The Korea Review, Vol. 5 No. 5, May 1905

Passengers from the intermediate stations where no Ticket office exists, will Procure the Tickets from Conductors on the Trains. Where Ticket office exists Tickets procured from the Conductors must be paid for at the rate of 5 sen extra for each fare.

Any Passenger who over-rides the distance indicated on the ticket, or who changes cars for a higher class, must pay the difference, and 5 sen extra, for each fare.

Dogs taken in the Passenger-cars, with no objection from the other passengers are charged 40 sen per head.

50 Trip Coupon Tickets for family use are issued at the following rates:—

1st class 60 yen. 2nd class 30 yen.

THE KOREA REVIEW.

MAY, 1905.

Korea and Japan.

The attitude of the Korean people toward Japan has undergone many changes during that past quarter of a century. The thing that we must always reckon with is the ancient feeling of enmity aroused, in the first place, by the devastating raids of Japanese freebooters during the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. At that time the Koreans suffered so severely that the very name of Japanese became the synonym of all that was dreadful and to be hated. This was further intensified by the great invasion of 1592 when the Koreans suffered untold things at the hands of the temporary conquerors. The result of these things are clearly seen in Korean character today. It would be very hard to find a Korean child who does not drink in, almost with his mother’s milk, a feeling of dislike against the Japanese. On the other hand the Japanese seem to have imbibed as strong a feeling toward the Korean. This feeling is one of contempt, born of the less warlike character of the Korean and his strong conservatism.

These sentiments we firmly believe to be the real underlying ones and if so the only genuine rapprochement between the two people must be along the line of mutual self-interest. If it pays sufficiently to forget the old feud then forgotten it will be, but it is plain that the interest must be a mutual one.

From the days of the Great Invasion up to the year 1868 the difficulties between Korea and Japan were quiescent, though by no means dead. After the Manchu invasion of Korea the Japanese even offered Korea help in throwing off the Manchu yoke. As we look at conditions today we can almost say that it was a pity Korea did not accept the offer.

The late Regent, during the first decade of the present reign, conceived a fanatical hatred against all outsiders and, through a few unfortunate victories over them, conceived the idea of hermetically sealing the country against foreign intercourse. He adopted the one course which was sure to effect the opening of the country, namely by banning the Japanese commercial settlement at Fusan. This was just at the time of Japan’s great awakening and it is probable that she sincerely hoped and believed that Korea was capable of taking the same forward step which she herself was taking. When, therefore, Korea not only took no forward step even but attempted to retire more deeply into her political solitude she aroused a good deal of feeling in Japan, a feeling that was so intense that it resulted in a sanguinary civil war called the Satsuma Rebellion. The leaders of the people in the Southern island of Kiusiu, which lies nearest to Korea, earnestly desired that Japan should force upon Korea at the point of the sword what time has at last effected. If the leaders of that rebellion could have looked forward to the year 1905 they would have left their swords in their scabbards.

In opposition to these advocates of force the new government in Tokyo took the wholly reasonable and laudable ground that Korea should be treated as a coördinate and independent power and that she should be approached from the diplomatic rather than the military side. The rebellion which resulted caused a long delay in the carrying out of any plans that Japan may have formed relative to the opening up of Korea. At the same time the approaching majority of the King of Korea, and the consequent retirement of the Regent, was sure to cause important changes in the attitude of the peninsular government. This became all the more evident as the queen and her powerful faction developed a feeling of strong hostility to the person and the policy of the Regent.

Taking advantage of this rift in the Korean lute the Japanese sent a semi-official agent in the person of Hanabusa who found means to secure frequent access to the Queen and her party and who doubtless used every argument to widen the breach between the Queen and the Regent. When everything was ready the Japanese warship Unyo Kan appeared off the Korean coast near Chemulpo and got herself fired upon by a Korean fort. This was the last, the dying act of the Regent, but it formed an opening wedge for the negotiations which were immediately instituted and which resulted in the signing of the treaty between Korea and Japan at Kangwha in 1876. The Regent had already retired from public life in disgust, although his friends were constantly plotting to bring him back to Seoul and reinstate him in power.

The years 1876-1880 form one of the most important periods in the modern history of Korea, even though they were very quiet years. The king had entered upon his career and his course was to be determined upon. The court was in a plastic state ready to be moulded into any form which a strong mind might suggest. Chinese suzerainty had slept so long and was so nominal in character that no protest was forthcoming even when Korea and Japan signed a treaty as between wholly independent powers. The ruling faction had come into power through the help of the Japanese. The latter recognized to the fullest extent the independence of Korea. There was every reason in the world why Japan should use her powerful influence to direct the stream of Korean politics into safe and progressive channels. She had an unparalleled opportunity. Everything was in her favor. England never began to have such a favorable outlook in India as Japan had in Korea beginning with the year 1876.

What then, was the reason for the comparative failure that resulted? There can be but one answer. The Japanese failed to study the situation closely enough and to gauge the quality of the instrument by means of which Korea must be led. The king was young and physically strong and a long reign was to be expected. His will was led by the powerful Min faction. It was the province of statesmanship to study these factors and so gauge their qualities as to be able to mould them in the forms desired. The central figure was the Queen. The country and the court went with her. She was young and impressionable and favorably impressed by the Japanese. Behind her was the Min faction, strong, ambitious, selfish, tenacious of its prerogatives. That faction was itself impressionable. It recognized that a new era was opening, that the policy of the Regent had been cast aside. It felt the incentive of national independence and was ready and willing to undertake the responsible work of leading the nation into these new and untrodden paths; but first and most of all it held to its own prestige. The selfish element was preeminent. There was no love of country, detached and altruistic. It was their conviction that the progress of the country would enhance their own prestige. The motive was not a very high one but such as it was it should have received careful study from the Japanese before it was rejected. The latter strongly favored a radical change in Korean conditions, a change for which Korea had received no such preparation as Japan had received and for which it was not ready. There were two things which might cause such a radical change as that of the Japanese—education or the rise of an intense nationalistic spirit. It was the latter which worked in Japan, but in Korea there was neither education nor a national spirit to work upon. These things had yet to be evolved.

The Japanese saw with impatience the slowness of the Koreans to take advantage of their opportunity and it was this impatience which spoiled the whole thing. If the Japanese could have realized the mental and traditional standpoint of the Koreans at that time and could have exercised tact and large patience the outcome might have been very different, but the truth is that the Japanese were as unable to understand the Koreans as the Koreans were to understand them. There were a few Koreans who seem to have taken hold of the problem in the same spirit as the Japanese but they were in such a hopeless minority and they were so far ahead of their time that the Japanese made a damaging mistake in forsaking the ruling faction and pinning their faith to these few progressives. Of course the ideas of these progressives were excellent. What they proposed would have been for the good of the country, but they had no public sentiment behind them and their views were so radical as to bar them from the field of practical politics. It is not good statesmanship to attempt what is better than the best thing possible, and the mistake the Japanese made at that critical point was in supposing that the Korean people would fall in with a radical progressive policy.

The result was seen in 1884 when, throwing over diplomacy, they assisted the Korean radicals in a sanguinary emeute in which seven cold-blooded murders proved the quality of the would-be reformers. Here we see a second case in which a diplomatic failure was tided over by military force. But even so they did not succeed, for the Chinese, who were on the scene and who had been making high bids for the Queen’s favor by kidnapping the Regent and carrying him away to China, were in greater force than the Japanese and virtually forced their retirement.

Up to this time people had not greatly favored either the Chinese or Japanese influence but if anything were inclined toward the latter. But now the ruling faction turned wholly toward China and with it went the mass of the people. The common people did not understand nor appreciate the ideals of the progressives, and the death of seven government ministers effectually weaned away what little fealty they had given to the progressive cause.

A new phase of the situation now opened during which the high-handed acts of the Chinese Minister alarmed the better class of Koreans and made them think more kindly of the Japanese who had at least not tampered with the independence of the country. Japanese diplomacy did all it could during this period to stem the rising tide of Chinese influence, but the Queen was so constituted mentally that having once conceived a thorough dislike for any person or policy it was well-nigh impossible to change. From the time when the Japanese, in 1884, helped the progressives in their attempt to wrest the power from the hands of the Queen’s faction there was no peace between her and the Japanese. But she was the pivotal point in the whole situation, and this the Japanese failed to see, or, seeing, ignored.

As we have said, the Chinese were striving hard to make up for the mistake which they had made in allowing Korea to sign treaties on the basis of independence, and with such good results that Japanese diplomacy was again frustrated. Once more she had recourse to the arm of force to carry out her ideas. The war with China resulted in complete success for her arms and again Japanese influence became paramount; but it should be noted that this aroused little enthusiasm among the Koreans. To be sure they had been saved from the threatened Chinese supremacy but the Koreans had no confidence in the ability of the Japanese to handle the situation wisely. In this they were right, for Japan began by enforcing unnecessary sumptuary laws which did not strike at the root of the Korean difficulty but only wounded the pride of the Korean people. At that time Japan had a second opportunity to prove her ability to handle an alien people and again she failed. The assassination of the Queen and the enforced detention of the King in is palace, which resulted in his throwing himself into the arms of Russia, was the direct result.