CHAPTER XVI THE JAPANESE PROTECTORATE, 1905-I0
Japan entered on the war with Russia with absolute
confidence in her own success, in so far as the future
relative positions of the two Empires in the Far East
were concerned. She had neither design nor hope to
injure Russia as a great European Power, but her
long preparations, carefully and minutely made
during ten years, always with the same goal in view,
her confidence in the skill of her officers and the
devoted bravery of her men, and the exhaustive in-
formation as to the conditions of the Russian Asiatic
defences that she had obtained through her secret
service — the most wonderfully organised in the world
— left her with not a particle of doubt as to the result
of her campaigns in Korea and Manchuria. The
subordinate officers and private soldiers had no less
confidence in themselves than their Government and
generals. Some of them had seen, all had heard of,
the conduct of the Russian Asiatic troops during the
Boxer troubles in 1900, when they indulged in a
perfect orgy of slaughter and rapine, and their dis-
cipline, drill, organisation, and skill in arms were all
alike regarded with utter contempt by the Japanese
soldiers. The object of the war was to free Korea
from the ever-present danger of absorption by
Russia. For Manchuria, Japan then cared but little.
She would have been perfectly willing to have left
Russia a free hand there, provided she was in return
left equally free in Korea. But her own national
safety, even her existence, depended on Korea's con-
tinuance as an independent kingdom, or, failing that,
her incorporation in the Japanese Empire.
All Korea's history in recent years left no hope that
she could ever reform herself. With the example of
Japan before her, with all that she had learned from,
her own intercourse with European nations, her
Government had continued to be immerged in cor-
ruption, to be ruled by sordid intrigue, and to be
influenced only by selfish considerations of class
interests. They had given no evidence of patriotism,
honesty, or capacity. They had adopted reforms
that were forced upon them, but were ready to abandon
them the moment the pressure was removed. They
had helplessly cast themselves, in turn, on the pro-
tection of China, Japan, and Russia, and never
afforded any prospect that the time would come
when they could stand alone, able to govern
their own people with justice and mercy or to<
defend themselves against foreign aggression. With
such a Government strong measures were necessary,
and Japan, once she was free and untrammelled, lost
no time in showing to the world that she meant toi
take them. Japan, as we have said, had no doubts
as to the ultimate issue of her land campaigns, and
in the very first month of the war she assured herself
of the command of the sea, but before even the
Russian army had been driven from the Yalu the first
of many so-called agreements was concluded between
the Governments of Korea and Japan. The former
pledged itself to adopt the advice of the latter in
regard to the improvement of its administration, and
the latter undertook the responsibility of maintaining
peace, both internal and external, and " guaranteed
the safety and repose of the Imperial House " and
" the independence and territorial integrity of
Korea." Under this agreement Japan resumed the
position of administrative adviser, which was all that
she had held during the brief regime of Count Inouye
in 1895. She wras to give Korea advice, but, theo-
retically, Korea was still free to adopt or reject it as
she pleased. When Japan's " free hand " in Korea,
her " paramount political, military, and economical
interests,,, were formally recognised by Russia in the
Portsmouth Treaty of September, 1905, and by
England, in its Treaty of Alliance of August in the
same year, the first was soon followed by further
agreements, the last of which, signed in July, 1907,
converted. Japan's advisory into a directing position,
and gave to her the control of Korea's finance and
diplomacy, of her postal and telegraph services, and,
finally, of the whole of her internal affairs. The
Korean Army was disbanded as useless and hopeless,
a source of expense to the country, and formidable
only to its own peaceful citizens. A Japanese
Resident-General was appointed in 1905, and the
agreement of 1907 vested him with what was prac-
tically sovereign authority, giving him complete con-
trol of all legislative and executive functions and
the right of appointing and dismissing officials on
his sole responsibility. Japanese Residents were also
nominated at the principal ports, who, in like ways,
virtually became the Governors of their respective
districts. Korean ministers were still the nominal
chiefs of all the principal Government departments,
but in each they had Japanese officials as their vice-
ministers and Japanese technical advisers were em-
ployed in every bureau. The disbandment of ,the
Korean Army was followed by several local risings,
in which the disbanded soldiers drilled and led the
insurgents ; and profiting, as their ancestors had done
when fighting against Hideyoshi, by the facilities for
guerilla warfare which the natural conditions of the
country afforded, they offered such a stout resistance
to the Japanese troops sent against them that they
were not suppressed till after many months, with
great loss in killed and wounded to themselves and
substantial loss to the Japanese.
Japan testified her desire to use her new powers;
to the very utmost advantage by nominating Marquis
Ito, the great statesman to whose constructive genius
she herself owed so much, as the first Resident-
General ; and he, with characteristic energy and
thoroughness, started at once on cleansing the Augean
stable which he found before him, in which the foulest
stall of corruption was, perhaps, the Court itself.
In taxation, in the administration of justice, in the
police service, in every sphere of national and local
administration, selfish and dishonest parasites of the
Court, acting in the name of the King, " who saw
nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing," were casting
their fatal blight on the nation, with no thought of
anything but their own enrichment. The entire
administration of the Court, its property and
revenues, was taken in charge by Japanese officials ;
the Court and State were differentiated, so that con-
fusion between the Royal and State revenues no
longer existed ; a Cabinet was formed on the model
of that in Japan, in which the head of each depart-
ment is responsible for the efficient conduct of all
business that falls within his jurisdiction. An
elaborate scheme of local government was adopted,
under which considerable powers of local taxation
and administration were left to the authorities pf
each district. The judicial and executive functions
were, under the Korean Government, vested in the
same officials. They were now separated and inde-
pendent courts of justice established, presided over,
both in the central and district courts, by Japanese
judges, and a beginning was made in codifying the
laws. Hitherto the administration of justice had
been entirely at the will of executive officials, and
their decisions were invariably given to the party
who offered the highest bribe. Torture was an inci-
dent in every criminal trial, and not only the accused
but the witnesses were subjected to it. The prisons
were infernos of human suffering, destitute of every
semblance of sanitation, in which the prisoners often
died of hunger or cold ; where punishments of
flogging, so severe as often to cause permanent
mutilation or death, were of daily occurrence ; where
the death penalty — inflicted for very trivial crimes —
was carried out in slow and agonising forms of
strangulation or poisoning ; and where no distinction
was made between the convicted felon and the prisoner
awaiting trial, between the professional criminal whose
whole life had been an unbroken career of murder
and robbery and the pilferer who had yielded to a
momentary temptation. All these abuses were re-
formed with an unsparing hand. Jails were estab-
lished pn the model of those in Japan, where the
punishment and reformation of criminals have been
elevated into a science, the guiding principle of which
is that, while the guilty must be punished, his
reformation is always to be kept in view, so that
when his freedom comes he may be a useful member
of society. Along with the new prisons, steps were
taken to organise an efficient police-force, and
training schools were established in which the prin-
cipal details of their duties were taught to candidates .
Schools of every grade — primary, high, normal,
technical, and industrial — were opened ; and though
it wTas not found practicable to make education com-
pulsory at first, and great prejudices against Japanese
teachers had to be overcome before parents could
be induced to trust their children to them, the advan-
tages of the new schools are now being steadily
learned by the people, and the numbers of the pupils
show large annual increases. Hospitals and water-
works have been established in the great cities, both
in accordance with the most advanced principles of
medical and engineering science, and both are con-
tributing to the improved health and sanitation of
the people.
The last result of Prince Ito's administration which
we need mention is the improvement of the internal
communications. Korea, under its own Government,
possessed only one great highway that was worthy
of the name of a road — that which led from the
capital to the north-west frontier, which was con-
structed mainly for the benefit of the annual Chinese
embassy. Save that, the roads were merely bridle-
paths, unfitted for either military or commercial
traffic, which, at the very best, permitted the passing
of two laden oxen. The construction of new roads,
well laid and drained, with wide spaces on both sides,
was at once commenced, and the work is being
steadily pushed forward. The inception of railways
in Korea was the result of American enterprise, but
it passed at a very early stage into the hands of
Japanese ; and all that exist are now under the
control and management of the Imperial Railway
Board at Tokio. The total length now in actual
operation is 637 miles of a standard gauge of 4 feet
8J inches, the two principal lines being from Fusan
to Seoul, with a branch to Chemulpo, and from
Seoul to Wiju on the frontier, these two lines pro-
viding a continuous route from the south-eastern to
the north-western extremity of the peninsula. At the
south they are connected with the railways of Japan
by steamers which run twice daily from both Fusan
and Shimonoseki, and on the north only the com-
pletion of a bridge across the Yalu is awaited to
connect Seoul by rail with Europe.1 All have been
entirely constructed by Japanese engineers with
Japanese capital. In the fifteen years that have
elapsed since Japan acquired the possession of
Formosa she has done more for the material advance-
ment of the island and the development of its great
resources than the Chinese had achieved during
nearly three centuries. In the four years which have
elapsed since she acquired effective control of the
administration of Korea she has already accomplished
more permanent reforms than all that Korea did of
herself, with her able European advisers, in her pre-
vious experience, during twenty-five years, of Western
civilisation.
The particulars we have given are only an index
of the great work which Prince I to had already
accomplished when he fell by an assassin's hand on
October 26, 1909. In giving all credit due to
him for the material benefits which he conferred on
Korea, and for the reforms which he made in her
political and social system, that which is no less due
to one who preceded him must not be forgotten.
When the administration of the Korean Customs,
while the kingdom was still independent, was
entrusted to the officials of the great Customs
Service of China, Mr. McLeavy Brown,2 a British
subject, of Irish birth and education, who had had
long experience in China, was appointed Chief Com-
missioner in Korea. He soon afterwards united with
that the office of Controller of the National Treasury,
and he served Korea for over ten yeans in the dual
capacity. Working in the face of the opposition,
not only of a corrupt and bigpted Ministry, but of
1 At the time of writing only a light military railway connects the frontier with Mukden, but the permanent line will be completed and open to traffic in a few months.
2 Now Sir John McLeavy Brown.
European diplomatists and consuls who were seeking
concessions and contracts for their own citizens and
(political jadvantages for their countries, and who,
to gain their own selfish ends, were not ashamed to
pander to the worst vices of the Government and to
offer a passive obstruction to all reform, without the
prestige and active support of a great and success-
ful military power at his back, he not only raised
Korean finance and currency from the abyss of chaos
and corruption into which they had been brought by
dishonest officials, and effected a great retrenchment
in the national expenditure, but he transformed the
whole appearance of the capital by the municipal
reforms which he initiated and carried through. Its
streets were drained, and, freed from the obstruction
of pedlars' booths which had formerly choked them,
they became broad, picturesque, sanitary thorough-
fares, instead of foul lanes, offensive in their aspect
and conditions both to sight and smell. They are
now further dignified by the public buildings, the
homes of the various Government departments, which
have been erected by the Japanese with a lavish
hand ; but the renovation of the streets was
finished and electric tramways and lighting, tele-
graphs and telephones, were all factors in the life
of the capital long before the Residency-General of
Japan was thought of. Some of these were initiated
during Japan's brief period of domination in 1895 ;
but they were speedily permitted to lapse, and their
revival and accomplishment were entirely due to Mr.
McLeavy Brown.
The Tai Won Kun ended his long life of cruelty
and conspiracy in 1898. The Queen was murdered
in 1895. In the same year the ascendancy of Japan
temporarily ended, and that of China had closed for
ever in 1894. The King was thus freed from the
principal controlling influences of his life, and in the
revulsion which accompanied his restoration to liberty
and power after his imprisonment in his own palace
and in the Russian Legation he reverted to many of
the worst abuses of the throne, and became the tool
of the party or adventurer that was the last to gain
his ear. The dead Queen's place was taken by a
lady who had been a palace attendant, and who,
prior to her entry to the palace, is said to have had
a very varied career and many lords. Whatever her,
past had been, she acquired over the King an
influence hardly less than that of the murdered
Queen, which she used with the most selfish un-
scrupulousness .
One of the principal advisers of the King was the
chair coolie who had helped the Queen in her flight
from the palace in 1882. The Queen did not forget
him when she resumed her throne. He received a
post in the palace, and, once there, his abilities gradu-
ally raised him in the favour of the King, till at last
he received the post of Minister of Finance. In
that capacity he earned the royal favour and gratitude
by the ingenuity which he showed in providing, by
new taxes and a clever manipulation of the currency,
the means for the indulgence of his master's whims
and pleasures. The King was completely under the
influence of both lady and adviser, and the national
interests were the very last consideration to enter
into the minds of either.
Every new limit that was placed on his former
arbitrary powers was viewed by the King with dis-
favour, and was opposed with the whole strength of
the Court. One last despairing effort was made to
stem the flowing tide of progress and to maintain
the country in its old position as a preserve for
a favoured class. Impotent against the strong will
and arm of the great Japanese statesman and his
adjutants, the King endeavoured to obtain the help
of Western powers. In 1907 an embassy was sent to
the United States and Europe to lay Korea's plight
before the representatives of the great powers, who
in that year were assembled at the Hague Con-
ference, and to solicit their intervention against
Japan. It was hopeless from the first. No power
cared to interfere now that Russia was driven from
the field. None had such material interests in Korea
as would induce it to enter into even a diplomatic
controversy with Japan, and the lesson which Russia
has received will be sufficient for all time to prevent
any ^Western power venturing to interfere in what
Japan considers her own peculiar field, unless driven
to do so by very strong considerations of national
welfare or honour. The embassy returned, and its
only results were that the Emperor was forced to
abdicate in favour of his son and the conclusion of
the new and drastic convention of July, 1907, to
which we have already referred. The Japanese were
determined to brook no more opposition, and they
were less likely to receive it from a young Sovereign,
new to his dignity and unaccustomed to the exercise
of authority, than from one who had reigned both
as Pope and temporal Sovereign for more than forty
years, in whom the exercise of an unfettered
autocracy had become second nature. On July 19,
1907, the Emperor laid down his crown, and [his
long, unhappy reign came to an end — the reign which
commenced with the extermination of Christians
within his dominions and ended with these dominions
in the firm grasp of his traditional enemy — the enemy
which for fifteen hundred years had been a scourge to
his country. The new Emperor's reigti was destined
to be brief. Everything1 had been tending towards
one unavoidable end, and on August 22, 1910, the
last step was taken and Korea was formally annexed
to the Japanese Empire. The dynasty of sovereigns,
which had continued in an unbroken line from 1392,
came to an end with the independence of their
country, whose national traditions and history had
extended over four thousand years, whose founda-
tion as a kingdom was coeval with that of the
Assyrian Empire ; and the two last living representa-
tives of the dynasty exchanged their positions as
Imperial dignitaries for those of princes and
pensioners of Japan.
Japan claimed to have honestly done her best to
render practicable the fulfilment both of agreements
and treaties in which she had guaranteed, at first
specifically and afterwards impliedly, that the con-
tinued existence of Korea as an independent kingdom
would be maintained, but she had found the task
impossible. All her "earnest and laborious work
of reforms in the administration of Korea " had not
made the existing system of government in that
country entirely equal to the duty of preserving public
order and tranquillity, and in addition " a spirit of
suspicion and misgiving dominated the whole
peninsula."
" In their solicitude to put an end to disturbing conditions the
Japanese Government made an arrangement in 1905 for establishing
a protectorate over Korea and they have ever since been assiduously
engaged in works of reform, looking forward to the consummation
of a desired end. But they have failed to find in the regime of a
protectorate sufficient hope for the realisation of the object which
they had in view, and a condition of unrest and disquietude still
prevails throughout the whole peninsula. In these circumstances
the necessity of introducing fundamental changes in the system of
government in Korea has become entirely manifest and an earnest
and careful examination of the Korean problem has convinced the
Japanese Government that the regime of a protectorate can not be
made to adapt itself to the actual condition of affairs in Korea, and
that the responsibilities devolving upon Japan for the due adminis-
tration of the country can not be justly fulfilled without the complete
annexation of Korea to the Empire."
Such were the terms in which Japan justified her
action to the world. It was taken, not for the grati-
fication of the stratocratic ambition of a militant
power, but to secure peace in the Far East, and the
advantages of progressive and civilised government
to a people whose own rulers have proved them-
selves unfitted for their duties. Japan had in Korea
since 1905, as will have been gathered from pre-
ceding pages in this volume, the same field as Great
Britain had in Egypt after 1882. Japan had by
her own confession failed where Great Britain suc-
ceeded. The Egyptian Court and Government were
only a degree less corrupt than that of Korea, the
people only a degree less serf -like and oppressed.
Under the British protectorate the Court and Govern-
ment of Egypt have been purified, and her people
converted into industrious and self-respecting citizens,
whose nationalistic spirit has been fostered, not stifled,
by their reformers, who now claim to be entitled
to all the privileges of a self -governing, constitutional
community.
Japan confessed that the attainment of these ends in
Korea was not yet even within view at the time of the
annexation. She has had, however, to overcome diffi-
culties and remedy mistakes of which Great Britain
had no experience in Egypt. She was faced with
the legacy of hatred bequeathed by Japanese pirates
in the Middle Ages, and by Hideyoshi's ruthless
armies, which gave Japanese soldiers a place in
Korean hearts similar to that which the Cromwellian
held in those of the Irish peasants, a place which
to the present day makes " the curse of Cromwell
on you," the deepest malediction which the Irishman
can utter in the worst transports* of his deepest
passion. No British official of high rank in Egypt
ever became the willing tool or the instigator oir
partner of native conspirators and assassins. Great
Britain did not permit Egypt to be overrun by the
scum of her own population, and the timid, helpless
fellaheen to be terrified, beaten, and plundered by
bullies and cheats from the worst slums of the great
cities of the United Kingdom, nor did she permit the
empty phrase of " military necessity " to be a justi-
fication for the wholesale spoliation of lands and
houses by her soldiers and officials. All this Japan
has had to answer for in Korea. Writers whose
honesty and credibility are beyond all suspicion have
over and over again described the tyrannical
oppression and ruthless spoliation to which peaceful
Korean citizens have been wantonly subjected, not
only by Japanese adventurers but by soldiers and
officials. Of these incidents or of the general conduct
of Japanese soldiers or settlers in Korea, the present
writer can say nothing of his own knowledge, as his
latest direct experience of Korea is two decades old.
But there are few incidents that have been described
as having occurred in Korea the parallel of which
the present writer did not see or hear of during
the early military occupation of Formosa, and there
can be no reason to doubt that what occurred in
Formosa was repeated in Korea, even if we had not
authoritative testimony to that effect. The Japanese
have redeemed their initial errors in Formosa, and
under their rule it is becoming a prosperous colony ;
and its inhabitants of Chinese descent, more alien
in race, language, customs, and ideas to the Japanese
than are the Koreans, have, we are told, forgotten
the cruelty to which they were at first subjected, and
under just and strict government are becoming
orderly and contented citizens of the Japanese
Empire. May not we hope that a similar success will
ere many years have lapsed be achieved in Korea,
and that the immense material benefits which the
Japanese have already conferred on the country will
be followed by the heart-whole conciliation of the
people?
The Japanese have one great weapon in their hands
which has never failed them. The word and will
of their Emperor are sacred. His commands are
received with all the reverential obedience that we
theoretically render to those of the Decalogue. The
worst ruffian among his subjects assumes lamblike
mildness when the Emperor declares that his Imperial
honour is concerned. There is enough of the old
leaven still left in the samurai-born official to induce
him to contemplate the hara-kiri of his forefathers
if he fails in carrying out his Emperor's wishes.
Fifteen years ago there was an extraordinary epi-
demic among the lowest Japanese classes at the great
shipping ports of Japan of wanton assaults on
Europeans. Even ladies were often the victims.
Many of the perpetrators were coolies who had
followed the armies through the China War, and
carried back with them1 to their own country the
habits that Kirke's soldiers did from Tangier. It
was "brought to the Emperor's own knowledge, and
an Imperial rescript at once appeared notifying his
Majesty's disapproval of such acts. The assaults
ceased at once. Twelve years ago European resi-
dents in Japan viewed with many gloomy forebodings
their subjection to the jurisdiction of Japanese
officials on the abolition of the old treaties, and with
their previous experience of the spirit which actuates
the lower grade of Japanese officials in discrimi-
nating between foreigners and their own countrymen,
they had only too good ground for their fears. On
the day on which the old treaties died, an Imperial
rescript appeared, proclaiming that it was his
Majesty's earnest wish that his officials of every
degree should act equitably and administer justice
impartially as between subjects and strangers, that
all should enjoy equally the advantages of good
government. None of the forebodings of the
European residents in Japan has been realised,
and they have continued to live and trade in
Japan in perfect confidence of security of liberty
and property. When Japan took another great
step in her national career, when by one stroke
of the pen she added ten million people to her
citizens, and established herself as a continental as
well as an insular power, another Imperial rescript
appeared in which his Majesty declared that " all
Koreans under his sway shall enjoy growing pros-
perity and welfare, and be assured of repose and
security," and called upon " all his officials and
authorities to fulfil their duties in appreciation of
his will."
This rescript may have the effect of its prede-
cessors and herald the dawn of a new era in a
country which hitherto has known nothing but un-
happiness. The Japanese have a great task before
them before they can remedy the errors which they
have made in Korea during the past thirty years, and
let the curtain of oblivion fall over the many glaring
misdeeds which have too often covered their adminis-
tration with shame. The present writer believes that
they will show themselves equal to their task, that
they will prove not unworthy of the high position
which they hold as the equal of the greatest Christian
powers of the world, and that they will in deference
to the commands of their Emperor bring all the
blessings of good and honest government to a people
who have been throughout all their history the most
misgoverned on earth.
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