THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM
The rôle of the prophet in his predictive function, and with reference
to the destiny of nations, is always a delicate and dangerous part to
play. The danger is particularly great when the complex and largely
unfamiliar ideas and emotions of Oriental peoples constitute the
controlling factors in the situation; it is made still greater at the
present time, as regards the future of the Far East, by the increasing
admixture of foreign and Western influences. Above all, however, is the
situation complicated by the unsettled and totally uncertain condition
of China. Here are countless millions of an industrious, patient, and
thrifty, but almost incredibly ignorant and superstitious, population;
corrupt and intriguing official classes and an essentially foreign
Court; indefinitely great resources of soil and mines, and an almost
limitless capacity for foreign trade, which makes it the coveted
territory for exploiting schemes by both European and Asiatic nations.
Into this hitherto relatively inert mass the ferment of new conceptions
of civilization and of life, of the things which are worth the having
and which may be had, if men will struggle and fight for them, is now
being everywhere introduced. The restlessness of feeling, with its
stimulus to violence, which has formerly resulted for the most part in
local uprisings against excessive squeezing from their own officials,
or against too obvious interference with their ancient institutions and
present material interests by foreigners, is now taking the form of a
purpose which may quickly change, and by bloody revolution if necessary,
the character of the Chinese Government and even the nature of Chinese
characteristic civilization. What will be the effect of all this upon
the entire Far East, is a question which would require of any student of
history a bold, an audacious front to answer in a confident tone.[111]
In this uncertainty as to the future of the Far East, Korea shares, as a
matter of course, to a large extent. For, even now that certain important
factors in the problem of the Japanese Protectorate over Korea seem to be
relatively stable, the problem as a whole remains exceedingly difficult
and complex. How will Japan succeed in solving this problem? Will it be
by the way of developing the material resources of the land, on the whole
peacefully, and chiefly for the benefit of the Koreans themselves; of
reforming the economic, administrative, and judicial condition of the
common people; and of making a foreign rule to be esteemed a blessing
rather than an odious imposition? Or, will it be by the way of reducing
Korea to a condition of virtual vassalage, and of making its people
a dissatisfied nation, ever ready for revolt and only kept down from
successful revolt by the strong arm of a foreign police and a foreign
military force? Will Japan really succeed in solving this problem at all?
All suggestions in answer to these and similar questions are of value
only as they are rendered more or less probable in view of such facts as
those to which attention has been directed in the preceding chapters of
this book.
The future of Korea and of the Japanese Protectorate over Korea will
inevitably depend upon the action and reaction of three classes of
factors. These are the attitude and behavior of other foreign nations;
the native capacity for self-government and the actual conduct of the
Koreans themselves; and the policy of Japan, not as a theory or an
experiment merely, but as embodied in industries, laws, institutions and
other forms of practical effect.
In all past time, but especially during the last half-century, the
relations of Japan and Korea have been chiefly determined by the attitude
and behavior of other foreign nations, both toward and within the Korean
peninsula. It was the desire of Japan to get at China through Korea,
and the determination of the Chinese Government to resist and thwart
this desire, and to retain for itself the supremacy in the control of
Korean affairs, which brought about the invasion of Hideyoshi, with its
persistent train of consequences lasting well down into modern times.
Until the end of the Chino-Japan war, and especially in the events of
1882 and 1884, as well as in those events which immediately preceded
the war, it was what China did or proposed to do, which formed the
principal influence to determine the relations of Japan and Korea. After
this war had definitively and finally delivered the peninsula from all
Chinese claims to suzerainty, or even to predominating influence, it
was chiefly the attitude and actions of Russia which decided the more
active relations of Japanese to the Korean Government. France and Germany
at the close of the war with China, and France during the period just
preceding the war with Russia, exercised considerable influence—of a less
obvious and direct character, however—upon the relations of these two
governments. During the last three or four years which cover the period
that began toward the close of the Russo-Japanese campaigns, Great
Britain and the United States have powerfully, but for the most part
indirectly, affected the newer relations that have been in the process
of forming between Japan and Korea. The Government of Great Britain has
been the fair ally and sensible counsellor of the Japanese Government;
the United States, while maintaining an official attitude distinctly
favorable to giving the Residency-General a “free hand” for his plans
to accomplish reforms in Korea, has been, by complicity of some of its
private citizens with a false and corrupt Emperor, a no inconsiderable
source of embarrassment. The same thing would have to be said of some of
the British residents in Korea.
Recent Treaties and Conventions with Great Britain, France, and Russia,
have now, however, made it as certain as anything in the political future
of human affairs can well be, that none of these powerful nations will
for some years to come interfere in the policy or administration of the
Japanese Protectorate in Korea. So far as their action is concerned,
Japan has only to maintain her pledges of “equal opportunity,” the
“open door,” and “hands-off” from China for purposes of plundering its
territory, and she may now try without foreign interference her plans
for the improvement of her relations with this hitherto most troublesome
neighbor. Indeed, the way in which the Convention of July, 1907, with
its increase of legal rights to control the internal administration and
reshape the entire code and economic and social system of the Korean
peninsula, has been received by the Powers generally, shows that no
formidable objection from without would be raised if Japan should
substitute out-and-out annexation for the now-existing Protectorate. The
four great nations whose territorial possessions give them a supreme
interest in the Far East, have already formally accepted the existing
situation; there is less and less likelihood of meddling, as authorized
by other European or American nations, on the part of their diplomatic
representatives.
Furthermore, in Korea itself, those squabbles with foreigners which have
arisen out of conflicting promoting schemes and claims to concessions,
since order is being rapidly brought out of the confusion they have
occasioned, are likely to cut less of a figure in the future. The
anti-Japanese missionaries and other foreign residents in Seoul are
being either won over, or their complaints silenced, by the policy
of the Residency-General. If the criticisms of the dealings of Japan
with Korea were much more just and severe, they would not be likely
to involve international complications of any serious magnitude. Only
China remains—huge, mysterious, incalculable both for good and for evil,
a vast overhanging cloud, with here and there a flash of lightning or
streak of sunlight shining through. But for some time to come it is
altogether unlikely that the Celestial Empire will be able, however
willing, to re-establish any claims to a dominating influence, much less
to a restored suzerainty, in the Korean peninsula. This first class of
factors, which have been so influential and even determinative in the
past, may therefore not improperly be eliminated in making up one’s
calculations as to the probable future. In other words, the issue will
now be determined by the behavior toward each other of the two peoples
immediately concerned. Japanese and Koreans will now be allowed to work
out the problem of the relations—for the weal or for the woe of both
peoples—to exist and prove effective between Japan and Korea.
What shall be said, however, as to the part which the Korean Government
and the Korean people themselves are likely to contribute toward solving
the difficult and intricate problem of the future relations of the two
nations? The basis for a plausible answer to this question must be found
in an estimate of the material resources of Korea and in a calculation
as to the share which the Koreans are destined to have in the improved
conditions brought about by the development of these resources. It
has already been shown that the soil of the peninsula, under improved
methods of cultivation, can easily be made to support double the existing
population. Reforestation and proper treatment of the forests remaining
can easily supply this increased population with fuel and with timber.
The introduction of new crops, and the increase of the products of cotton
and silk, the fostering of such forms of manufacture as are fitted to the
country, and the development of the mines, can just as easily be made to
place this two-folded population in circumstances of greatly increased
comfort and prosperity. And with it all will go, of course, the building
up of foreign trade and the securing of all the benefits that follow in
its train. But who will actually possess the fruits of this development;
will it be the Koreans themselves, or the Japanese immigrants?
So far as the answer to this question depends upon the enactment and
the enforcement of a just legal code—the right to an equal chance, and
security of this right if only the man is able to seize and improve
it—the Japanese Residency-General is solemnly pledged and actually
committed. But laws, courts, educational institutions, and banking
facilities cannot do everything. After all these, and in the midst of
all these, there is _the man_—his physical and mental characteristics,
his moral and spiritual impulses. Overwhelming Japanese immigration
is perhaps, then, greatly to be dreaded by the Koreans, even when the
former can no longer take from the latter by fraud or by violence. The
dread, however, that the Koreans will be supplanted by the Japanese
would seem by no means to be wholly warranted in view of existing facts.
The actual native population of the Korean peninsula is difficult to
ascertain; but the latest census, taken in the spring of 1907, shows
that it was probably greatly overestimated by the previous statistics.
This census gave the numbers as 9,638,578 people inhabiting 2,322,457
houses. A census of the Japanese population in Korea, January 31, 1907,
returned the figures of 81,657 in all, of which 31,754 were females.
As compared with the returns for March 31, 1906, this census showed an
increase of about 20,000 in the non-official Japanese population (a
calculation not differing greatly from that based upon the returns of
the steamship agency at Fusan, see p. 143 _f._). Making allowance for
those immigrants who failed to register, we may calculate that not far
from 100,000 Japanese, exclusive of the army and the civil officials,
were resident in Korea during the summer of 1907. The great majority
of these immigrants were traders, artisans, and common laborers; but
an increasing number of Japanese farmers were settling, especially in
the fertile valleys of Kyung-sang-do and Cholla-do. Of these traders,
artisans, and common laborers, many are engaged in building Japanese
houses and in construction work on the Japanese railways; by no means all
such immigrants are likely to become permanent residents in Korea. With
the farmers the case is not the same.
Is the annual rate of Japanese immigration into Korea likely to increase
greatly in the future? No one can tell positively; but the negative
answer seems much the more likely. The day of temptation to the mere
adventurer is largely gone by; the Koreans themselves are likely to
become acquainted with the way of doing things as the Japanese demand
requires they should be done, and then many of these foreign traders,
artisans, and laborers will have their places taken by Koreans.
Formosa, Manchuria, and Hokkaido are rivals of Korea for the Japanese
agriculturists and other kinds of permanent settlers; South America and
other countries offer greater inducements to the emigration companies.
Moreover, at about the same time that the results of these censuses
were published, a local paper in Seoul published the birth and death
statistics of the Japanese colony there. These statistics showed that
during the previous year there had been an excess of deaths over births
among the Japanese in Seoul. Of births there were 312—187 male and 125
female, while the deaths amounted to a total of 464—308 male and 156
female. And yet there are few old people, and almost none who came as
invalids, in this foreign population.
Let it be supposed, however, that the annual net increase of Japanese
population in Korea amounts to 20,000 for the next fifty years. There
will then be only somewhat more than one million of this now foreign
population. But meantime the Korean peninsula will have become quite
capable of supporting double its present native population. Besides
this, there are those—to the opinion of whom the present writer is
strongly inclined—who feel confident that fifty years from now the
distinction between Korean and Japanese, among the common people, will
be very nearly, if not quite completely, wiped out. And, indeed, the two
nations are of essentially the same derivation, so far as their dominant
strains of ancestral blood are concerned; and great as are the present
differences between the Japanese in Japan and the Koreans in Korea,
there is no real reason why both Japanese and Koreans should not become
essentially one people in Korea.
There is then, it would seem, no essential and permanent reason of
a material sort why Korea should not remain Korean in its principal
features, if the next half-century shows the expected results in its
material development. We have seen that the present Residency-General
is committed to the policy of developing the land in the behalf of its
own inhabitants, while according all just and natural rights, and all
reasonable encouragement, to foreign immigration and to foreign capital.
Again, however, the same decisive but as yet unanswered questions return:
Can the Court be purified? Can an honest and efficient Korean official
class be secured, trained, and supported by the nation? Can that middle
class—which is in all modern nations the source of the controlling
economic and moral factors—be constituted out of the body of the Korean
people? And, finally, can the great multitude, the Korean populace, be
made more intelligent, law-abiding, and morally sound?
As to the purification of the Court at Seoul under the ex-Emperor, and so
far as his influence could be extended—such a thing was found impossible
by the Resident-General. Warnings, advice, experience of evil results—all
were of no avail. This weak and corrupt nature would not free itself
from its environment of sorceresses, eunuchs, soothsayers, and selfish
or desperate, corrupt, and low-lived native and foreign advisers; and
without the conversion of the Emperor, under the former conditions, the
Court could not be made more intelligent, honest and patriotic. So long
and so far as the ex-Emperor can exercise his parental influence upon
the present Emperor in national affairs, the part which the Court plays
in the redemption of the nation will be comparatively small. But this
influence is now broken; and the measures which are being taken wholly
to nullify it can scarcely fail to succeed. If it becomes necessary, His
ex-Majesty can be given a residence remote from Seoul. The Convention of
July, 1907, gives to the Japanese Resident-General a hitherto impossible
control over the _entourage_ of the Emperor. It is therefore altogether
unlikely that any future ruler of Korea, even if he should wish to follow
this bad example, this most disastrous precedent, will be able to rival
for mischief his predecessors, by way of encouraging fraud, violence,
and sedition at home, and foreign misunderstandings and interferences
through the help of unwise or unscrupulous “foreign friends.” Moreover,
the present Emperor, so far as can be judged by the brief experience
under his rule, is either not disposed, or not able, to continue the evil
practices of his Imperial ancestor. The proposals for reform brought
before His Korean Majesty seem now to meet with neither open nor secret
opposition. Best of all, the palace horde of evil men and women is being
reduced from within, and excluded from without; and this, in the absence
of complaints and petitions for pity, sent over the civilized world, from
the royal “prisoner” under a blood-thirsty Japanese guard! Thus there is
solid ground on which to build hopes of a far less corrupt, a much more
intelligent and honest, Korean Court.
That honorable and brave leaders—generals, civil rulers, magistrates,
and judges—_can_ come out of Korean ancestry, there is the evidence
of history to show. True, the number of such leaders, through all
the past centuries of Korea’s sad and disgraceful career, has been
relatively small. But, as has been repeatedly pointed out, this fact has
been largely due to the corrupt official system, and the ever-present
corrupting influence, which has come from across the Yellow Sea—that
is, from China. The Cabinet officials who had to meet the severely
trying emergency which ended with the abdication of the Emperor, a new
Convention with Japan, and the pacification of a people much given
over to local disorders and to the spreading of the spirit of riot
and sedition, on the whole acquitted themselves well. It is, indeed,
difficult to see how they could have done better for the country under
the existing circumstances. That timber can be grown in Korea, out of
which may be hewn in the future enough material for a sound and fair
official edifice, there is, we think, no good reason to doubt. Under
the recent Convention the responsibility for framing laws, policing the
country, securing order, appointing a just and intelligent magistracy,
as well as developing schools and industries and arts, rests primarily
upon the Japanese Government. If moderation and wisdom can be secured
here, a sufficient force of native official helpers and partners in all
the benevolent projects of the Marquis Ito can probably in due time also
be secured. In order, however, that Japanese and Korean officials should
co-operate heartily, and should live and work together in peace, it is
necessary that the underlying principle of their co-operation should be
not selfish, but controlled by devotion to duty and by an intelligent
and sincere desire to secure the welfare of both nations. Only such
high motives can unite men of different nationalities, or even of the
same nation, in works of economic reform and moral improvement. This is
only to say that in Korea, as everywhere else in the ancient and the
modern world alike, the real and lasting success of the government must
depend upon its intelligence and its righteousness. It is to be hoped
that the capacity for both these essential classes of qualifications for
self-government is in the Korean blood, if only it can have tuition,
example, and freedom for development.
With the improvement of the economic and industrial conditions in Korea,
and especially with the enlarged opportunities for foreign commerce, a
fairly intelligent and well-to-do middle class population is likely to
result from the Japanese Protectorate. This class is in a process of
evolution in Japan itself. It is essentially the product, “natural”—so to
say—where public schools exist and thrive, and where the conditions are
favorable to manufacture, trade, and agriculture on any large scale. But
especially is such a class one of the most sure and valuable results of a
more highly moral and spiritual religion. Christianity distinctly favors,
when it becomes practically operative, the formation of a middle class.
In Korea hitherto there have been only, as a rule, corrupt and oppressive
rulers and officials, and ignorant, oppressed, and degraded multitudes.
The foundation of schools of the modern type, especially for technical
and manual training, and the spread of Christianity, will, almost
inevitably, combine to raise a body of thrifty, fairly intelligent, and
upright, self-respecting citizens. This will go far toward solving the
problem of the reform and redemption of Korea.
As to the destiny of considerable numbers of the lower orders of the
people, that is perhaps unavoidably true which has been said of the
Korean farmers: “A large percentage of them are past all hope of
salvation.” The professional robbers and beggars, the riotous “pedlers,”
the seditious among the disbanded troops or the “tiger hunters,” the wild
and savage inhabitants of the mountainous regions, the people who live
by thieving, counterfeiting, soothsaying, divining, and other illicit
ways, will have to submit, reform, or be exterminated. Doubtless, many of
them will prefer to be exterminated. But our examination of the previous
chapters encourages and confirms the hope that something much better
than this is possible for the great multitude of the peasants among
the Korean people. Marquis Ito has set his heart on helping this class
toward a much improved condition. The promise of this he has distinctly
affirmed in both private and public addresses, and has indeed done all
that he possibly could to confirm. It is this also upon which every
true-hearted missionary is most intently bent. For it was to these same
multitudes—sheep without a shepherd—that Jesus came; on their uplift
and salvation he set his heart. It would be contrary to the experience
of the centuries to suppose that an enlightened form of education and a
spiritual religion could combine in the effort to raise the multitudes of
any nation, without resulting in a large measure of success.
It would seem, then, that the responsibility for a successful and
relatively permanent solution of the difficult problem offered by the
geographical, historical and other important relations of Japan and
Korea, under the now existing Convention between the two governments,
rests most heavily upon the Japanese themselves. They have at last
“a free hand”; the material with which they have to deal in order
to construct a new and improved national structure is, indeed, in
bad and largely unsound condition; but it is not hopeless, and it is
not radically deficient in the qualities necessary for a sound and
durable structure. Korea is, inherently considered, capable of reform;
but at present it is not capable of self-government, much less of
self-instituted and wholly self-controlled reform. Japan has taken upon
herself the task of furnishing example, stimulus, guidance, and effective
forces, to set this desirable ideal into reality. No other nation has
this task; no other nation is going seriously to interfere with Japan
in its task. On the Japanese Government and the Japanese people rests
the heavy responsibility of securing a new and greatly improved national
life for the millions of the Korean peninsula; if they succeed, to them
will chiefly be the praise and the profit; if they fail, to them will
chiefly be the shame and the loss. At present, and in the near future,
it is the last of these three sets of determining factors—namely, the
policy and practice of Japan herself with reference to Korea—which will
have the final word to say in the solution of this difficult problem. The
judgment of the civilized world is already pronounced upon this matter.
Korea has already been judged impotent and unworthy to be trusted with
the management either of her own internal affairs or of her relations to
other nations in the Far East and in the world at large. Japan has been
judged to be most favorably situated and, for the protection of her own
interests, best entitled to undertake and to carry through the reform and
reconstitution of Korea. Japan also will in the future be judged, by the
judgment of the civilized world and by the verdict of history, according
to the way in which she fulfils her duties, and accomplishes her task, in
Korea.
Will Japan prove equal to the management and the development of the
internal resources, civil government, and foreign relations, of her
weaker neighbor in such a way as to command the title to a righteous
and genuine success? No one can answer this question with a perfect
confidence. In many important respects the present is an exceedingly
critical time for the Japanese Government and the Japanese nation in
respect of the condition of its own internal affairs. The same thing
is true of Japan’s relations to foreign nations. The army and navy
deserved and won praise from all the civilized world for its bravery,
skill, and moderation in the last war. And after the war terminated in
a treaty of peace which, while it was at the time wisely made on the
part of the real leaders of the nation, was exceedingly disappointing to
the military and naval forces and to the people at large, the whole of
Japan, with the exception of few and brief demonstrations of resentment,
obeyed the wise counsels and injunctions of His Imperial Majesty, its
Emperor. In obedience to these injunctions the nation turned quietly and
diligently to the pursuits of peace. But in these pursuits Japan is by
no means so far advanced, when judged by modern standards, as she was
in the preparation for, and conduct of, war both by land and by sea. In
manufactures and every form of industry, in trade and commerce, in the
devising and management of the means of communication, in education,
science, and literature—everywhere in these lines of peaceful national
activity there is a great deficiency of trained and trustworthy helpers,
even for the supply of her own immediate needs. In all these matters of
national interest and import, the cry of her leaders is for the right
sort of _men_. How, then, shall Japan at the present juncture supply in
sufficient numbers the workmen to meet the needs of the hour in the
reform and uplift of Korea?
Moreover, as the nation of Japan advances in these many lines, it is
inevitable that it should meet the same difficulties, embarrassments,
and dangers which in yet severer form are testing the leading nations
of Europe and America. Trusts and labor unions—both likely to become
the enemies of the Empire as they have so largely in the United States
become the enemies of the Republic—are already growing apace. Even more,
perhaps, than anywhere else outside of Russia and parts of Germany,
insane theories of ethics, philosophy, and religion, are captivating
the minds, and controlling the conduct, of not a few of her students
and other young men. As in the United States, especially, but also in
all the countries of Europe, the old-fashioned parental control and
discipline of the home-life is being greatly relaxed. The over-estimate
of so-called science and the conceit of modernity are working mischief in
the character of not a few. And the life of the millions of the people is
not yet lifted to the higher grades of morality and religion.
With regard to the right national policy toward Korea there has also
been, as we have seen, a long-standing difference of opinion. This
difference still exists, although it was for the time submerged by the
tide of enthusiastic approval which welcomed the policy of Marquis Ito
when, under the grant of liberty of action from His Imperial Majesty,
with the consent of the Elder Statesmen, and the co-operation of Minister
Hayashi, the Convention of July, 1907, was successfully concluded. Many
of the military leaders, however, continue to favor a more punitive and
war-like attitude toward any resistance on the part of the Koreans.
The mailed fist, with its threats, rather than the open palm, with its
promise of friendly assistance, seems to them better fitted to the
situation. And it can never be expected that there will be a cessation
of the desires and efforts of that crowd of Japanese adventurers,
promoters, and unscrupulous traders, who are as ready to make game of
the resources of Korea as are the smaller number of no less selfish
foreigners residing in the peninsula but claiming the protection for
their schemes of other nationalities. Of the two, the latter are in not a
few cases much the more difficult to deal with in a manner satisfactory
both to the honor of the Japanese Protectorate and also to the interests
of the Korean people. All these schemers, as a matter of course, have
scanty faith in the slow and patient methods of education, economic and
judicial reform, which are deliberately chosen and persistently followed
by the present Residency-General.
Such tendencies as those just mentioned undoubtedly make it more
difficult to predict with confidence the success of Japan in the task
of building up a strong and healthy national existence out of the so
largely dead and decayed material furnished to its hand. But there
are other tendencies, and other forms of influence, now existing and
growing in vigor among the Japanese of to-day, which strongly encourage
the hopeful view. The nation emerged from the war with Russia in much
more sober and thoughtful frame of mind than that which followed upon
the close of the Chino-Japan war. The enormous losses of life, and the
heavy debt left upon them by the expenditure of treasure, tended to keep
down the self-conceit and headiness which might have followed an easier
victory. And in spite of the immediate disadvantages growing out of
the fact that the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth fell so far below
their expectations, and below what seemed to them at the time their
just deserts, it was probably best in the preparation for their future
enterprises and struggles to have the war end as it did. Of the sincere
desire of Japan for peace with the whole world, no one who knows the
nation can have the slightest honest doubt.
There has also been a great awakening of interest in moral problems
since the Russo-Japanese war. This interest is not confined to any one
class. In all the Government schools, of every description, especial
attention is being given to ethics. This is the one study which is kept
most constantly before the minds of the pupils, from the earliest stages
of their training to the end of the graduate courses in the university.
Aware of the unworthy reputation of its business men, in respect of
business morality, the commercial schools, higher and lower, government
and private, are placing emphasis upon the side of moral instruction and
discipline in preparation for business life. The men, now past middle
life, who were trained to the respect for honor and the feelings of
devotion which characterized the _Samurai_ (or Puritan knights) of the
old _régime_, and who have been the inspirers and guides of all that has
been best in the “New Japan,” are still, though they are growing old and
fewer in number, controlling the destinies of the nation. They have the
confidence of His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Japan, who steadily
throws the great weight of his influence upon the side which favors
combining these ancient virtues with a modern education. Among the men
in middle life there still lingers, indeed, much of those influences and
practices which have cost the New Japan so dearly, in loss of reputation
and of failure to make good use of some of her choicest opportunities.
But the new and better spirit is most conspicuous with the younger
educated men; the boys and girls in the public schools are receiving
a form of education and discipline which, considering Japan’s poverty
and newness of resources, surpasses that of any other country in the
civilized world. Moreover, the ear of the nation is open to religion as
never before in its history. This increased feeling of need, and this
higher estimate of the value of an improved morality and a more spiritual
religion, together with the arousing and directing of the nation’s
energies into the development of its material resources and its foreign
trade, are the distinctive features of the national life of the Japanese
at the present time.
There is another thing about the temperament of the Japanese which is
often of most powerful influence, and yet most difficult for foreigners
to appreciate. This is the force of sentimental considerations, which
frequently triumph over those considerations that are regarded by
other peoples as of more importance in practical affairs. Already,
the sentiments of generosity, of pity, and of a sort of condescending
kindness, have triumphed in the management of Korean affairs by the
Japanese. The history of the relations of the two countries has amply
illustrated this fact. These sentiments, which are certainly dominant to
a large extent with the Residency-General, when reënforced by the growing
respect for morality and religion, will—it seems fair to suppose—be even
more powerful in the future.
Still further, Japan has successfully overcome many enormous
difficulties, and has bravely and well met many most threatening
emergencies, during the last fifty years. Over and over again during
this period, her case has seemed almost desperate. But each time the
nation has rallied and has climbed upward to a higher and better level
in its national life. True, this has been due, to a large extent, to the
wisdom and skill of the men who have thus far led the nation. And they
are passing off the stage. That the younger spirits who are coming on
will serve their day with equal courage, wisdom, and success, is our hope
and our belief. Then there will be assured the third and most important
class of the factors which, in their combination with the other two, will
secure the new, redeemed Korea in friendly relations, in amity and unity,
with Japan, her benefactor as well as her protector.
There is no essential reason why Japanese and Koreans should not become
one nation in Korea. Whether this nation will be called Korea or Japan,
time alone can tell. That it will be a happier, more prosperous, more
moral and truly religious people than the present Korean people,
there is sufficient reason to predict. Indeed, considering the brief
time which has elapsed since the Convention of November 17, 1905, the
improvement already accomplished under the control of the Japanese
Residency-General, if not all that could be wished, has been all that
could reasonably have been expected. The two peoples have learned to
live peacefully and happily together, in certain places, both of Japan
and of Korea, in past times. The conditions favoring their union, and
indeed amalgamation, in Korea itself are to-day incomparably better
than they ever were, in any large way, before. If Marquis Ito, and his
sympathetic, effective supporters, at home and in the Residency-General,
can be sustained for five years, and can be succeeded for a generation by
those of like purpose and character, then the problem of the relations
of Japan and Korea will have been solved. The present opportunity has
cost both countries centuries of trouble, strife, and loss. That all
the difficulties should be at once removed, and all the reforms at once
efficiently be carried out, it is not reasonable to expect. But now that
Japan has won this cherished opportunity, the civilized world requires,
and the civilized world may expect, that the opportunity will be on the
whole well improved. Such will undoubtedly be the issue if His Imperial
Majesty of Japan, the Marquis Ito, and others of like mind, have their
way.
The Korean problem has become a part of the larger problem—namely,
the realization by Japan of a worthy national ideal. We close, then,
this narrative of personal experiences, and its following presentation
and discussion of diplomatic proceedings and historical facts, with a
quotation that expresses our hopes and our beliefs, and that is taken
from a bronze tablet which is to stand in the campus of the Government
School of Commerce at Nagasaki, Japan:
By a happy union of modern education and the spirit of Bushido,
inherited from countless generations of ancestors, Japan has
triumphed in war. By ceaseless improvement of the one, combined
with enlargement and elevation of the other, she must win in
the future the no less noble and difficult victories of peace.
In Industry and Art, in Science, Morals, and Religion, may
Dai Nippon secure and maintain a well-merited place among
the foremost nations of the civilized world—thus enjoying
prosperity at home and contributing her full share toward the
blessing of mankind.
APPENDIX A
PROTOCOL SIGNED FEBRUARY 23, 1904
ARTICLE I
For the purpose of maintaining a permanent and solid friendship between
Japan and Korea, and firmly establishing peace in the Far East, the
Imperial Government of Korea shall place full confidence in the Imperial
Government of Japan and adopt the advice of the latter in regard to
improvements in administration.
ARTICLE II
The Imperial Government of Japan shall in a spirit of firm friendship
ensure the safety and repose of the Imperial House of Korea.
ARTICLE III
The Imperial Government of Japan definitely guarantees the independence
and territorial integrity of the Korean Empire.
ARTICLE IV
In case the welfare of the Imperial House of Korea or the territorial
integrity of Korea is endangered by aggression of a third Power or
internal disturbances, the Imperial Government of Japan shall immediately
take such necessary measures as the circumstances require; and in such
cases the Imperial Government of Korea shall give full facilities to
promote the action of the Imperial Japanese Government.
The Imperial Government of Japan may, for the attainment of the
above-mentioned object, occupy, when the circumstances require it, such
places as may be necessary from strategical points of view.
ARTICLE V
The Governments of the two countries shall not in future, without mutual
consent, conclude with a third Power such an arrangement as may be
contrary to the principles of the present Protocol.
ARTICLE VI
Details in connection with the present Protocol shall be arranged as the
circumstances may require between the Representative of Japan and the
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of Korea.
APPENDIX B
PROTOCOL SIGNED AUGUST 22, 1904
ARTICLE I
The Korean Government shall engage as Financial Adviser to the Korean
Government, a Japanese subject recommended by the Japanese Government,
and all matters concerning finance shall be dealt with after his counsel
being taken.
ARTICLE II
The Korean Government shall engage as diplomatic adviser to the
Department of Foreign Affairs, a foreigner recommended by the Japanese
Government, and all important matters concerning foreign relations shall
be dealt with after his counsel being taken.
ARTICLE III
The Korean Government shall previously consult the Japanese Government in
concluding treaties and conventions with foreign Powers, and in dealing
with other important diplomatic affairs, such as the grant of concessions
to, or contracts with, foreigners.
APPENDIX C
CONVENTION OF JULY 24, 1907
The Governments of Japan and Korea, with a view to the early attainment
of the prosperity and strength of Korea, and to the speedy promotion of
the welfare of the Korean people, have agreed upon and concluded the
following stipulations:—
ARTICLE I.—The Government of Korea shall follow the direction
of the Resident-General in connection with the reform of the
administration.
ARTICLE II.—The Government of Korea shall not enact any law or
ordinance, or carry out any important administrative measure,
except with the previous approval of the Resident-General.
ARTICLE III.—The judicial affairs of Korea shall be kept
distinct from the ordinary administrative affairs.
ARTICLE IV.—No appointment or dismissal of Korean officials
of the higher grade shall be made without the consent of the
Resident-General.
ARTICLE V.—The Government of Korea shall appoint to official
positions under it such Japanese as may be recommended by the
Resident-General.
ARTICLE VI.—The Government of Korea shall not engage any
foreigner without the consent of the Resident-General.
ARTICLE VII.—The first clause of the Agreement between Japan
and Korea, signed on the 22d day of the 8th month of the 37th
year of Meiji, is herewith abrogated.
In faith whereof, the undersigned, duly authorized by their
respective Governments, have signed this agreement and affixed
their seals thereto.
(L. S.) MARQUIS HIROBUMI ITO,
_H. I. J. M’s. Resident-General_.
The 24th day of the 7th month of the 40th year of Meiji.
(L. S.) YI WAN-YONG,
_H. I. K. M’s. Minister, President of State_.
The 24th day of the 7th month of the 11th year of Kwang-mu.
[The clause in the Protocol of August, 1904, which is declared abrogated
by the seventh article of the new Convention, apparently refers to the
promise of the Korean Government to engage a Japanese subject as their
official Financial Adviser. It was, of course, rendered unnecessary by
the new Convention.]
APPENDIX D
SUMMARY OF THE MOST RECENT MEASURES FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF THE KOREAN
GOVERNMENT
The revised Organic Regulations of the Korean Government, published
by an extra of the _Official Gazette_ (December 23, 1907), cover the
five Administrative Departments for Home Affairs, Finance, Justice,
Education, and Agriculture, Commerce and Industry. As for the Cabinet
and War Office, they had not as yet reported any changes introduced in
their Regulations. In addition to the particular Organic Regulations for
each department there are Regulations common to all the Departments,
the War Office not being excepted. The latter Regulations consist of 21
articles which outline the responsibility and duty of the Ministers,
Vice-Ministers, and other officials, and fix the date for the enforcement
of all the revised Regulations for January 1, 1908. Regulations for the
organization of the different offices under the Departments of Home,
Finance, and Justice were promulgated at the same time, including the
Provincial Governor’s Office, Metropolitan Police Office and Customs
Office.
To give a brief epitome of the Regulations for each administrative
department: The Home Office is to contain three bureaus for local
affairs—Police, Engineering, and Hygienics, with a Director for each.
The rest of the staff consists of 12 secretaries, 5 commissioners, 5
engineering experts, 3 translators, 62 clerks, 10 police sergeants, 5
assistant engineering experts and a number of policemen. The Finance
Department contains the three bureaus of Revenue, Accounts, and Managing
Finance, each with a Director. Thirteen secretaries, 7 commissioners, 2
translators, and 100 clerks constitute the staff of this Department. The
Department of Justice will have bureaus for Civil and Criminal Affairs,
and each bureau is controlled by a Director. The regular staff of this
department comprises 9 secretaries, 4 commissioners, 3 translators, and
40 clerks. In the Department of Education there are bureaus for School
Affairs and for Edition and Compilation, with a Director each. The
regular staff includes 7 secretaries, 4 commissioners, 3 engineering
experts, 28 clerks, and 6 assistant engineering experts. The Department
of Agriculture, Commerce and Industry will be divided into five
bureaus—namely, Agriculture, Commercial and Industrial, Forestry, Mining,
and Marine Products; and each bureau has a Director at its head. The
regular staff of this Department includes 8 secretaries, 5 commissioners,
15 technical experts, 1 translator, 49 clerks, and 60 assistant technical
experts.
In addition, each Department has a Minister’s Chamber, and a private
secretary will be appointed to each Minister of State.
The Regulations for the Financial Department provide for the creation
of a Temporary Bureau for investigation of the national resources, with
a staff consisting of a Director, a secretary, 3 commissioners, and 5
technical experts.
More detailed regulations for the different offices under these
departments are to be issued later.
The most recent advices from Korea report that the rioting, arson, and
murder, headed by the disbanded Korean soldiers, is greatly diminished,
and that the country is reverting to its normal condition so far as
deeds of disorder and violence are concerned. The visit of the Crown
Prince of Japan greatly gratified the pride and appeased the fears of the
Imperial family and Yang-bans of Korea. Before leaving Seoul, Prince Ito
laid the corner-stone of the new building of the Young Men’s Christian
Association in that city. The Crown Prince of Korea, the son of Lady
Om, whose guardianship Prince Ito has taken upon himself, accompanied
by Ito, arrived in Tokyo, where he is to be placed in the Peers School,
and was received with distinguished honors both by the Imperial Family
of Japan and by the populace. The reports also show that the trade
relations have had a significant increase between the two countries; but
the most significant item is this: the exports of Korean products, which
are for the most part rice and beans, exceed the imports from Japan by
some 3,000,000 _yen_. The establishment of friendly relations between
the two countries appears, therefore, to be moving forward rapidly; and
the political and economical redemption of the peninsula appears to have
been successfully begun. The first and, of necessity, most doubtful and
difficult in the stages of the Passing of the Old Korea may therefore be
said to have been already accomplished.
FOOTNOTES
[1] For the following description of Seoul, besides my own observations,
I am chiefly indebted to a series of articles published during our stay
there by Dr. G. Heber Jones in the Seoul _Press_.
[2] This may seem incredible, but it is a fact that, as late as the
spring of 1907, even a basket of fruit could not be sent to the Emperor
with the confidence that the eunuchs and palace servants would not steal
it all. At every garden-party the dishes and even the chairs had to be
carefully watched.
[3] It is now proper to say, since his own abdication and the Convention
of July, 1907, have followed, that the Korean Emperor after repeated
denials, confessed at the time to a faithful foreign friend (not a
Japanese) that he had given to Mr. Hulbert a large sum of money to
execute a certain commission the nature of which he kept secret. In
spite of this friend’s importunate urging and vivid representation of
what the consequences of the act might be to himself and to his family,
His Majesty refused to telegraph a recall of the commission. He did,
however, so far yield to the same pleading as to agree not to furnish a
further sum of money which had been asked in behalf of the influence of
another “foreign friend,” the editor of the most violently anti-Japanese
newspaper.
[4] This document probably emanated from the same press in
Seoul—conducted by a subject of Japan’s friendly ally, Great Britain—from
which came the lying bulletin that afterward caused so much bloodshed
on the morning of Friday, July 19th. It is a comfort to know that this
same editor has since been indicted by his own Government for the crime
of stirring up sedition, condemned to give bonds, and threatened with
deportation if his offences are repeated.
[5] Hulbert, _The History of Korea_, I, p. 368.
[6] _Japan_, I, p. 69 _f._
[7] See _The History of the Empire of Japan_, (volume prepared for the
World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago, 1903), p. 38 _f._
[8] _Ibid._, p. 47.
[9] _The History of the Empire of Japan_, p. 278 _f._
[10] _Ibid._, p. 280.
[11] See Griffis, _The Hermit Nation_, p. 159.
[12] See _The History of the Empire of Japan_, p. 304.
[13] _Japan_, IV, p. 207.
[14] See _The History of the Empire of Japan_, p. 403 _ff._
[15] This is on the authority of Mr. D. W. Stevens, whose acquaintance
with the facts is most accurate and full.
[16] _China’s Intercourse with Korea from the XVth Century to 1895_, p. 1
_f._
[17] _Foreign Relations of the United States_, 1871, p. 112.
[18] Quoted from the paper referred to above.
[19] For this account, as here given _verbatim_, I am indebted to the
Hon. D. W. Stevens, who was at the time of my visit, “Adviser to the
Korean Council of State and Counsellor of the Resident-General.”
[20] The list of these reforms is given in the volume of the _U. S.
Foreign Relations_, containing the report sent to the United States by
Minister Sill, September 24, 1894.
[21] _International Law and Diplomacy of the Russo-Chinese War_, p. 43
_f._
[22] Hershey, _International Law and Diplomacy of the Russo-Chinese War_,
p. 44 _f._
[23] _Ibid._, p. 45 _f._ See also the account of Dr. K. Asakawa, _The
Russo-Japanese Conflict_, p. 263 _ff._
[24] So Mr. Whigham, in his admirable book on _Manchuria and Korea_.
(London, Isbiter & Company), p. 123.
[25] _The Passing of Korea_, p. 167.
[26] See on this and allied points, the lecture delivered by Mr.
Rockhill, at the United States Naval War College, Newport, August 5, 1904.
[27] _The Passing of Korea_, p. 210 _f._
[28] _Manchuria and Korea_, p. 119.
[29] See Appendix A for its text.
[30] See Appendix B.
[31] _War and Neutrality in the Far East_, p. 216 _f._
[32] See especially Hulbert, _The Passing of Korea_, p. 464 _f._
[33] The narrative which follows may be trusted to correct most of these
misstatements. But among them, some of the more important may here
be categorically contradicted. Such are, for example, the statements
that armed force was used; that General Hasegawa half drew his sword
to intimidate Mr. Han; that Hagiwara seized the latter with the aid of
gendarmes and police; that the Minister of Agriculture continued to hold
out; that he and Minister Pak, during the conference, withdrew from the
Japanese Legation and betook themselves to the Palace, denouncing the
compact (something no one acquainted with the geographical relations
of the two places would be likely to assert with a sincere belief);
that the Emperor ordered the consenting Ministers to be assassinated;
that Japanese troops patrolled the streets all night, etc., etc. One
curiously characteristic error of Mr. Hulbert is involved in the
statement, published in one of the papers of the United States, which
makes his commission by the Korean Emperor to lodge an appeal with
President Roosevelt the cause of hastening the Japanese Government in
their iniquitous _coup d’état_. The truth is that the Japanese Government
had made all the preparations for Marquis Ito’s departure, and the plan
afterward carried out had been carefully formulated, weeks before it
was known that Mr. Hulbert was going to the United States. The Marquis
was only waiting the return of Baron Komura to Japan before leaving for
Korea. No thought whatever was at any time given to Mr. Hulbert. It is,
in general, late now to say that the efforts of those “friends of Korea,”
who have taken the Korean ex-Emperor’s money while holding out to him the
hope of foreign intervention, have done him and his country, rather than
Japan, an injury impossible to repair.
[34] In order to understand the following negotiations and all similar
transactions conducted in characteristic Korean style, it should be
remembered that delay, however reasonable it may seem or really be, is
in fact utilized for purposes not of reflection and judicious planning
for future emergencies, but the rather for arranging intrigues, securing
apparent chances of escape from the really inevitable, with the result of
an increasing unsettlement of the Imperial mind.
[35] He was preparing to go when the Minister of the Household called
with a message requesting the Marquis to postpone the conclusion of the
Treaty two or three days.
[36] None of the party gathered in the council chamber saw Mr. Han after
that. It seems from the accounts subsequently given by Palace officials
that a little later Mr. Han went upstairs still deeply agitated. His
evident purpose was to gain access to the Emperor, which, as he had not
requested an audience, was a flagrant violation of etiquette from the
Korean point of view. But the poor man in his confusion turned the wrong
way and stumbled into Lady Om’s quarters. Some of the officials led him
to a small retiring room, where he spent the night. The next morning
it was officially announced that he had been dismissed from office in
disgrace and would be severely punished. Marquis Ito immediately begged
that the Emperor would pardon him, and, in deference to this request,
Mr. Han was permitted to go into retirement with no other punishment
than the loss of his office. The whole proceeding was one of those
things which apparently can happen only in Korea and not excite any
one’s special wonder. No one seemed to know precisely why the Minister
was punished. He was amiable, not very strong mentally, but well-meaning
and of comparatively good repute; he had done his best to carry out
the Emperor’s wishes as he understood them, and, having failed, as was
inevitable, his grief was the best proof possible of his sincerity;
and one would think it might have excited sufficient pity to preclude
resentment. However, it should be added that the sincerity manifest in
Mr. Han’s grief did not extend to his memory or his powers of narration.
At least that is an inference which one may draw from certain published
accounts of these occurrences—Mr. Han having seemingly been the
fountain-head of the information.
[37] The Marquis’ reasons for refusing hardly need explanation. Japan had
already secured some measure of control over the internal administration
of Korea by previous arrangements. The acceptance of the proposed
amendment would have been virtually an abrogation of these arrangements,
notably of the most important portion of the Protocols of February 23
and August 22. To that, of course, the Marquis could not agree. Besides
this, the control of Korea’s foreign relations necessarily required some
measure of control and guidance over the administration of her internal
affairs. The relations between external and internal affairs, their
frequent interdependence, is so intimate, that it would have been a grave
mistake to assume the obligations which the one imposed without the power
to guard against complications which might follow from maladministration
of the other. As the case stands, the insertion of the word “primarily,”
while soothing Korean susceptibilities, does not affect the control of
the Protectorate in any material respect.
[38] The following facts with regard to the possession of the Imperial
seal of Korea and its affixing to this important document, are given
on the authority of Mr. D. W. Stevens. They are a complete refutation
of the charges which have been made regarding this part of the entire
transaction. It was the unavoidable delay in bringing the seal to the
Palace which gave rise to these extraordinary stories. “What actually
happened,” says Mr. Stevens, “was this. While the treaty was being
copied, Mr. Pak went to the telephone and directed the clerk in charge
of the seal at the Foreign Office to bring it to the Palace. After some
delay he went again to the telephone and repeated the order. At the time
the only two persons in the office were the clerk in charge of the seal
and Mr. Numano, my Japanese assistant. Both were just then reading in the
room where the clerk slept and where the seal was kept. The telephone
bell rang, and the clerk who answered it informed Mr. Numano that Mr. Pak
had ordered the seal to be brought to the Palace. He was putting on his
street clothing preparatory to obeying the order when the Chief of the
Diplomatic Bureau of the Foreign Office came into the room and asked the
clerk where he was going. The clerk informed him, whereupon he went to
the telephone and called up Mr. Pak. He implored the latter not to agree
to the Treaty and, finally, receiving Mr. Pak’s peremptory order to cease
interfering, threw himself down upon the clerk’s bed in great grief.
After this, there was no further interruption from any quarter, and the
seal was taken quietly to the Palace.”
It throws light upon the control and use of this seal to observe that,
when in the summer of 1907 he was committed to the responsibility for the
Commission to The Hague Conference by the fact that the commissioners
were ready to prove their Imperial authorization by showing the Imperial
seal, His Majesty did not admit this as evidence in proof of their claim.
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that this use of his seal was also with
his knowledge and permission. And, now, in connection with the various
details inaugurated under the new Treaty which followed this violation of
the Treaty of November, 1905, we are told that henceforth the Imperial
seal will be kept _in a safe_ especially prepared for it, and carefully
protected from intrusion.
[39] It is a significant fact that this memorial which is here followed
very closely—and in the most important places even literally—has received
no attention from the hostile critics of Japan. It would seem as though
neither Mr. Hulbert nor Mr. Story is aware of the existence of such
a memorial. This is the more remarkable in the case of the former,
because he was for years resident in Seoul, was familiar with the Korean
language, and was gathering material for his written account of the
affair while upon the ground.
[40] It will, therefore, clearly appear that no one acquainted with this
memorial can honestly place any confidence in His Majesty’s subsequent
denials of the significance of these facts. Shall we not also be obliged
to add, that no one who is acquainted with the memorial is entitled to
the confidence of any one else, if he puts confidence in the denials of
the Emperor. Amazement at the audacity of the falsehoods which have been
told with regard to this historically important transaction would seem to
be the fitting attitude of mind.
[41] This part of the memorial agrees closely with the statements in the
first part of the chapter, as to what was then said.
[42] The purpose of this significant Memorial, we repeat, is
self-evident. The Ministers, who had agreed to the Treaty by the
Emperor’s commands and with his concurrence and approval, were being
attacked as traitors. The Emperor himself was secretly favoring the
attack and endeavoring to create the impression that he had not agreed to
the Treaty, but that it was the work of the recreant Cabinet without his
approval. The Memorial forced him to abandon that position once and for
all. As before stated, it was officially promulgated with the Imperial
sanction, and should have ended all controversy at once. In any country
but Korea, and with any but the class of writers whom these incidents
have developed, that would have been its result.
[43] An amusing illustration of the ex-Emperor’s way of filling his privy
purse is found in the following authentic incident. At one time the large
sum of 270,000 _yen_ was wanted in cash to pay a bill for silks and jades
which, it was alleged, had been purchased in China for Lady Om. When the
request was made to exhibit the precious goods which had cost so enormous
a sum, and which were going to make so large an unexpected drain upon
insufficient revenues, the show of materials was entirely unsatisfactory.
But, if not the goods, at least the bill itself could be produced. A bill
was then brought to light, with the items made out in due form, but by
a Chinese firm of merchants in Seoul instead of in China. The Chinese
Consul-General, on being inquired of, replied that there was indeed such
a reputable Chinese firm in the city; and he desired to have the matter
further investigated lest the credit and business honor of his countrymen
might suffer by connection of this sort with His Majesty’s efforts to
obtain ready money. Investigation elicited the fact that a certain Court
official had visited this firm and inquired how much such and such things
_would_ cost, _if_ purchased in Shanghai. But no goods had been delivered
or even actually ordered!
[44] See Hulbert, _The History of Korea_, II, p. 61 _f._
[45] _The History of Korea_, I, p. 339.
[46] See Hulbert, _The History of Korea_, II, p. 54.
[47] Hulbert, _The Passing of Korea_, pp. 50, 58.
[48] _The Passing of Korea_, p. 67.
[49] _The Passing of Korea_, pp. 38, 41.
[50] _Ibid._, p. 43.
[51] See the account of the “Baby War” and “Breast Hunters,” _The History
of Korea_, II., p. 245.
[52] _The Passing of Korea_, pp. 311, 319, 369.
[53] _Ibid._, p. 283.
[54] _Ibid._, p. 247.
[55] Whigham, _Manchuria and Korea_, p. 185.
[56] See a pamphlet bearing this title as an “Authorized Translation of
Official Documents published by the Resident-General, in Seoul, January,
1907,” p. 7.
[57] During all my visit in Korea it was commonly reported by those
intimate at Court that the Crown Prince was an imbecile both in body and
in mind. But in his boyhood he was rather more than ordinarily bright,
and his mother, the murdered Queen, was the most clever and brilliant
Korean woman of her time. It is not strange, then, that since his
accession to the throne and in view of his obviously sensible way of
yielding to good advice from others, in spite of the evil influence of
his father, the impression has been made that he might have been feigning
imbecility in order to escape plots to assassinate him, which were formed
in the interests of a rival claimant to the throne.
[58] Issue of Saturday, March 16, 1907.
[59] So the report on the “State of the Progress of the Reorganization of
the Finances of Korea, March, 1907.”
[60] _Administrative Reforms in Korea_, p. 18.
[61] A _cho_ is nearly 2½ acres.
[62] See _Administrative Reforms in Korea_, p. 19.
[63] _State of the Progress of the Reorganization of the Finances of
Korea, March, 1907_, p. 20.
[64] _Administrative Reforms in Korea_, p. 15.
[65] It should be noted in this connection that this appointment is
one of the very few which, like that of the Resident-General, proceed
directly from the Emperor of Japan himself.
[66] _Summary of the Financial Affairs of Korea_, p. 5.
[67] In interpreting this it should be remembered that the Japanese _sen_
is equal in value to one-half a cent in American gold, or about one
farthing in English currency. 100 _sen_ = 1 _yen_, and 1,000 _rin_ = 1
_yen_.
[68] “There had been,” says Mr. D. W. Stevens, “some criticism because
such a law was considered necessary; and Japanese legal procedure was
accused of being defective, on this account, by certain foreign critics.
But in the late seventies the British Court at Yokohama released a man
who had been detected counterfeiting Japanese money, on the ground that
there was no British law under which to punish him, and that Japanese law
against counterfeiting did not apply to British subjects in Japan. And
the highest British courts have held that a contract to smuggle goods
into a foreign country is a valid contract as between British subjects in
Great Britain.” The entire matter is dwelt upon at such length because
it illustrates so well the inability of the Koreans for “independent”
management of their own internal affairs, and also the animus and
propriety of much of the anti-Japanese criticism.
[69] The quotations are from the pamphlet, _Administrative Reforms in
Korea_, p. 11 _f._
[70] See _Summary of the Financial Affairs of Korea_, p. 5.
[71] See the incidents—which are of a sort to be almost indefinitely
multiplied—on page 285 _f._
[72] Dr. Allen, then American Consul-General, in a report upon
_Educational Institutions and Methods in Korea_, 1898.
[73] See _Administrative Reforms in Korea_, p. 4 _f._
[74] _Official Minutes of the Korean Mission Conference_, 1906, p. 41.
[75] _Korean Review_, of February, 1904.
[76] It is significant to notice in this connection that previous to
his several commissions from the Korean Emperor, this writer held a
quite different view from that which he afterward advocated with regard
to the underlying principle of all the recent relations between the
two countries. In the same article he says: “The present chaotic state
of the national finances and of popular discontent, show something
of what Russian influence has accomplished in Korea; and the people
are coming to realize the fact. They are passionately attached to the
theory of national ‘independence.’ We say _theory_ advisedly. This word
‘independence’ is a sort of fetich to which they bow, but they think that
independence means liberation from outside control alone, forgetting that
genuine independence means likewise a liberation from evil influences
within, and that liberty, so far from being _carte blanche_ to do as one
pleases, is in truth the apotheosis of law.”
[77] Among the many falsehoods told by the Koreans and their “Foreign
Friends,” in their endeavors to excite pity for themselves, and,
possibly, interference with the Japanese Administration in Korea,
none is more ridiculous than that the latter were reviving the use of
torture. It should be borne in mind that, previous to the Convention of
July, 1907, which followed upon the promulgation of this and other more
important false charges by the commissioners to The Hague Conference, the
Japanese Residency-General’s power did not extend to the interference
with the execution of the Korean law upon Korean criminals. Preliminary
examination by beating with a stick was then legal; according to credible
current report it was practiced upon the vice-Minister of Education,
when, during my visit to Korea, he was accused of having contributed
money toward effecting the assassination of the Ministry (see p. 51). All
this is quite different from the retort which might be made to critics
from the United States to remember the practice of “water-cure” in the
Philippines, etc.
[78] Quoted, as are the following paragraphs bearing quotation marks,
from the pamphlet prepared under the supervision of the Resident-General,
and published in Seoul, January, 1907, on _Administrative Reforms in
Korea_. [These quotations are made exactly, and without attempt to change
the language in accordance with our use of legal terms.]
[79] The following incident illustrates the habitual behavior of the
Korean _Daily News_, edited by Mr. Bethell, in both an English and a
native edition. Dr. Jones, one of the most faithful and useful of the
Missionary body in Korea, had previously incurred the bitter enmity of
this paper by publicly announcing (see p. 61 _f._) the intention to
assist the Resident-General in his plans, so far as his own work as a
missionary permitted, for the up-raising of Korea. At the time when the
Korean troops, in a wholly unprovoked way, fired upon the crowd in the
streets of Seoul, Dr. Jones published in the _Seoul Press_ an account
of what he himself saw. The account was not accompanied by any harsh
criticism of the conduct of the troops. But “shortly afterwards a Korean
attached to the vernacular paper visited him and, attacking him fiercely,
denounced him as an enemy of Korea. This was followed by a savage attack
in the Korean edition of the _News_, giving an entirely false account
of what Dr. Jones had done and said. It was in fact an invitation to
murder.” Dr. Jones at once appealed to the American Consul-General and he
to the British. The editor was forced to retract and apologize, but this
by no means compensated for the damage his article had done.
[80] This fact has been clearly proven by papers found on the body of
Yi-Sei-chik, when he was afterward arrested and detained at headquarters,
as well as by his personal statements.
[81] This serious charge was made by the writer and published to a
friendly nation, on the basis of no personal knowledge, not to say
careful investigation, and after casual conversation with a small number
of witnesses who belong to the class peculiarly liable to be deceived
both as to facts and as to causes of such alleged incidents.
[82] Deplorable, on account of its effect, direct and indirect, upon the
Koreans, upon Marquis Ito’s efforts at reform, and upon the missionary
cause in Japan as well as Korea.
[83] It has been asserted that the value of the land staked off by the
Japanese military authorities near Seoul was 6,000,000 _yen_. As the
result of a “painstaking and impartial investigation” it was found that,
at the highest market price, this land would not have brought more than
750,000 to 1,000,000 _yen_. The Korean way in such matters is well
illustrated by the experience of the Young Men’s Christian Association
in Seoul, who, when one small piece of land was needed to complete their
site, were obliged to invoke an official order preventing the sale to
any other party; and even then paid a price probably two or three times
its true market value. Compare also what is said, p. 98 _f._, about the
Pyeng-yang affair.
[84] What is the state of the case in certain portions of the West is
truthfully told in the following paragraph quoted from a popular journal:
“In the matter of cheating Indians and acquiring public lands in ways
which bear all the ethical aspects of theft, there is no public or
private morality either in Oklahoma or any other of those Western States
where Indians and public lands continue to exist.”
[85] On one occasion the British and Chinese Ministers jointly urged
the payment of indemnity in the case of two Chinamen, one a British
_protégé_, who had been injured in a fight with tax-collecting officials
at a place to which Chinese junks were in the habit of resorting. The
British _protégé_ had died of his wounds, both he and his companion
having been confined after the fight in the magistrate’s yamen.
The Korean local officials contended that only one person had been
killed—namely, the wounded Chinaman. When confronted with the fact that,
according to their own report, there was a dead Chinaman in the yamen
the morning after, they replied that this man was not in the fracas at
all; he had merely crawled into the yamen during the night, and had died
of some unknown disease. The picture of this shrewd Celestial going to
the yamen to die, apparently for the purpose of fraudulently foisting an
incriminating _corpus delicti_ upon the innocent Korean official, did not
appeal to the British Minister, and he got his indemnity.
[86] See “The Japanese in Korea,” Extracts from _The Korean Review_, p.
46 _f._
[87] _The Far East_ (London, T. Fisher Unwin, 1901), p. 337 _f._
[88] _Korea_ (Chas. Scribner’s Sons, 1904), pp. 128 _f._; 274 _f._
Perhaps the underlying reason for much of Mr. Hamilton’s rather
vituperative criticism of affairs in Korea may be found in Chapter XII,
where Japanese, American, and British merchants, and Lord Salisbury are
all severely taken to task because too much of Korea’s trade is falling
into other than English hands.
[89] According to the testimony of travellers in the interior of Korea,
it is extremely difficult to get any food, accommodation, or service,
even when desirous of paying the highest prices, on account of the
experience with their own travelling officials, who never expect to pay
for anything exacted from the country people.
[90] It furnished Mr. Hulbert and Mr. Bethell, however, with a striking
instance of the way in which the Japanese are robbing the Koreans.
[91] An occurrence, which might easily have become a much celebrated
instance of a Japanese attempt at robbery and oppression of the Koreans,
came to the writer’s notice in a private but entirely trustworthy way.
One of the ex-Emperor’s real foreign friends was sent for some time ago
and found His Majesty in a state of intense alarm and excitement over a
plot of the Residency-General which had just been made known to him. A
certain foreigner had authorized the story that the Japanese authorities
were trying to purchase three houses owned by a Chinese and situated just
opposite the Palace, with a view to tear them down and erect barracks
for the Japanese soldiers on the spot. The price offered by the Japanese
was 60,000 _yen_; but if His Majesty would furnish 65,000 _yen_, this
_friendly_ foreigner would buy the property for him, and so defeat the
nefarious project of the Japanese. The Emperor wished at once to borrow
the money. It was suggested, however, that His Majesty should allow
inquiry to be made before parting with so much of his privy purse.
Whereupon, the following conversation was held between the Chinese owner
and the person to whom the Emperor looked to procure for him the needed
sum:
“I understand the three houses you own are offered for sale.”
“Well, I do not particularly wish to sell them; but that Frenchman, Mr.
⸺, has been here and wanted to get them. He said he wished to put up a
large store in their place.”
“How much do you ask for the houses?”
“They are worth 13,000 _yen_; but if any one will take all three of them,
he may have them for 12,000 _yen_ in cash.”
“Is that so? I understood the Japanese wanted them to build barracks for
their soldiers on the land.”
“I have not heard anything about the Japanese wanting them; it was that
Frenchman who said he wanted them, to build a store there.”
The benevolent spirit of this enterprising foreign friend is revealed
more intimately when we learn that he threatened to shoot on the spot,
if he could only find out who he was, the man that had thwarted his plan
for this bit of real-estate speculation. The same intention was avowed by
the American miner against the foreign official of the Korean Government
whom he regarded as standing in the way of the success of the “Poong Poo”
Company (see p. 361 _f._).
[92] _Korea and Her Neighbors_, by Isabella Bird Bishop, p. 64.
[93] Quoted from an anonymous letter, signed “Foreigner,” and published
in the _Seoul Press_, date of August 6, 1907. The spirit of this passage
is characteristic of the entire letter, which was nearly a column long,
and which was, alas! written by a missionary.
[94] Editorial in the _Seoul Press_, August 8, 1907.
[95] In this connection it should be remembered that the Young
Men’s Christian Association in Seoul is heavily subsidized by the
Residency-General in recognition of its services for the good of the
Koreans; that Marquis Ito sent a message of welcome, accompanied by a
gift of 10,000 _yen_, to the “World’s Christian Student Federation” at
its meeting in April, 1907, in Tokyo; and that His Excellency has taken
all possible pains to assure the Christian missionaries in Korea of his
desire for their active co-operation, by use of the moral and spiritual
forces which they wield, with his plan to use the allied economic and
educational forces, for the betterment of the Korean nation.
[96] Letter to the _Japan Times_, published, Tokyo, May 9, 1907.
[97] See _Problems of the Far East_, by the Hon. George N. Curzon, M.P.
(1894), pp. 192-197.
[98] Compare the narratives of Part I, pp. 37-64; 90-111.
[99] “Abnormal,” _i. e._, from the point of view of what would be
expected from minds of a higher degree of culture and of self-control.
[100] With regard to the _personnel_ of the Korean members of this
commission, the head was Yi Sung-sol, who had formerly been a Cabinet
Councillor. With him were associated Yi Chun-yong, a Judge of the Supreme
Court, and Yi Wi-chong, who was at one time secretary to the Foreign
Legation at Russia. The two former seem to have taken the Siberian
route to St. Petersburg, where they arrived about April 20th, and were
met there by Yi Wi-chong. The Russian Government, being at that time
negotiating a treaty with Japan which was to recognize in most explicit
terms the Japanese Protectorate over Korea, and give to it a “free
hand” in the management of Korean affairs, naturally enough, gave no
encouragement to the Koreans or to their “foreign friend.”
In view of the large sum of money which, according to rumor at the time,
the Emperor contributed to this purpose, it seems scarcely credible that
the Korean delegates should feel compelled at The Hague “to stay at a
low-class hotel where the meals cost about 50 _sen_” (or 25 cents in
gold), as the cable despatch reports. No less a sum than 240,000 _yen_
was subsequently traced to expenditure upon this futile scheme; and
100,000 _yen_ additional was suspected on good grounds. In addition to
this, as the event proved, it cost the Emperor his crown.
[101] It should be understood that the proposal of Count Inouye did not
contemplate taking the Korean Emperor prisoner and carrying him off by
force to Japan. It expressed simply the belief on the Count’s part that
the shortest way of making Korea accept Japan’s guidance was to cause the
Emperor to become acquainted with Japan by personal observation.
[102] The mixture of ignorance and craft of which the ex-Emperor is
capable was illustrated in a humorous way by his inquiry of Marquis
Ito whether the Japanese Government would not undertake the arrest and
punishment of his own emissaries at The Hague! The reply was, of course,
that Japan could no more do such a thing in Holland than Korea in Japan.
[103] This double policy of soliciting advice and help from Marquis
Ito, as his most true and powerful friend, while acting contrary to the
advice when given and rendering the help difficult or impossible, has
characterized the Emperor throughout in his relations with the Marquis.
[104] It was subsequently reported that the number of Koreans injured
during the disturbances of this Friday was 210; since the majority of
these had bullet wounds and the Japanese police were not armed with
rifles, the conclusion is inevitable that most of these casualties were
occasioned by the firing upon the crowd of the mutinous Korean soldiers.
[105] These quotations are from the article, the publication of which was
followed by the incident already narrated (p. 355, _note_). This example
is typical of the temper and methods of the anti-Japanese leaders and
their foreign friends.
[106] This is perhaps the place to deny, authoritatively and finally,
that Marquis Ito procured, counselled, or even gave consent to, the act
of abdication. Indeed, the members of the Residency-General, and the
Japanese in Seoul generally, who approved of the more strenuous measures
to be taken against Korea, regretted to have the abdication take place.
To use the expression of one of them: “It dulled the edge of the Japanese
sword.”
[107] It should be understood that this office is the most important and
influential of all the Korean offices, so far as private transactions
with the Emperor are concerned. Now Pak Yong-hio, after a life of
idleness and debauchery in Japan, whither he had fled some years
before, and where he had been supported by the kindness of Japanese and
Korean friends, had recently been pardoned and allowed to return to
Korea. In petitioning for permission to return, Pak dwelt in pathetic
terms on his “home-sickness,” and expressly promised in the future to
refrain from political intrigue. But he had scarcely set foot on the
soil of Korea before he began a most dishonest and disgraceful course
of political intrigue. A little more than twenty-four hours after his
pseudo-appointment as Minister of the Imperial Household, the Cabinet
Ministers ordered his arrest, and he was subsequently condemned to be
punished with eighty lashes and banished for life to the Island of
Quelpart. Such are the vicissitudes of Korean political careers when most
free from foreign influence!
[108] For the text of this new Convention, which is remarkable at once
for its brevity and its comprehensive indefiniteness, the reader is
referred to Appendix C. In view of the claims that the Convention of 1905
could not have been consented to by the Emperor because it does not bear
his signature, or that it did not have the consent of the Ministers,
because they did not all sign it, attention is called to the fact that
the new Convention is signed only by Marquis Ito and the Korean Prime
Minister.
[109] One of the leaders of the riot of July 19th confessed that he
was betrayed into his action by the false report of the _Taihan Mai-il
Shimpo_ (or Korean edition of the Korean _Daily News_—Mr. Bethell’s
paper), that the Emperor would be forced to go to Japan to apologize for
The Hague incident. On reading the Japanese-Korean Convention, however,
he was surprised at the moderation of Japan, and considered himself a
fool for being deceived by the paper. This is only one of innumerable
instances illustrating the truth that the English editor of this paper,
and his American coadjutor have, of late, probably done more mischief to
the Korean nation than any other persons except the Emperor and his small
coterie of corrupt Court officials.
[110] The word thus translated, however, means “paid” troops rather than
volunteers.
[111] How dangerous is prophecy touching the future of the Far East is
well illustrated by the following passage quoted from Mr. Whigham’s
generally calm and fair book on _Manchuria and Korea_, p. 49. Speaking
of the mistake which Japan made in not preventing Russia from building
the Manchurian Railway, Mr. Whigham says: “On the other hand, one is more
and more convinced that what used to be talked about a short time ago as
the inevitable war between Russia and Japan is destined to end in smoke,
since the Japanese have already lost their great opportunity.” This was
written as of July, 1901. Less than three years later “the inevitable
war” began in the “smoke” of battle, and ended with Japan in possession
of this same Manchurian Railway.
INDEX
Agriculture, state of, 92 _f._, 122 _f._, 127 _f._, 301 _f._, 303,
304 _f._;
founding Station and School of, 122 _f._, 126, 302
Alexeieff, M. Kir, doings of, in Korea, 224 _f._
Allen, H. N. (Acting Minister), on education in Korea, 327
An Chung-ho, 107
Bell, the Great, at Seoul, 26, 31 _f._, 179 _f._
Bethell, Mr., Editor _Korean Daily News_, 158
Bingham, Minister, 197 _f._
Bishop, Mrs., quoted, 390
Brinkley, quoted, 184, 192, 193
Brown, Mr. J. McLeavy, Director of Customs, 224 _f._, 360
Buddha, “The Great White,” 137 _f._
Buddhism, condition of, in Korea, 133 _f._, 137
_Bunki_, nature of, 342 _f._
Chemulpo, visit to, 113 _f._;
population of, 114;
appearance of, 114 _f._;
harbor of, 115
China, influence of, on Korea, 181 _f._, 190, 194, 202 _f._, 253, 296;
its claims of suzerainty, 189 _f._, 191 _f._, 194, 196 _f._, 199,
203, 211 _f._, 216 _f._;
soldiers of, in Korea, 203 _f._, 205 _f._, 214;
war with, 214 _f._;
present condition of, 444 _f._
Cockburn, Mr., British Consul-General, 131 _f._, 134 _f._
Confucianism, of Korea, characterized, 181 _f._, 296
Conventions (_see_ also Treaties), with China, 210 _f._;
Yamagata-Lobanoff, 224 _f._;
of Nov., 1904, with Korea, 252-279, 414;
of July, 1907, 419, 431 _f._, 433;
disorder following, 434 _f._
Councillor, in Privy Council, new office created, 82
Court, the Korean, corruptions of, 151 _f._, 297, 452;
cowardice of, 182 _f._;
“Purification” of, 297, 452 _f._
Crown Prince (now Emperor), 298 _note_
Curzon, Hon. George N., quoted, 402
_Daily News_, the Korean, 42, 52, 62 _f._;
announces commission to The Hague, 83 _f._;
attacks Dr. Jones, 355
Education, condition of, in Korea, 325-339;
earlier efforts at reform of, 327 _f._;
modern organization of, 330 _f._, 335 _f._;
missionary work in, 332 _f._;
attitude of Koreans toward, 334;
interest of Japan in, 336
Ellis, Mr. Wm. T., 367
Emperor, of Korea (now ex-Emperor), audience with, 44 _f._, 147 _f._;
personal appearance of, 44 _f._;
message to, 148 _f._;
character of, 151 _f._, 154 _f._, 158, 175 _f._, 235 _f._, 282
_f._, 286 _f._;
renounces suzerainty of China, 216 _f._;
flees to Russian Legation, 220;
subsequent behavior, 233 _f._;
treachery of, 242, 244, 246, 298, 361, 415, 428 _f._;
receives letter from Emperor of Japan, 254;
his part in Convention of 1904, 256 _f._, 259 _f._, 268 _f._, 274
_f._, 415 _f._;
abdication of, 423, 428
Epworth League, fate of, in Korea, 38
Eui Wha, Prince, 17, 75 _f._
Foulk, Ensign George C., report of, to United States, 200 _f._, 203,
204 _f._;
quoted, 376
Fusan, town of, 15 _f._, 140 _f._, 142;
public park in, 15, 142;
reception at, 16 _f._, 140 _f._, 143;
lectures at, 142;
schools of, 142;
revolt of settlers in, 185
Gale, Dr., quoted, 378
_General Sherman_, the visit of the, to Korea, 191
Hague, Peace Conference of, Korean Commissioners to, 83 _f._, 298,
414, 416;
Japanese press concerning, 418 _f._;
action of Tokyo Government, 419
_Hai-tai_, the, 28
Hall, of “Audience,” 29;
of “Congratulations,” 30
Hamilton, Angus, quoted, 377
Han, Korean Prime Minister in 1904, 263 _f._, 266 _note_, 267
Hanyang, town of, predecessor to Seoul, 22, 32
Harris, Bishop M. C., quoted, 397
Hay, Secretary, efforts of, 236 _f._
Hayashi, Minister in Korea, 260, 263, 269;
special Ambassador to Korea, 419 _f._, 421 _f._
Hershey, quoted, 219 _f._, 223 _f._
Hideyoshi, the invasion of, 15 _f._, 25, 90 _f._, 183 _f._, 187 _f._;
war with Prince Mori, 145
Hiro-Mura, trip to, 6 _f._
Hulbert, Mr. Homer B., leaves Seoul, 83 _f._;
on Korean history, 182;
quoted, 183, 236, 289, 290, 291, 293, 295, 336;
charges of, examined, 375
Ichihara, Mr., President of “Economies Club,” 55 _f._
Il Chin-hoi (Society), memorial of, to Ministers, 76 _f._;
to Residency-General, 430 _f._
Independence Arch, 43, 132
Independence Hall, 43;
lecture at, 52
Industrial Training School, founded at Seoul, 128 _f._
Inouye, Count, negotiates treaty with Korea, 107 _f._;
later visit of, as ambassador, 205 _f._;
administration in Korea, 218 _f._;
views on Commission to The Hague, 417 _f._
Ito, Prince Hirobumi, invitation of, 3 _f._, 8 _f._, 14, 37 _f._, 40
_f._, 56;
attitude of, toward Korea, 8 _f._, 55 _f._, 64, 139, 157, 164 _f._,
169 _f._, 226, 395 _f._;
work of, in Korea, 86 _f._, 168 _f._, 173 _f._, 253 _f._, 287 _f._,
298, 301 _f._, 330 _f._, 341 _f._, 355 _f._, 412;
negotiates treaty with China, 194 _f._, 210 _f._;
speech of (1898), 226 _f._;
visits Peking, 231;
and St. Petersburg, 232;
negotiates Conventions with Korea, 252 _f._, 256, 260 _f._;
in Convention of 1907, 421, 424, 432 _f._;
enlarged plans of, 441;
visits Tokyo, Aug., 1907, 442
Iyeyasu, treatment of Korea by, 189 _f._
Japanese, characteristics of, 1 _f._, 55, 121 _f._, 183, 431 _f._,
454, 457;
invasion by, 15 _f._, 25, 183 _f._;
settlements of, in Korea, 15 _f._, 19, 114, 143 _f._, 450 _f._;
as an audience, 55, 97;
relations of, to Koreans, 55 _f._, 59 _f._, 91, 109 _f._, 119 _f._,
150 _f._, 171 _f._, 202 _f._, 368 _f._, 393 _f._, 458;
ladies in Seoul, 57 _f._
_Japan Times_, quoted, 418 _f._
Jones, Dr. G. Heber, quoted, 22, 23, 27, 89, 168 _f._, 179, 425;
assistance by, in work, 48, 49, 52 _f._, 59, 113 _f._;
interview of, with Marquis Ito, 63 _f._;
attack upon, 355 _note_
Justice, the Public, previous condition of, 340 _f._, 343, 345, 347
_f._, 369;
use of torture, 340 _f._, 375 _f._;
attempts at reform of, 341 _f._, 343 _f._, 349 _f._;
police system, 345 _f._;
courts of, 347 _f._
Kabayama, Admiral, visits Korea, 205 _f._
Kang, chief Eunuch, 154
Kenochi, Mr., Resident at Chemulpo, 117
Kikuchi, Mr., Resident at Pyeng-yang, 100
Kimmei, Korean envoy to, 186
Kim Ok-kiun, 31;
murder of, 213
Kim Tuk-nyung, Korean general, 183
Korea, country of, 19 _f._, 92 _f._, 113 _f._, 301;
hunting tigers in, 120 _f._;
historical relations of, to Japan, 179-251;
reasons for its degradation, 180 _f._;
treaty of 1876 with, 182;
trade relations with Japan, 185 _f._, 356;
control of, by Japan, 242 _f._, 452 _f._;
resources of, 300 _f._, 303 _f._, 310 _f._, 322 _f._;
reforestation of, 306 _f._, 308 _f._;
mines of, 309 _f._, 361 _f._;
customs of, 313 _f._, 324 _f._;
finances of, 315 _f._, 318 _f._, 320 _f._, 356 _f._;
debt of, 324;
foreign trade of, 356 _f._
Koreans, the condition of, 8 _f._, 60, 158 _f._, 160 _f._, 180 _f._;
characteristics of, 86 _f._, 105 _f._, 120, 129, 162 _f._, 180
_f._, 289 _f._, 295 _f._, 428 _f._;
independence of, 8 _f._, 169, 174 _f._, 216 _f._, 296 _f._, 336
_note_;
intrigues of, 8, 10 _f._, 66, 68 _f._, 85 _f._, 105, 171 _f._, 201
_f._, 218 _f._, 371 _f._;
appearance of, 18, 47 _f._, 292, 294;
superstitions of, 23 _f._, 131, 293 _f._, 391;
burial places of, 23 _f._, 132 _f._;
as an audience, 47 _f._, 51 _f._;
women, 57 _f._, 86 _f._, 294;
murder Japanese, 202, 206 _f._, 399, 425;
as workmen, 292 _f._;
emigration of, 364 _f._;
religious condition of, 390 _f._, 392 _f._
_Korean Review_, quoted, 315, 327, 328 _f._
Kublai Khan, Embassy of, 187
Kuroda, General, makes treaty with Korea, 182, 197 _f._
Kuruda, Mr., villa of, 141 _f._
Kwon, Minister of War, attempted assassination of, 66 _f._, 70 _f._;
address of, at Suwon, 127
Lady Om, address at school of, 54 _f._, 155
Lawrence, Prof., on Convention of Feb., 1904, 247 _f._
Laws, absence of code of, 341 _f._;
affecting real estate, 342 _f._;
and mines, 362 _f._
Li Hung Chang, 13;
negotiates treaty with Japan, 209
Manchurian Question, the, 229-233, 236
Megata, Mr., appointed “Financial Adviser,” 246 _f._, 315;
work of, 246 _f._, 301, 308, 315 _f._, 318 _f._, 320 _f._, 355
Min, the Family, 200, 201 _f._, 203 _f._
Min Hyung-sik, Vice-Minister of Education, 51, 72, 74
Min Yung-whong, commits suicide, 278 _f._
Ministry, the Korean, change in _personnel_, 76 _f._;
and character of office, 80 _f._, 246, 252;
position of, in Russian Legation, 222 _f._;
behavior of, in 1907, 420, 421
Missions, success of, in Korea, 61, 93 _f._, 404 _f._, 408 _f._, 441;
founding of, 116, 401, 403, 404 _f._;
schools of, 332 _f._;
differing views as to, 388 _f._, 400;
need of civil support, 394 _f._, 412;
work of woman in, 400 _f._;
persecution of, by Koreans, 401, 402;
the Roman Catholic, 403 _f._;
the Protestant, 404 _f._;
“Great Revival” among the, 408 _f._, 410 _f._
Missionaries, attitude of, 58 _f._, 60, 166 _f._, 396 _f._, 398;
complaints of, 62 _f._, 368;
educational work of, 332 _f._;
difficulties of, 392 _f._, 401 _f._;
martyrs among, 401 _f._
Mollendorff, M. von, action of, in Korea, 207 _f._
Mongols, invasions of, 184 _f._
Moore, _Digest of International Law_, quoted, 211 _f._
Nagasaki, visit to, 12 _f._
Nam-san, view from, 23, 40;
wild-cats on, 39 _f._
Noble, Dr., 93, 102, 106, 110
Norman, Henry, quoted, 377
Pagoda, the Marble, 32 _f._;
the “Pagoda Incident,” 384
Pak, Acting Prime Minister, attempted assassination of, 66;
resigns, 77;
action as Minister of Foreign Affairs, 264, 268 _f._
Pak Yong-hio, conduct of, 428 _f._
Pak Yong-hwa, assassination of, 68
Palaces, the “Special South,” 27;
the “Mulberry,” 27 _f._, 287;
the “Palace of Beautiful Blessing,” 28 _f._;
East Palace, 30 _f._;
the present residence, described, 44 _f._, 153 _f._
Pavloff, M., Minister to Korea, 227 _f._, 237 _f._
“Peony Point,” visit to, 100 _f._
_Po-an_, Secret Society, suppressed, 244
Prince, the “little” (Son of Lady Om), appearance of, 44 _f._;
made Crown Prince, 441
Protectorate, the Japanese, effect of, on business, 118 _f._, 352
_f._;
Protocols establishing, 245 _f._, 248, 253, 433;
Prof. Lawrence on, 247 _f._;
as arranged in Nov., 1904, 253 _f._, 264 _f._, 272 _f._;
false reports concerning, 253 _note_ _f._, 378 _f._;
as affecting foreign relations, 352 _f._, 354 _f._;
extended to home affairs, 433 _f._;
prospects of, 446 _f._
Protocols, with Russia (1896), 224;
Nishi-Rosen (1898), 225;
with Korea (Feb., 1904), 245 _f._, 255, 273;
and (Aug., 1904), 245 _f._, 248, 255, 273
Puk Han, as mountain fortress, 22, 133;
excursion to, 131 _f._;
walls of, 133, 135 _f._;
flora of, 134
Pyeng-yang, invitation to, 43 _f._;
history of, 90 _f._, 100 _f._;
Japanese in, 91, 97 _f._, 383 _f._;
visit to, 90 _f._, 110;
missions in, 63 _f._, 107 _f._, 110;
audiences in, 93 _f._, 96 _f._, 107;
improvements in, 98 _f._, 101;
theological students of, 102 _f._, 104, 107 _f._;
Governor of, 103 _f._;
stud-farm at, 383 _f._
Queen, the late, her assassination, 30, 219 _f._;
character of, 283 _f._
Railways, Fusan-Seoul, 16 _f._, 139 _f._;
Seoul-Pyeng-yang, 92;
Seoul-Electric, 230 _f._;
the Sanyo, 246;
construction of, in Korea, 373 _f._, 379 _f._
Resident-General (_see_ also Ito), interests of, 8 _f._, 122 _f._,
129 _f._, 169 _f._, 175 _f._;
social influence of, 86 _f._;
creation of office of, 270 _f._;
scope of present power of, 452 _f._
Reynolds, Rev. Mr., skill as linguist, 48 _f._
Rockhill, Minister, on China’s suzerainty over Korea, 198 _f._;
on the Manchurian Question, 236
Root, Secretary, recognizes Japanese Protectorate, 249
Russia, Treaty of, with Japan, 9 _f._;
domination of, in Korea, 221 _f._, 227 _f._, 230 _f._, 236 _f._;
negotiations with, 239 _f._
Saga Party, the, 193 _f._
Saionji, Marquis, Ambassador to Korea, 216
Schools, in Korea, 17 _f._, 142, 325, 330, 332, 335
Scranton, Dr. W. B., 63, 404
Seoul, arrived at, 19 _f._;
aspects of, 20 _f._, 23, 34 _f._, 130;
meaning of word, 22;
walls of, 24 _f._;
gates of, 25 _f._;
palaces of, 27 _f._;
lectures at, 43 _f._, 54 _f._;
foreigners in, 85 _f._;
influence as capital city, 88 _f._;
departure from, 139 _f._
_Seoul Press_, the, quoted, 66 _f._, 70 _f._, 99 _f._, 122 _f._, 160
_f._, 301 _f._, 415
Shimonoseki, Treaty of, 13
Sill, American Minister, report of, 214 _f._
_Son-o-gong_, 26
Sontag, Miss, 20
Speyer, M. de, policy of, 225
Stevens, Hon. D. W., 140, 205 _f._;
on Korean complaints, 171 _f._;
his account of Count Inouye’s Embassy, 205-209;
on outbreak of war, 243;
appointed “Adviser” on Foreign Affairs, 246;
quoted, 269, 315, 342, 353, 370, 376
Suwon, Agricultural Station and School at, 122 _f._, 126 _f._;
excursion to, 126 _f._
Tablet, the Tortoise, 33
Tai Won Kun, the quarrels of, with Queen, 26, 201 _f._, 218, 219
_f._, 284;
builds palace, 28, 306;
character of, 282 _f._, 401, 402;
persecutes Christians, 400, 401 _f._
Takezoye, Minister at Korea, 405 _f._
Tokugawa, Prince, his visit to Korea, 75 _f._, 88
Tokugawas, the, their treatment of Korea, 189 _f._
Tong Hak, rebellion of, 213 _f._, 216 _f._
Townsend, Mr. W. D., 116, 118 _f._
Treaties (_see_ also Conventions), with Japan, in 1876, 182, 197 _f._;
the Shufeldt, 192;
Japan and China, 210 _f._
Tsushima, relations of, to Korea, 15, 185
United States, relations of, to Korea, 191 _f._, 197 _f._, 199, 211
_f._, 216, 236, 249;
_Foreign Relations_ (Reports), quoted, 216, 249;
recognizes Japanese Protectorate, 249 _f._
Waeber, M., Russian Minister in Korea, 223
Wakayama, visit to, 8 _f._
Walls, of Seoul, 24 _f._;
of Puk Han, 133, 135
Whigham, quoted, 245, 296, 445 _note_
Wilkinson, _The Government of Korea_, quoted, 212 _f._
Yagi, Capt., 1 _f._
_Yang-ban_, the Korean, 39, 74, 156;
baleful influence of, 112 _f._, 156 _f._, 287 _f._;
character of certain, described, 288 _f._, 291
Yi, Korean admiral, 183, 189
Yi Hy-eung (_see_ Emperor, now ex-Emperor)
Yi Wan-yong, appointed Prime Minister, 77 _f._;
action of, in Nov., 1904, 264 _f._;
signs Convention of 1907, 432
Yi Yong-ik, Emperor’s favorite, 235, 243, 286
Yi Yong-tai, 70, 73, 74
_Yomiuri_, Japanese paper, extract from, 167 _f._
Young Men’s Christian Association, invitation from, 38 _f._, 42;
assistance of, 42 _f._, 53, 407;
lectures at, 43 _f._, 47 _f._, 54 _f._;
Korean helpers of, 50 _f._, 83 _f._;
subsidy to, 396;
success of, 407
Yuan Shi Kai, doings in Korea, 31, 210 _f._, 212
Yun Chi-ho, Mr., 39
Zumoto, Mr., 13, 92, 113