“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].