In brief, it was the uniform testimony of those who had been in Korea during the troublous times which followed the war with Russia that, under Marquis Ito’s administration, Japanese wrong-doers were being sought out and restrained or punished, and that deeds of violence and even of rudeness were becoming rarer with every month of his stay.
Other measures which seemed to me desirable to have put in operation were such as the following: a civil-service examination which should provide that every official, Korean or Japanese, whose duties brought him into intimate daily relations with both peoples, should have a working knowledge of both languages; the organizing of a body of authorized interpreters, whose honesty and ability to discharge this very delicate and important function of oral or written interpretation, in all legal causes and matters of Government business, should be guaranteed, the speedy and even spectacular demonstration of the Government’s intention to give to the Korean common people strict justice in all their valid complaints against the Japanese; the improvement of the character of the Japanese civil service and of the Japanese police and petty officers of every kind; and some kind of arrangement between the missionary schools and the schools under the control of both the Korean and the Japanese authorities, by which uniformity might be attained in the primary education, and, in the higher stages, the mistakes made by the British Government in India might be avoided. These mistakes have resulted in educating a crowd of native “babus,” who are both unwilling and unfit for most kinds of serviceable employment in the real interests of their own nation’s development. As to this last matter, the statement may be repeated that not a small proportion of the Koreans educated abroad or in the missionary schools, with an almost purely literary education, have turned out either useless, or positively mischievous, when the practical reform and redemption of their own country is to be undertaken and enforced. For if there is any one thing which the average educated Korean Yang-ban will not do, that thing is hard and steady useful work.
None of these measures—it was soon made obvious—were to be overlooked or neglected in the large and generous plans of the Resident-General for the reform and uplift of Korea. Time, however, was needed for them all; they all required a supply of helpers, to train which time was required. And who that knows the lives of the great benefactors of mankind, or is versed in the most significant facts and obvious truths of history, does not recognize the evil clamor of the press, of the politicians, and of the crowd, to have that done all at once which cannot possibly be done without the help of time. The whole explanation of the delay is best summed-up in the pregnant sentence already quoted from one of Marquis Ito’s public addresses, which was evidently designed as a declaration of settled policy on his part. “As you know very well,” said he, “Korea can hardly be called an organized state in the modern sense; I am trying to make it such,” But as he explained to me more in detail: “I have been at work on these difficult problems only one short year, interrupted by visits to Japan, because my own Emperor required my presence; and the first half of this year was almost entirely occupied with such physical improvements as various engineering schemes, provision for hospitals, roads, and similar matters. There has never been any such thing as Korean law, under which justice can be administered impartially. But, according to the constitution of Japan, no Japanese subject of His Imperial Majesty, as well as no other foreigners resident in Korea, can be deprived of property, or of liberty, otherwise than by due process of law. Nor is my relation to the administration of justice in Korea like that of the British magistrate in British India. With Korean affairs, purely internal, when the attempt is made to settle them in Korean fashion, I have no right, under the treaty, to interfere. And the Koreans, when they could resort to legal measures for settling their disputes, ordinarily will not do so; they prefer to resort to the ancient illegal practice of running to some Korean Court official and bribing him to use influence on their side. As for Korean judges who can be trusted to do justice, there is scarcely any raw material even for such judges to be found. A carefully selected number of jurists, with a large force of clerks, has, however, been brought from Japan; and they are diligently at work trying to devise a written code under which the ancient customs and common laws of Korea, as representing its best efforts to enact and establish justice, shall be made available for future use.”
Meantime, as we have already seen, the Resident-General was being opposed and, as far as possible, thwarted, in every effort to improve the civil service and judicial administration of Korea, by the corrupt Korean Court, with its mob of eunuchs, palace women, sorceresses, etc., and by nearly all the native officials and Yang-bans in places of influence and power. And the chief seat of corruption and of opposition to genuine, effective reform was the smiling and amiable Korean Emperor himself. How effectively, because wisely and firmly, Marquis Ito initiated and advanced these reform measures will receive its proof, so far as proof is at present possible, by examination of results recorded in official and other trustworthy reports. To the facts already narrated, on which my personal impression of these qualities was based, many others of even a more convincing character might easily be added.
Of the feelings of admiration and friendship which grew during these weeks of somewhat confidential relations, on the part of the guest toward his host, it would not be fitting to speak with any detail. But in closing the more exclusively personal part of my narrative I might quote the words of one of the Consuls-General residing in Seoul. This diplomat expressed his feeling toward the Marquis Ito as one of veneration, beyond that which he had ever felt for any but a very few of the men whom he had met in his official career.
After all, however, personal impressions, no matter how favorable to truth the conditions under which they are derived, are not of themselves satisfactory in answer to questions so grave and so complicated as those which encompass the existing relations between Japan and Korea. Such impressions must be subjected to the severer tests, the more comprehensive considerations, the profounder sanctions, of history and of statistics. For this reason I now pass on to the much more difficult task of reviewing in the light of these tests, considerations, and sanctions, the impressions of my visit to Korea in 1907, as the guest of Marquis Ito.