Convicts Awaiting trial Total
1911 7,342 9,465 16,807 1912 9,652 9,842 19,494 1913 11,652 10,194 21,846 1914 12,962 11,472 24,434 1915 14,411 12,844 27,255 1916 17,577 15,259 32,836
Individual liberty is non-existent. The life of the Korean is regulated down to the smallest detail. If he is rich, he is generally required to have a Japanese steward who will supervise his expenditure. If he has money in the bank, he can only draw a small sum out at a time, unless he gives explanation why he needs it.
He has not the right of free meeting, free speech or a free press. Before a paper or book can be published it has to pass the censor. This censorship is carried to an absurd degree. It starts with school books; it goes on to every word a man may write or speak. It applies to the foreigners as well as Koreans. The very commencement day speeches of school children are censored. The Japanese journalist in Korea who dares to criticize the administration is sent to prison almost as quickly as the Korean. Japanese newspaper men have found it intolerable and have gone back to Japan, refusing to work under it. There is only one newspaper now published in Korea in the Korean language, and it is edited by a Japanese. An American missionary published a magazine, and attempted to include in it a few mild comments on current events. He was sternly bidden not to attempt it again. Old books published before the Japanese acquired control have been freely destroyed. Thus a large number of school books—not in the least partizan—prepared by Professor Hulbert were destroyed.
The most ludicrous example of censorship gone mad was experienced by Dr. Gale, one of the oldest, most learned and most esteemed of the missionaries in Korea. Dr. Gale is a British subject. For a long time he championed the Japanese cause, until the Japanese destroyed his confidence by their brutalities in 1919. But the fact that Dr. Gale was their most influential friend did not check the Japanese censors. On one occasion Dr. Gale learned that some Korean "Readers" prepared by him for use in schools had been condemned. He enquired the reason. The Censor replied that the book "contained dangerous thoughts." Still more puzzled, the doctor politely enquired if the Censor would show the passages containing "dangerous thoughts." The Censor thereupon pointed out a translation of Kipling's famous story of the elephant, which had been included in the book. "In that story," said he ominously, "the elephant refused to serve his second master." What could be more obvious that Dr. Gale was attempting to teach Korean children, in this subtle fashion, to refuse to serve their second master, the Japanese Emperor!
For a Korean to be a journalist has been for him to be a marked man liable to constant arrest, not for what he did or does, but for what the police suppose he may do or might have done. The natural result of this has been to drive Koreans out of regular journalism, and to lead to the creation of a secret press.
The next great group of grievances of Koreans come under the head of Exploitation. From the beginning the Japanese plan has been to take as much land as possible from the Koreans and hand it over to Japanese. Every possible trick has been used to accomplish this. In the early days of the Japanese occupation, the favourite plan was to seize large tracts of land on the plea that they were needed for the Army or Navy; to pay a pittance for them; and then to pass considerable portions of them on to Japanese. "There can be no question," admitted Mr. W.D. Stevens, the American member and supporter of Prince Ito's administration, "that at the outset the military authorities in Korea did intimate an intention of taking more land for their uses than seemed reasonable."
The first attempt of the Japanese to grab in wholesale fashion the public lands of Korea, under the so-called Nagamori scheme, aroused so much indignation that it was withdrawn. Then they set about accomplishing the same end in other ways. Much of the land of Korea was public land, held by tenants from time immemorial under a loose system of tenancy. This was taken over by the Government-General All leases were examined, and people called on to show their rights to hold their property. This worked to the same end.
The Oriental Development Company was formed for the primary purpose of developing Korea by Japanese and settling Japanese on Korean land, Japanese immigrants being given free transportation, land for settlement, implements and other assistance. This company is an immense semi-official trust of big financial interests in direct cöoperation with the Government, and is supported by an official subsidy of £50,000 a year. Working parallel to it is the Bank of Chosen, the semi-official banking institution which has been placed supreme and omnipotent in Korean finance.
How this works was explained by a writer in the New York Times (January 29, 1919). "These people declined to part with their heritage. It was here that the power of the Japanese Government was felt in a manner altogether Asiatic…. Through its branches this powerful financial institution … called in all the specie in the country, thus making, as far as circulating-medium is concerned, the land practically valueless. In order to pay taxes and to obtain the necessaries of life, the Korean must have cash, and in order to obtain it, he must sell his land. Land values fell very rapidly, and in some instances land was purchased by the agents of the Bank of Chosen for one-fifth of its former valuation." There may be some dispute about the methods employed. There can be no doubt about the result. One-fifth of the richest land in Korea is to-day in Japanese hands.