In Korea with Marquis Ito

by George Trumbull Ladd

The impressions gained as to the Koreans—Emperor, Court, Yang-bans, and populace—were, of course, intimately associated with the impressions formed as to the nature and efficiency of the forces chiefly at work for the reform and uplift of the nation. Such reforming and uplifting forces are undoubtedly these two: the personality of the Resident-General, assisted in his work by the official corps under him, and supported by the Government of His Imperial Majesty of Japan; and the Christian missionaries. What impressions, then, seemed warranted by my observations as to the soundness and efficacy of these two forces?

As to the sincerity of Marquis Ito in his self-sacrificing and arduous task of effecting a reformed condition, industrially and politically, of the Korean nation, no shadow of doubt ever arose in my own mind. But this is a relatively small and unimportant thing to say. It is more instructive as to the truth to notice that his sincerity was, so far as I am aware, never questioned by any one, not even by those most hostile to his policy, except in an obviously ignorant and hypocritical way. The extreme military party of Japan, the advocates of the strong hand and of immediate forcible annexation, as well as anti-Japanese missionaries and other foreigners, and even that Korean officialdom which always has so much difficulty in believing that any one in office can be sincere—all these, as soon as ignorant prejudice became but partially enlightened, ceased to bring the charge of self-seeking and deceit against the Resident-General. For he had unmistakably affirmed, both privately and publicly, to his own countrymen, to the Koreans, and to the world, that it was his intention to do all that in his power lay for the betterment of the condition of the Korean people themselves. When His Korean Majesty, who had not only repeatedly violated his most solemn treaty obligations, but had also, with frequent prevarications, falsehoods, and treachery, broken his equally solemn promises to the man who was far more unselfishly interested in the welfare of Korea than was its ruler, involved himself in sore trouble, he, too, turned to the Marquis Ito for advice and help. That even the insincere Korean Emperor and his corrupt Court believed in the sincerity of the Resident-General I have abundant reason to know.

It was not the sincerity of Marquis Ito, however, which made most impression upon the leading people of Seoul; it was rather the qualities of patience, pity, and gentleness. Such are, indeed, not usually the mental attitudes of the diplomat or politician toward those who are intriguing, or otherwise actively endeavoring to defeat his cherished plans. It should not be forgotten that less than a year before, during the absence of the Resident-General, a plot had been formed which involved his assassination; and that this plot had been traced to those who had the entrée of the Palace, in despite of their well-known bad character, and some of whom were the recognized Korean associates of the men whose “services” to the Korean Emperor terminated in the commission to the Peace Conference at The Hague. Of those Korean officials who were most opposed to the Japanese Protectorate, the Marquis was ready to say that he sympathized with them in their desire for the perfect independence of their country; nor did he blame them for their struggles to bring about this result so long as their way was free from lying, robbery, and murder. But the witness of history he regarded as unimpeachable proof of the incapacity of the Korean ruling classes to lift up, or to rule well their own country; unaided, they could never effect the reformation of existing industrial and social evils. Japan, the Far East, and the interests of the civilized world forbade their being longer permitted to disturb the peaceful relations of foreign nations. In this connection the Marquis once spoke of the difficulty which he experienced in preventing his own countrymen from themselves degenerating in character under the morally depressing influences of Korea. These influences had, in his judgment, been more or less effective in the case of most foreigners—diplomats and missionaries included—who had lived for a long time in Seoul. “I tell them,” said he, “you must not become Koreans; you are here to raise the Koreans up, and you cannot do this if you sink down to their level.” At a small dinner party, at the house of one of the foreign consuls, the Resident-General spoke more freely than is his custom about his own early life, his observations during his several trips abroad in America, Europe, and Russia, and the ideals which had guided his official career. In this connection, with reference to his present work in Korea, he referred to the expressions of surprise from some of his foreign colleagues, that he could endure so calmly the ways of the Koreans toward him and toward his administrative efforts; but “in truth,” he added, “I have no feelings of anger toward these people; they are so ignorant, they have been so long deprived of all honest and enlightened government, they are so poor and miserable, I am not angry with them. I pity them.”

It will doubtless seem a strange reversal of what many in the United States and elsewhere have been led to believe was true—and certainly it is a strange reversal of what ought to have been true—when I say that the patience and sympathy of Marquis Ito in his relations with the foreign Christian workers in Korea was a surprise to me. The behavior of some of the missionaries and men prominent in the circle of the Young Men’s Christian Association, which was in receipt of a subsidy from the Japanese Government, had been trying indeed. That their professed Korean converts and adherents had used the name of Christian and the Christian organizations for selfish political purposes could not have been wholly avoided. Even the threats of legal proceedings had been unable to prevent this. But that injudicious reports of wrongs, either exaggerated or wholly false, should be sent by private and public letters to the “home country,” while the requests of the Resident-General to learn of these wrongs and to have the opportunity to correct them remained wholly unheeded, constituted a trial to patience which, I am of the opinion, few men in his position would have borne so well. Emphasis was given to this by the fact that some of the most violent and false accusations against the Japanese Government in Seoul were made in papers and books published by authors who were known to be on terms of friendship with foreign religious agencies. Even certain paid attorneys of the Imperial intrigues against the Resident-General were of this connection. To all this it should be added that His Excellency was being severely (although by no means fairly) criticized in his own country for his “excessive” patience toward these teachers of a foreign religion. Excited by the reports which were coming from the United States (see [p. 62]), one of the respectable Japanese papers of Tokyo (the Yomiuri, in its issue of May 6th) had found it “necessary to examine the past conduct of the American missionaries in Korea.” It expressed profound admiration “for the personality of the Founder of Christianity and high respect for the enthusiasm and devotion of his followers.” But as for those who, “wearing the mask of missionaries ... pander to the native prejudices ... and endeavor to thwart our policy by disseminating baseless rumors and mischievous insinuations, there ought to be no hesitation to deport them out of the country.” “Marquis Ito, as a friend of peace and liberty, has already shown more than sufficient conciliation and patience.”

The story of the better way which Marquis Ito steadily followed, with its unwavering policy of conciliation and patience, and of its success so far as the majority of the more representative and influential of the missionary body is concerned, has already been told in part. For the small number who still refuse to respond to this policy, it is, of course, not deportation by the Japanese Government, but counsel and rebuke from their employers at home, which is the proper remedy. But the impressions of the visitor, who had full measure of the confidence of the leader of one of these two parties who are working for the redemption of Korea, and some good measure of the confidence of certain leaders of the other party, can be given in no other way so well as by quoting the following words from one of their number:

“From the Peninsula,” said Dr. George Heber Jones, in an address to the First General Conference of the Methodist Church in Japan, “we watch with intense interest the development in Japan; for Providence has bound up together the destinies of the two nations. Nationally, a new life opens up before Korea. Japan has sent her veteran statesman to advise and guide Korea, the man to whom in the largest sense Japan owes so much—the most conspicuous statesman in Asia to-day, Marquis Ito. Plans for the reform of the Government, codification of the laws, development of the industry and business of the people, and extension of education, have been formulated, and in a comparatively short time most promising results achieved. In spite of difficulties which necessarily for the present encumber the situation, the outlook is most hopeful. As a church in Korea we deliberately stand aloof from all politics, but find our work, as it relates to the production of strong character, of honest, upright, true men, most intimately related to the regeneration of the nation. The coming ten years promise to be the most eventful in the history of Korea.”

At a tea-party, given in the gardens of Dr. and Mrs. Scranton, at Seoul, where Bishop Cranston, Bishop Harris, Dr. Leonard and Dr. Goucher, were among the non-resident guests, Marquis Ito was present; having arrived somewhat earlier than the appointed hour. After greeting the ladies and gentlemen present, the Marquis spoke as follows:

I wish to take this opportunity of saying a few words to you. I beg you, however, not to expect that I shall say anything new or striking. I only mean to repeat to you what I have been saying to the Japanese and the Koreans. If my words are not new or striking, I may at least assure you that what I am going to say comes from my heart, and represents just what I feel and think. As the official representative of Japan in this country, my principal duty consists in guiding and assisting Korea in her efforts at improvement and progress. I entertain deep sympathy with the people of this country; and it is my earnest ambition to help in saving them from the unfortunate state in which they now find themselves. You, ladies and gentlemen, are also here for serving and saving the Koreans. The only difference is that, while I seek to serve them through political and administrative channels, you work for the same end by means of religious influences. We thus stand on common ground, we are working for a common object. You will therefore believe me when I assure you that I always take the most sympathetic interest in your noble work, and that I am ever ready to co-operate with you, in so far as my duties permit, in your efforts to further the moral and intellectual elevation of this people. On the other hand, I feel confident that I may rely upon a similar attitude on your part toward my endeavors for the benefit of the Koreans. As to the political relations between Japan and Korea, it would be too long and tedious to refer to the past; it is a long history. It is sufficient for my present purpose to say that the two countries are so situated toward each other that their destinies are bound together in the closest manner. To maintain undisturbed the close mutual relations which fate has ordained for the two countries, is the object for which Japan is in this country; beyond that she has no other object. As you know very well, Korea can hardly be called an organized state in the modern sense. I am trying to make it such. Whether, or how far, I may be able to realize my object in this work of political regeneration, as also in the task of improving the general lot of the people, God alone knows. All that I can say to you is that I shall do my best for the successful realization of my mission. I may be permitted to refer to a matter in which you can do much good for Koreans. I dare say that among the many thousands of Japanese in this country, there are some who disgrace their nation by misconduct toward Koreans; but you may rest assured that these wrong-doers find in me the most uncompromising enemy. I may also say that wrong-doing is not confined to the Japanese; there are similar offenders among the Koreans too. While I am taking unsparing pains to repress wrong-doing among the Japanese, I rely upon you for your hearty co-operation to the same end among the Koreans, in so far as it lies in your power as their religious teachers and leaders.

But the wisdom and firmness of the Resident-General were no less impressive than were the qualities of patience and gentleness. To the student of Korean affairs, of the more recently past and the present relations of the Japanese to the Koreans, it soon becomes patent what is chiefly needed in order to mend the former and to improve the latter. It is first of all the impartial administration of justice, in the way of righting wrongs, so far as this is possible, and of securing the rights of life, liberty, and property; then comes the fostering of education in the industries and arts, and the progressive elevation of the moral and religious condition of the people. At the time of my visit there were numberless claims pending of fraud and violence—not so much of recent occurrence as acts of some months or years old—on the part of Koreans against Koreans, and of Japanese and Koreans against each other. Land had been seized and stolen outright, or fraudulently obtained by forged deeds or under false titles. Foreign promoters were clamoring over privileges and concessions, which were either purchased with some show of fairness or obtained from His Majesty, or from some subject, by partnership with the crowd of Korean official “squeezers.” The weaker race—it was claimed—was oppressed, insulted, beaten, or rudely pushed around—not now by their own officials or by Chinese or Russians, but by a people whose superiority of any sort it humiliated their traditional pride even grudgingly to admit. The ability of the most honest and capable local magistrate, whether Japanese or Korean, to discover the truth and to do any measure of justice was greatly hampered and, indeed, made almost practically unavailing by the differences in the two languages and by the fact that the interpreters themselves could, for the most part, in no respect be thoroughly trusted. It was, indeed, a favorite trick with the average Korean interpreter to hire out to one of his own countrymen who had a case against some Japanese, and then to betray his client for a bribe from the other side, by misstating or falsifying his client’s cause. And, under such circumstances, what could any magistrate do who understood only one of the two languages? Moreover, according to the testimony of Mr. D. W. Stevens, who had made careful examination into scores of such complaints, it was an extremely rare thing for a Korean, even when he had a perfectly good case, to refrain from mixing a large measure of exaggeration and falsehood with his truth-telling; nor was it easy to find any considerable crime of fraud committed against a Korean by a Japanese without uncovering a Korean partner to the base transaction. So crafty are the Koreans that, in most cases of such partnership, it is not the foreign member of the firm who gets the larger share of the dividends resulting.

All these impressions as to what was most imperatively needed for the emergencies that were daily arising I was encouraged to mention to the Resident-General at any of our several interviews. It was, of course, desirable first of all to prevent the continuance of the evils which had been, both in Korea and abroad, charged against his own nationals in their treatment of the Koreans. Inquiry and observation combined to confirm the opinion that this was already being accomplished. At that time, however, most of the riots in the country districts did not appear to indicate feelings of hatred on the part of the natives toward “foreign oppressors”; they were only the customary expression of lawless resistance to a condition of wretchedness and misrule that was of native origin and indefinitely long-standing. No important acts of violence on the part of Japanese toward Koreans came under my observation, and none of recent occurrence were credibly reported. Even of those petty deeds of rudeness and incivility, which exasperate hostile feeling far beyond their real significance, I saw comparatively few. There was some rather contemptuous treatment of the Korean crowd at the gates of the railway stations and on the platforms of the trains; but the Koreans are themselves exceedingly stupid and ready to crowd others; and the handling given them by the Japanese officials was in no case so rough as that which the proudest American citizen is liable to receive at the Brooklyn Bridge or on the Fourth Avenue street-cars. Once, indeed, my jinrikisha-man, after he had several times warned, by his outcry, a Korean gentleman who was occupying the middle of the street with that dignified and slow-moving pace so characteristic of the idle Yang-ban, in order to avoid knocking the pedestrian down with his vehicle, gave him a somewhat ungentle push to one side. The Korean fell forward, after the manner of a boy’s tin soldier before a marble. His crinoline hat rolled off his head, but alighted a short distance away. At first I was alarmed lest he might be injured, and was about to order the offending kurumaya to stop his running that I might offer my assistance. But when it appeared that neither the victim of this scarcely avoidable rudeness, nor his hat, was injured, and that no one, including the man himself, seemed to consider the incident worth noticing, I decided not to emphasize it further. Undoubtedly, this would not have happened with a Japanese child or woman in the adult Korean’s place; it might easily have happened, however, in the streets of Tokyo or Kyoto if the pedestrian had been a man of obviously inferior rank.