influence,” and devoted to “squeezes” and bribes.
Of this illegal and unjust condition the police and the army were,
under the old system, the instruments. And whenever during these sad
centuries of injustice an occasional monarch, or a few of the inferior
officials, attempted reform, if in the one case the attempt was partially
successful, the old condition soon returned; while the inferior official
who wished to be more just than his colleagues, by this very attempt
risked his position or even his head.
Among the reforms contemporaneous with the Chino-Japan war (1894), the
remedy for the existing maladministration of justice in Korea naturally
had a prominent place. Some of the forms of injustice then in common
use—such as the bribing of judges and the punishment of accused persons
without even the semblance of a trial—had no justification under Korean
law, so far as law existed at that time. Other equally deplorable
forms of injustice were, however, strictly legal;—as, for example,
the infliction of penalties on the innocent relatives of a condemned
criminal, and the imprisonment of the household of an official charged
with extortion. In particular, the use of torture—barbarous in kind and
extreme in cruelty—was in “full accord” with the legal system of the
Ming dynasty in China, which formed the basis of the Korean code. Of the
older forms of torture some, such as crushing the knee-caps, slitting
the nostrils, applying pincers or hot irons, had already been in 1894
abolished by the Ming dynasty; but a great number of equally painful
forms of torture were still legally in practice at that time. Among
such were seating the victim on hot coals, driving splinters under the
toe-nails, applying fire to the feet and hands, pounding the shins, and
squeezing the ankles. On the eleventh of January, 1895, however, the
Minister of Justice obtained the king’s assent to the abolition of all
the more severe forms of torture _except in capital cases_. To enforce
confession of guilt by beating with a stick was still to be allowed.[77]
The reforms promised and inaugurated in 1895, with respect to the
improvement of the administration of justice, like all the other reforms
of that time, scarcely went beyond the so-called “paper stage.” Some
forms of torture were, indeed, no longer customarily practised; but on
the whole the barbarous treatment of accused and convicted criminals
was not greatly improved. In civil cases the practice of the Court and
of the magistrates was never worse than during the period preceding the
Russo-Japanese war. It was, as has already been shown (p. 233 _f._), “an
orgy of independence.”
In the opinion of Marquis Ito, when he became Resident-General, the
primary and most important thing in the interests of the public justice
was the discovery, systematizing, and promulgation of the “law of
the land.” But how should this difficult task be accomplished? Or—as
involving subordinate questions of great importance—upon what foundation
of principles should the task be undertaken? In the reforms of 1894-95
the plans of the Korean and Japanese enthusiasts involved the sudden
making of all things new. At once, a tolerably complete modern code was
to be devised and forced upon the people of Korea. In accordance with
these plans an abundance of legislation was enacted; but most of it was,
of necessity, ineffective, since it was neither adapted to the present
condition of Korean civilization nor ever honestly applied. At the
present time in Japan and in view of the large increase of power given to
the Resident-General by the Convention of 1907, there is a difference of
opinion as to the proper procedure in the reform of the public justice
in Korea. A certain party would repeat the mistakes of more than a
decade ago. They would have the Japanese Protectorate secure the “entire
adoption of the new Japanese Criminal Code, and in civil suits provide
Korea with ‘an entirely new set of laws’ patterned after those of modern
civilized nations.” This would be a comparatively easy matter, so far
as the _preparation of a code_ is concerned. But it would undoubtedly
be relatively defective so far as the actual reform of justice in Korea
is concerned. “The Resident-General,” says Mr. Stevens, “is manifestly
determined to avoid this mistake, and to provide, in the first place,
some adequate means for the enforcement of the law.” Meantime, the work
of codification is proceeding cautiously. The first step in this work was
directed toward the “law affecting real estate.”
“This law”—namely, the law affecting real estate—“has been taken up
before all others, because, despite the fact that in the present economic
condition of the country immovables form the most important object of
ownership, Korea as yet possesses no law of any real efficiency to
protect rights relating to real property. For instance, in selling
and buying a piece of land or in mortgaging it, the parties concerned
have nothing to go by but to follow the old custom of handing over and
receiving the _bunki_, or title deeds, which are generally in the
form of a file of documents vouchsafing the transaction. It so happens
that the country is now flooded with forged _bunkis_, and there is
really no security for property. For this reason, in July last (1906)
the Resident-General caused the Korean Government to institute a Real
Property Law Investigation Commission, and urged the investigation of
established customs and usages pertaining to immovables, with a view to
drafting with the utmost despatch a law of real property of a simple and
concise character. The Commission made rapid progress in its work, and
in consequence of this the Land and Buildings Certification Regulations
(Imperial Ordinance) and the Detailed Rules of operation thereof (Justice
Department Ordinance) were promulgated respectively on the 31st of
October and the 7th of November following. According to the Regulations,
in the case of transfer of land lots and buildings by sale, exchange,
or gift, and in that of mortgaging them, the contracts are certified to
by a _Kun_ magistrate or _Pu_ prefect; and a contract thus certified
constitutes a full legal document, by virtue of which the transfer may be
validly carried out without decisions of any law court. When, however,
one of the parties to the contract happens to be an alien, not a Korean
subject, the document needs to be additionally examined and certified to
by a Resident, otherwise the document is lacking in legal efficacy. When
neither of the parties are Korean subjects, certification by a Resident
alone is sufficient. Simple as the law is, its effect is far-reaching.
To give an instance, originally treaties with Korea took cognizance of
a foreigner’s right to possess land only within the settlements and one
_ri_ zone around them, and hitherto all foreigners have experienced
considerable difficulty in securing landed property in the interior
of the country; but now, the above Regulations recognize the right of
foreigners to possess land in the interior, and the result of their
promulgation is the practical opening of the whole empire to foreigners.
“Following this line of action, the Real Property Investigation
Commission is steadily working on laws of various descriptions, and it is
expected that before long that body will be able to recommend some plan
to place the land system of Korea on a solid and fair basis. As soon as
the Real Property Law is drawn up and promulgated in a perfected form,
the codification of other laws will be taken in hand.”[78]
The necessity for providing means effectively to enforce the existing
and the newly to be enacted laws is obvious to any one who is acquainted
with the methods of Korean justice down to the present time. This
necessity becomes the more imperative on account of the condition of
dissatisfaction and unrest which followed the Russo-Japanese war and the
establishment of the Japanese Protectorate over Korea. It was further
emphasized and brought to an acute form at the time when the abdication
of the Emperor and the disbandment of the Korean army, on the one hand,
exaggerated the alleged reasons for revolt, and, on the other hand, let
loose the forces most ready and appropriate to make revolt effective. The
experience in connection with the repeated attempts made to assassinate
the Korean Ministry showed plainly enough that Korean police and military
could not be depended upon to protect the rights or the lives of their
own countrymen. Subsequent events showed that these same “minions of the
law” were most dangerous to the property and lives of foreigners. Hence
the imperative need of a reorganization of the police. On this matter of
reform, the Report of the Resident-General discourses as follows:
In olden times Korea had practically no police system. Under
the central Government there was indeed the “Burglar Capture
Office,” while the provincial Governors were privileged to
exercise police powers for the maintenance of peace and order.
But the evil practice of selling offices being prevalent, the
officials made it their business to extort unjust exactions,
and the people enjoyed no security of life and property. In
the year 503 of the Korean national era (1894) the “Burglar
Capture Office” was closed and replaced by a “Kyöng-mu-chyöng”
(Police Office), the latter being entrusted with the work of
administering and superintending the police and prison affairs
within the city of Seoul. The capital was then divided into
five wards with a police station in each. Further, the Korean
Government engaged advisers from among police inspectors of
our Metropolitan Police Board, and put in force various laws
and ordinances, defining and regulating the duties of the
police force, besides adopting fixed uniforms for men and
officers, all in imitation of the Japanese system. At the
same time the “Kyöng-mu-koan” was created in the provincial
Governor’s Offices, for the exclusive management of local
police affairs. Since then numerous changes have followed,
and the Japanese police advisers have been dismissed. In 1895
the Kyöng-mu-chyöng was abolished, and a new Department of
Police was established. Then the police administration of the
whole country was centralized in the hands of the Minister of
Police. This innovation was, however, but short lived, and
the Kyöng-mu-chyöng came to be resuscitated, the whole police
system being now placed in the control of the Minister of Home
Affairs. At that time, in virtue of her treaty with Korea,
Japan not only took her own means of protecting her subjects
residing in that country, but despatched police officials
who were required in carrying out her rights connected with
her Consular Courts. Subsequent to the Japan-China war, the
number of Japanese resident in Korea steadily increased, and
as years went by a similar change took place with regard to
the number of our police attached to the Consulates, so that
the latter had finally to have a regular police station within
each Consular compound. Thus it happened that by the time of
the Russo-Japanese war, Korea had come to have two police
systems in force in the land. When the war broke out Korea
engaged Japanese advisers for her police administration, and
everything connected therewith, large or small, underwent
changes in accordance with their views. At that juncture there
was necessity, for military reasons, of introducing into Korea
Japanese military police or gendarmerie, so that the country
has since come to have simultaneously within her bounds three
police organizations—namely, the native police, the Japanese
Consulate police, and the gendarmerie.
On the establishment of the Residency-General, after the
termination of the war, all three systems were brought under
the unified control of the Resident-General, in such a manner
as to promote the national tranquillity of Korea, each
supplementing the work of the other. Under the new arrangement
all ordinary police work is placed in the hands either of the
Japanese or of the Korean police, to suit the needs of the
localities concerned; while the gendarmes are to look after the
higher class of police affairs or those relating to acts that
tend to endanger the safety of the Korean Imperial House, or
to defy the authority of the Korean Government, or to disturb
the friendly relations between Japan and Korea. At one time
the gendarmerie was divided into twelve sub-companies, and
fifty-five detail stations were established for them. Under the
new _régime_ 184 men have been honorably discharged, having
been retained in the service beyond their regular term, or
belonging to the reserve. At the same time the number of detail
stations was reduced to thirty-two. The need of augmenting the
strength of the Japanese and native police being increasingly
felt, measures are being steadily taken in this direction
within the limits which the circumstances allow.
The laws of the land may be enlightened in their construction, and the
police thoroughly well organized and efficient; but if the courts of
justice are not intelligent and honest, the public justice is not secure.
In Korea, as in China, from which country she derived her administrative
and judicial system, two principal evil influences have prevented any
effectual reform in the judiciary. These are the failure to separate
the executive and judiciary branches of government, and the fact that
officials generally have not been dependent upon sufficient salaries for
their reward, but, chiefly, upon the amounts which could be squeezed out
of the offices.
“The way in which justice has been administrated in Korea,” says the
Report, “is too revolting to all sense of decency to be told in detail.
Her political development has never yet attained that stage when the
executive and judiciary branches of government separate and become
independent of each other. The privilege of meting out justice has always
been in the hands of executive officials, and abuses have grown up in
consequence of this. Justice, which should always be fair and upright,
has generally allowed itself to be influenced by the amount of bribe
offered, and right or wrong often changed places according to the power
and influence of the parties concerned. The conviction of innocent
people, the confiscation of their property, and the liberation of the
guilty, all under a travesty of trials, have been common occurrences;
very frequently, too, contributions in money or in kind have been
extorted under threats of litigation. Korea, indeed, possesses a law
court organization by virtue of a law promulgated in 1895, and according
to it the courts are of the following descriptions: 1. Special Court of
Law (tries crimes committed by members of the Imperial family). 2. Court
of Cassation. 3. Circuit Courts. 4. (Seoul) The Trade Port Courts (courts
of first resort). 5. District Courts (courts of first resort), and their
branches (when needed).”
“The truth is, however, that this organization exists merely on paper,
the only courts in actual existence being the Court of Cassation and
the Seoul Court. In the provinces, the governors, commissioners and
superintendents are, as of old, also judges and hear and judge both civil
and criminal cases. The _Kun_ magistrates, too, retain their judiciary
powers, which are, however, limited in extent. Even at the independent
courts, such as the Court of Cassation and the Seoul Court, judges and
prosecutors are men totally deficient in legal knowledge and training,
and their judgments often end in the miscarriage of justice. It is not
surprising that justice is generally made the object of ridicule and
contempt in Korea both by the natives and by foreigners. Treaties give
foreigners from the West the right to bring an action against the natives
in the Korean Courts in cases of a certain description; but none of them
has ever made use of such a right. When any legal dispute arises, these
foreigners always make an international question of it and bring it
before the Residency-General. Leave the situation as it at present is,
and the day will never come when Korea may be freed from the system of
extra-territoriality. It being evident that the chief cause responsible
for this regrettable state of things lies in the judiciary in force and
the incompetency of judges, the Resident-General has decided first to
effect reform on these two points, with others to follow gradually. The
reforms he has already put in practice for this purpose may be outlined
as follows” [Here given only in summary form]:—
The creation of the office of Chief Councillor in the Department of
Justice (the incumbent to be a Japanese); increase in the number of
judges, procurators, and clerks; the constituting of the Prefects of the
eleven Prefectures to act as Judges; provision for proper offices and for
the travelling and other expenses of the Judges and the Law Courts; the
introduction of rules of the civil service order, so that care may be
exercised in the appointment of judiciary officials, etc.
It has already been made sufficiently clear, however, that the one
instrument of the public justice which comes closest to the common
people of Korea, and which determines more than any other the spirit of
satisfaction with their condition or of unrest and revolt, is the local
magistracy. On the “Reform of Local Administration” the Report remarks as
follows:
One thing that has defied satisfactory solution ever since
the beginning of the present Yi dynasty is the problem of the
political division of Korea. Soon after the Japan-China war,
Pak Yong-hyo, who was then Minister of Home Affairs, tried a
radical change by turning the country into 23 prefectures.
It was an innovation indeed, but short-lived, for not long
after the country returned practically to its former division
of 13 provinces, one crown district, three prefectures and
341 districts (excepting Han-Yang _pu_), with a Governor for
each province, a Crown Commissioner for the crown district, a
Magistrate for each district, a Prefect for each prefecture,
and a Superintendent for each open port. Nor has this division
seen much change since then. It is true that the question of
local administration was one of the many that confronted the
Residency-General when it set out on its work of politically
regenerating Korea. A special Commission was instituted, and
under the direction of the Resident-General its members carried
investigations deep into the root of the evils and abuses to
be removed. As the result all changes, sudden and radical,
from fear of unnecessarily provoking popular excitement, were
carefully avoided. Having in view, however, the new condition
of things, the Commission decided on a plan of provincial
reforms, which took the form of an Imperial Ordinance
proclaiming a “New Official Organization” and “Detailed Rules”
for its operation. These were issued on the 28th of September
last and put in force on the 1st of October.
The more detailed features of the reforms proposed are uninteresting and
difficult to understand for one not making a special study of Korean
local administration from the expert’s point of view. In general, the
reforms are intended to separate the appointment and control of the local
magistracy from Court and other corrupt official influences; to put a
stop to the evil practice “of selling offices by holding examinations for
official candidates”; to reduce the temptation to increase the squeezes,
by increasing the legitimate salary and by providing properly for office,
travelling, and other expenses; and to adopt and install “a new official
organization for the provincial governors and their subordinates,
classifying the nature of the business to be managed by them and defining
their powers of issuing administrative orders, of levying local taxes
and of conducting other affairs.” These reforms require a considerable
increase in the number of officials in both the _Do_ (or Province) and
_Pu_ (or Prefecture); but they leave the _Kuns_ (or smaller districts)
substantially unchanged in this regard.
Besides the above changes, the Residency-General has already established
a Residency or a Branch Residency in each of the provincial capitals.
Further, the Local Administration Investigation Commission is now making
enquiries into village constitutions, village assembly regulations,
and other village association systems, handed down from olden times.
From the data thus obtained, a plan will be drawn up for the ultimate
introduction of the system of local autonomy. As to the reorganization
of the Law Court system, the independence of the Department of Justice,
the separation of tax collection from routine executive business as the
result of the establishment of a new Taxation Bureau with a chief of its
own, etc., these form, no doubt, a part of local administration reform.
Only the result can tell how far, and how soon, these plans for the
reform of the public justice in Korea can so change its present
deplorable condition in this regard as to satisfy the reasonable wishes
of the Marquis Ito, and the Japanese Government, so far as it is
supporting him in his peaceful and benevolent plans. The events which
have occurred since this Report on Administrative Reforms was composed,
have, on the one side, given to the Resident-General and his helpers a
freer hand in a more open field, but on the other they have augmented the
responsibilities and in some respects increased the difficulties of their
task.