The port lies near the 41st parallel, facing nearly north-east, midway between Won-san and Vladivostock. The prevailing wind, winter and summer, blows from the south-west. It is only in times of atmospheric disturbance, an infrequent condition in these latitudes, that a north-east blow renders the anchorage unsafe, and compels vessels to shift their moorings to the north-east end of the bay, where the Sarako headland gives them shelter. Water to the depth of five fathoms obtains within 200 yards of the shore. The rise and fall of spring tides is about two feet. No obstacles present themselves to the building of a landing-stage and boat harbour. When the port was opened, a few huts represented the native town. Since then about 250 houses have been erected, and more are being built. At no distant date it is probable that Syöng-chin will displace the neighbouring Im-myöng as the market place. The foreign community is represented by a Japanese Consul and staff, Japanese police force and postal staff, schoolmaster, shipping agent and workmen. A British doctor and his family, belonging to the Canadian Mission, reside there. The only foreign house erected within the settlement limits is that occupied by the Japanese Consul.
CHAPTER XVI
Russian interests—Russia and Japan—Ma-san-po—Ching-kai-wan—Yong-an-po
Russian industrial activity in Korea may be regarded as a cloak for political schemes. Since the time that the Emperor became the protected guest of the Russian Legation, the influence of Russia in Korea has been more definite in quality. Assisted by French capital, a Russian company has started recently a cattle ranch and sheep-run at A-ya-chin, on the coast of Kang-won Province, with a view to the establishment of a canning factory, which is now in process of construction. In addition to this, she has set up a glass factory at Seoul, a proceeding which throws no light upon her motives. She has promoted the Pacific Whale Fishing Company, which, plying its trade off the coast of Korea, collects very valuable information of unsurveyed bays and unsounded anchorages, water-holes, coal-deposits, and currents—and occasionally catches a whale. It possesses twelve vessels. Russia controls no railway line in Korea, although she is interested in the line which the French are building; no gold mine, but a geographical exploration party of naval officers has been topographically examining the region of the Yalu River for some years. She has been accorded certain rights in Ma-san-po; she is endeavouring to secure the concession of a site suitable for a naval station, and through virtue of a lumber felling concession on the Yalu, she has located herself at Yong-an-po. In May 1903, too, a commercial commission travelled from Seoul to Wi-ju, overland.
As rapidly as circumstances permit, Russia is connecting her Manchurian telegraphic system with the trunk lines of Korea, and telegraphic communication is in course of construction between Mukden and Wi-ju, Vladivostock and Won-san. The action of Russia in this respect has encountered very great opposition from Korea. When the Korean Cabinet declined to grant permission for the erection of the poles, for which the Russian engineers had not waited, M. Pavloff, the Russian Minister, delicately hinted that the removal of the poles would be regarded as an unfriendly act, and one liable to create unpleasantness between the two Governments. The Korean Government, however, were not frightened into drawing back, and for some months past the local officials have been occupied in cutting down whatever poles the Russians might erect. Russia, also, proposes to rebuild the telegraph line from Pekin to Seoul viâ Wi-ju, while further, it is her avowed intention to construct from Mukden a branch of her railway to An-tung on the Yalu River.
Russia has been associated, also, with the Korean army, the Russian military authorities having lent a number of drill-instructors to the Korean service. They have now been withdrawn. The management of the residence, in which apartments are found for the guests of the Imperial Court, has been entrusted to a Russian lady. There are very few Russian residents in Seoul. Those who live there comprise the immediate personnel of the Legation, the Legation guards, priests of the Greek Church, and some sprinkling of the shop-keeping element. The colony is small, but contrives, with the aid of a port guardship at Chemulpo and constant visits from the Pacific Squadron, when performances are given by the band from the guard-ship for the delectation of the Imperial Court, to support the majesty and dignity of the Russian Government with much impressive display. Proposals have been recently made to establish consulates in the open ports of the Empire—the Consulate from the capital is now established at Chemulpo; to increase the services of the steamers of the Manchurian Railway between the open ports of Korea and Manchuria, and to found a branch of the Russo-Chinese Bank at Chemulpo. It is intended, too, that the Russian Pacific Squadron shall use the Korean harbours more frequently as ports of call.
For some years Russia has been gradually feeling her way in Korea. Prior to 1885 there were over twenty thousand Koreans settled in her Far Eastern possessions, while in 1888 Russia concluded a Commercial Convention with Korea, which opened the Korean land frontier to Russian traders. In 1893 telegraphic communication between Russia and Korea was arranged, when, just as the Russian policy towards Korea perhaps was beginning to shape itself, war between China and Japan was declared. Whatever conclusions may have been anticipated as the results of such a war, there can be no doubt that its effect upon the actual destinies of Russia and Japan in the Far East was far-reaching. The policy of Russia towards China underwent a change, while the ultimate possession of Korea became equally the objective of Japan as of the greater Power. Russia, however, could not afford to profit at the moment by the downfall of China, and Japan was not strong enough to hold the Liao-tung Peninsula nor bold enough to seize Korea. Nevertheless, driven out of the Liao-tung by the action of Russia, France and Germany, Japan might still have secured for herself complete material and political ascendency over Korea. In time, if such had been her policy, she could have made manifest, too, her occupation of the kingdom and equipped herself with an argument, the parallel of that possessed by Great Britain in Egypt, and by Russia in Manchuria. Unhappily, while Russia with masterly deliberation was moving steadily forward in her subjugation of Manchuria, Japan, whole-hearted but ignorant of the pitfalls of colonial expansion, was creating endless difficulties for herself in Korea, besides serious complications with the Powers outside the scenes of her activities. Before she had realised the potentialities of her position, she had committed herself to a design by which she hoped to secure the King and Queen and to direct herself the reins of government. But her coup d’état was to recoil disastrously, and at once, upon her own head. The Queen fell a victim to the plot, and although the King was imprisoned, he, together with the Crown Prince, contrived in a little time to find refuge in the Russian Legation. The escape of the King only emphasised the failure of Japan, and despite her subsequent treaties with Russia, in respect of Korea, the balance of power in the Far East as between Russia and Japan has never quite recovered from the blow which Japan administered herself to her own prestige upon this occasion.
Japan still wields material influence of a high order in Korea. But, within the paramount position which she fills, there is the rift caused by the spread of the antagonistic and insidious influence of her great opponent. Curiously enough, the position which Russia holds to-day is not nearly as assertive as that which she occupied in 1896, yet there is little doubt that her influence is more commanding, if less conspicuously aggressive. Japan has turned aside upon occasion from the political issues to develop her commercial interests. Russia, again, has pursued unswerving the policy which revealed with the fall of China the fact that Manchuria was within her grasp and that Korea was its entail.