In Korea with Marquis Ito

by George Trumbull Ladd

After the fall of the Tokugawa Government the Korean Court desisted from the custom of sending an embassy to Japan to congratulate the succession to the place of supreme rule; it even declared its determination to have no further relations with a country which had embraced the Western civilization. When the Government of the Restoration sent an envoy to Korea to announce the change and to “confirm friendly relations between the two states,” the Korean Court refused to recognize the envoy or to receive his message. The real reason for this affront was the influence of China; the ostensible reason referred to the fact that the term “Great Empire of Japan” was employed in the Imperial letter. As says Brinkley: “Naturally such conduct roused deep umbrage in Japan. It constituted a verdict that, whereas the Old Japan had been entitled to the respect and homage of neighboring Powers, the New might be treated with contumely.” Thus, just when the affairs of the newly centralized Government were assuming that condition of strength and harmony so imperatively demanded for the present welfare and future prospects of Japan, dissension arose among the Ministers of the Crown with regard to the policy to be pursued toward Korea. Bitterness of feeling had already been excited by the fact that when Japan returned to their country some shipwrecked Koreans, and accompanied this humane act with other friendly advances, the advances were repulsed and the Court of Korea declined even to receive the envoy. And now, among the leaders of Japan, Saigo, Soyeshima, Itagaki, Goto, and Eto, insisted on war for the purpose of avenging the insult; Okubo, Iwakura, and Ito advocated peaceful means. Indeed, the so-called “Saga Party” was confederated with these two purposes chiefly in view: (1) the restoration of feudalism, and (2) the making of a punitive war upon Korea. The peace party triumphed; the Satsuma rebellion followed; and Japan made its first great contribution of treasure and blood toward the maintenance of friendly relations with a Korea that, nominally independent so far as its own selfish duplicity chose to consider it so, was virtually subservient to all manner of foreign intrigue and unscrupulous control.

This situation and the subsequent events, however, require a more detailed consideration. According to Brinkley, the great Saigo Takamori, who was a member of the Cabinet at this time, and who had been Chief of the Army and one of the most powerful agents in bringing about the Restoration, “saw in a foreign war the sole remaining chance of achieving his ambition by lawful means. The Government’s conscription scheme, yet in its infancy, had not produced even the skeleton of an army. If Korea had to be conquered, the samurai must be employed, and their employment would mean, if not their rehabilitation, at least their organization into a force which, under Saigo’s leadership, might dictate a new polity. Other members of the Cabinet believed that the nation would be disgraced if it tamely endured Korea’s insults. Thus several influential voices swelled the clamor for war. But a peace party offered strenuous opposition. Its members perceived the collateral issues of the problem, and declared that the country must not think of taking up arms during a period of radical transition.”[13]

The part of China at this time, as ever, in encouraging difficult and threatening relations between Japan and Korea cannot be overlooked. In the events of 1866 the Chinese did not maintain neutrality as between the forces of the Shogunate and of the Imperial party, but secretly sold arms to the former. They also engaged in the trade of kidnapping and selling the children of indigent Japanese.[14] When, after the treaty of 1871 was concluded (namely, in 1872), the natives of Formosa murdered some shipwrecked Loochoo islanders, the Peking Government declined to acknowledge any responsibility for the conduct of the natives of Formosa. And it was only through the offices of the British Minister that the Chinese, after procrastinating and vacillating, agreed to pay 100,000 taels to the families of the murdered, and 400,000 taels toward the cost of a punitive expedition which had been despatched against the Formosans.

In 1875 another envoy was sent to Korea, but he returned with the customary result; and in August of the same year a man-of-war en route to China, which had put into the harbor of Chemulpo for fuel and water, was fired upon by the Koreans. Whereupon the crew attacked and burned the Korean fortress. And now the same question recurred in a still more exasperating form: What shall Japan do with Korea, for whose bad conduct China, while claiming rights of suzerainty in all her foreign relations and actually exercising a determining influence over her internal affairs, nevertheless declines to be responsible; and who will not of herself regard any of those regulations, or common decencies of international intercourse, which modern civilization has established as binding upon all countries?

The considerations which prevailed on former occasions still held good when Korea offered this new affront. The peace party, of which Marquis Ito and Count Inouye were prominent members—the former being also a member of the Cabinet—thought that it was Japan’s first duty to devote all her energies to the task of domestic improvement, while cultivating friendly relations with her neighbors. The problem which confronted the advocates of peace was not an easy one. Saigo was in retirement in his native province, surrounded by his devoted supporters, and it was easily to be seen that he would take umbrage if this new insult was allowed to pass unavenged, and would possibly make it the pretext for something more serious than mere remonstrance. The decision in favor of peace instead of war required a high order of courage. The state of public feeling on the subject and the powerful opposition on which the Government had to count was well illustrated by a petition presented nearly a year later by the Tosa Association, over the signature of Kataoka Kenkichi, afterward speaker of the Lower House of the Diet. Animadverting upon the Government’s action, the petition said:

Our people knew that Korea is a country with which Japan has had intercourse since the most ancient times. Suddenly the intercourse was broken off, and when we sent an envoy thither he was befooled and all his proposals were rejected. Not only were the Koreans insulting, but they threatened hostile resistance. It was proposed to send a second envoy to remonstrate (?) against the treatment of the former one, but the government suddenly changed its views and nothing further was done. The people when they learned this became enraged, and their feelings found vent in the rebellion of the samurai of Saga.

This petition no doubt accurately reflects the state of public feeling at the time to which it refers. The Government did not, however, yield to the popular clamor for war, and this was due in no small measure to the efforts of Marquis Ito. He counselled patience and advised his colleagues from the outset that advantage should be taken of the opportunity to place the relations of Japan and Korea upon a new basis by means of a treaty of peace and friendship. These moderate counsels prevailed and the Cabinet decided with the Imperial sanction to make the treaty, although two of its members, Shimadzu Saburo and Itagaki subsequently resigned.

Marquis Ito fully appreciated the obstacles which the alleged suzerainty of China opposed to the establishment of satisfactory treaty relations between Japan and Korea. Accordingly he devoted himself, with the assistance of M. Boissonade, the distinguished French publicist, and of Mr. Inouye, the well-known Japanese authority, to a careful study of this question. The decision reached was that the bond uniting China and Korea was not, either historically or according to the rules of international law, that of suzerain and vassal state. It therefore logically followed that Korea must be approached directly and dealt with as an independent Power. The importance of this decision cannot be overestimated. It was the first formal recognition of Korean national independence. More than that, it was the declaration on the part of Japan of a policy having in view the political, commercial and economical progress of her neighbor. By the treaty of 1876 Japan abandoned all of her own ancient claims to suzerainty and did what she could to place Korea upon the high road to prosperous national development which she herself was travelling. No friend of Japan will claim that it was an entirely altruistic policy. Her action was dictated as much by motives of intelligent self-interest as by consideration for Korea. The fate of the peninsular kingdom was of vital importance to Japan. As an appanage of China its condition was hazardous. China had from ancient times claimed suzerainty over all surrounding nations, but those claims had never proved a safeguard nor prevented the subjugation or absorption of these so-called vassal states by other Powers. In fact, they were an element of weakness in quarrels where China herself was principal; for it might easily happen that the vassal would be exposed to attack, in case China herself could not easily be reached. This was especially the truth as regarded Korea, concerning whom China had given direct proof that while prepared to claim all the prerogatives of suzerainty when it implied no risk to herself, she was only too likely, when a strong Power threatened, to shirk all responsibility and abandon Korea to her fate. To treat with Korea as an independent nation and thus to set an example which would in all likelihood be followed by other Powers, seemed the best way of avoiding such a catastrophe. At the same time there was good reason to hope, even confidently to expect, that Korea, drawn into intimate intercourse with the world, would be freed from the trammels which prevented progress, and would gradually attain a condition where foreign aggression would be impossible.

Count Kuroda and Count Inouye were appointed First and Second Envoys, respectively, for the negotiation of the treaty. The representatives of the Treaty Powers were frankly informed of the objects of the mission. Before he left, Count Inouye called upon Mr. Bingham, the American Minister, who cordially sympathized with the Government’s intentions, and borrowed Bayard Taylor’s abridged history of Commodore Perry’s expedition. The Count said he feared that the Koreans might show signs of obduracy, in which case it would become necessary for his colleague and himself to have recourse to some of the measures which Commodore Perry found so efficacious. Inouye wished to have the book so that he could refresh his memory and be better perfected in the part if it became necessary to play it.[15]