In Korea with Marquis Ito

by George Trumbull Ladd

During these years the Japanese Government was watching with quiet but painful solicitude the movements going forward in China. When Marquis Ito visited Peking and the Yangtse provinces in the summer of 1898, he was received with marked attention, especially by the reform party among the leading Chinese officials; but the baleful influence of the Dowager-Empress, and of the party opposed to everything likely to curtail their power, arrested the attempts at rapprochement between China and Japan. It was the so-called “Boxer Movement,” however, which gave to Russia a new claim of right to interfere in Chinese affairs and to establish more firmly than ever before her special privileges in Manchuria. The history of this movement—of the way in which Russia dealt with its extension into Manchuria, of the siege of Peking and the doings of the allied forces, and of the subsequent behavior of the Russians with regard to the evacuation of Manchuria—is now well known, or easily accessible, by all students of the period.

In spite of repeated promises to evacuate the points seized and held by Russian forces when, after the relief of the Legations, these forces were withdrawn from Peking and Chi-li to be concentrated in Manchuria, and in disregard of the interests of the other allies, the policy of keeping all that she had gained, and of gaining more as far as possible, was steadily pursued by Russia. On November 11, 1900, an agreement was made between the Representative of Admiral Alexeieff and the Tartar General at Mukden, the most significant point of which was the promise of the Chinese official to provide the Russian troops with lodging and provisions, to disarm and disband all Chinese soldiers and hand over all arms and ammunition to the Russians, and to dismantle all forts and defences not occupied by the Russians.

It was the probable effect of a continued occupation of Manchuria by Russia upon their business interests which led Great Britain and America to wish that the repeated Russian assurances of good faith toward China and toward all foreign nations should manifest themselves in works. The case could not be wholly the same with Japan. Her interests of trade were, indeed, if not at the time so large, more close and vital than those of any other nation outside of China. But her other interests were incomparable. So that when Russia failed to carry out her engagements, even under a convention which was so much in her favor, there was a revival of suspicion and apprehension on the part of the Japanese Government and the Japanese people. Manchuria and Korea both pointed an index finger of warning directed toward Russia.

It was to further a peaceful adjustment of all the disturbed condition of the interests of Russia and Japan in the Far East that Marquis Ito went, on his way home from his visit to the United States, at the end of 1901, on an unofficial mission to St. Petersburg. The failure of the overtures which he bore discouraged those of the leading Japanese statesmen who were hoping for some reconciliation which might take the shape of allowing Russian ascendency in Manchuria and Japanese ascendency in Korea. It also strengthened the conviction which prevailed among the younger statesmen that the St. Petersburg Government regarded Manchuria as not only its fortress in the Far East, but also as its path to the peninsula lying within sight of Japan’s shores. “The Japanese Government,” says Mr. D. W. Stevens, “at last felt that the vital interests of Japan might be irrevocably jeopardized in Korea as well as in Manchuria, if it continued to remain a mere passive spectator of Russian encroachments; and in August, 1903, it resolved to take a decisive step. In the most courteous form and through the usual diplomatic channels Japan intimated at St. Petersburg that her voice must be heard, and listened to, in connection with Far Eastern questions in which her interests were vitally concerned.” The answer of Russia was the appointment of Admiral Alexeieff as Viceroy over the Czar’s possessions in the Far East, with executive and administrative powers of a semi-autocratic character.

But let us return to Korea and inquire: What was the policy with which its Emperor and his Court met the exceedingly critical situation into which the country was being forced by the conflict going on between Russia and Japan both within, and just outside of, its borders? The answer is not dubious. It was the policy, in yet more aggravated form, of folly, weakness, intrigue, and corruption, both in the administration of internal affairs and also in the management of the now very delicate foreign relations. The Emperor was—to use the descriptive phrase of another—enjoying “an orgy of independence.” The former restraints which had been imposed upon him by Chinese domination, by the personal influence of the Tai Won Kun, or of the Queen, by his fears of the reformers, and even by any passive emotional impulses of his own, leading to reformation, were now all removed. While he was a “guest” at the Russian Legation there was certainly no direct influence exerted by his hosts, to assist, advise, or guide him into better ways. It was not the policy of Russia to effect—at least for the present or immediately prospective occasion—any moral betterment of the administration of Korean home and foreign affairs. Under the regency of his father, the Government had been cruel, despotic, and murderous toward both native and foreign Christians. But the Tai Won Kun had some regard for ancient common laws and usages. Under him the people were reasonably sure of such rights, protection, and privileges of public domain, as their ancestors had enjoyed. The public granaries were kept full against the time of famine. The timber and fire-wood on the hills was not given over to any one who could bribe or cajole the corrupt officials; and the line of demarcation between royal and popular rights was more clearly drawn and better understood. But now all this was changed for the worse. The King declared himself the sole and private owner—to dispose of as he saw fit—of all the properties which had formerly been considered as belonging to the state. Low-born favorites appropriated or laid waste the public domain. The country’s resources were wasted; the people were subjected to new and irregular exactions, levied by irregular people for illegal purposes. A succession of the most consummate rascals which ever afflicted any country came into virtual control. They were endowed with offices purchased or extorted from the head ruler. Eunuchs were sent out from the palace on “still hunts,” so to speak, to discover any kind of property which, by any pretext whatever, could be claimed; and to seize such property in the name of His Majesty, or of the King’s concubine, Lady Om, or of some one of the Imperial Princes. Laws which were intended to promote the ends of justice were twisted from their purpose and made to serve the ends of plunder. Such privileges as that of coining and counterfeiting the currency were sold to private persons.

Then began also that squandering of the nation’s most valuable resources which, under the name of “concessions” to foreigners who generally allied themselves for this end with corrupt Korean officials, has continued down to the present time; and the adjustment of which is still giving the Resident-General and his judicial advisers some of their most serious problems. To quote the description of this period by a distinguished foreigner, long in the Korean service: “Nothing in this country is safe from the horde which surrounds His Majesty and seemingly has his confidence. Public office is bought and sold without even the pretence of concealment. Officials share with the palace the plunder which they extort from the people. So and So (naming a prominent Korean Official) is said to owe his influence there largely to the fact that out of every ten thousand yen which he collects he surrenders seven thousand to the Emperor, retaining only three for himself. With his colleagues it is usually the other way, about.” According to the same authority, many kinds of property which were formerly regarded as belonging to the state were now being appropriated to the Emperor’s use, or to that of his favorites, without any pretext, under the rule that “might makes right.” Torturing, strangling, and decapitation, were no infrequent methods of accomplishing the imperial will; though it should be said that these favors were somewhat impartially distributed. Sometimes it was the secret strangling in prison of such patriots as An Kyun-su and Kwan Yung-chin, on the night of May 27, 1900—than which, it has truly been said, “no more dastardly crime ever stained the annals of this or any other government”: sometimes it was the torturing and execution of such unspeakable rascals as the ex-court-favorites, Kim Yung-chun (1901), Yi Yong-ik, and Yi Keun-tak (1902). In a word, the period of “independence,” to which the Emperor has been lately imploring his own subjects and the civilized world to restore him, was the period in which he took what, and gave away what, and did what he chose, under the basest influences; for the most worthless or mischievous ends, without law or pretence of justice or goodness of heart, to the lasting disgrace and essential ruin of the nation.

Such is a summary of the doings during the years preceding the Russo-Japanese war, on the part of the Korean Emperor and his Court. “Through all this period,” says Mr. Hulbert,[25] “Russian influence was quietly at work securing its hold upon the Korean Court and upon such members of the government as it could win over. The general populace was always suspicious of her, however, and always preferred the rougher hand of Japan to the soft but heavy hand of Russia.” The threatening nature of the situation created by these Russian encroachments was as well understood at Washington and London as at Tokyo. It was intimately connected with the Manchurian question to the untangling of which Mr. Hay had devoted so much thought.

But Russia’s action in Manchuria, threatening as it was to the interests, not alone of Japan but also of other foreign powers, did not call upon the Japanese Government for armed interference.[26] As the behavior of Japan showed during the Boxer troubles in China, she had learned caution with respect to fighting the battles of civilized Europe and America, at her own expense and without show of gratitude from others.

As we have already seen, the most threatening feature of the situation for Japan was Russia’s activity upon the Yalu, especially at Yong-am-po. In the interests of peace Mr. Hay supplemented his efforts to maintain the principle of the open door and equal opportunity in Manchuria, by an earnest endeavor (which had Lord Lansdowne’s cordial support) to fend off the impending quarrel between Japan and Russia. Since all the Treaty Powers were interested in the matter of treaty ports in Korea, the method that most readily suggested itself was the opening of Wiju and Yong-am-po, which would remove any question of the latter place being used as a military or naval base. The request was reasonable from every point of view, since Wiju, as the market town, and Yong-am-po, as the port, were naturally the complement, on the Korean side of the Yalu, of Antung then recently declared an open port on the Manchurian. Indeed, other considerations apart, some such action was imperatively necessary from the Korean standpoint, inasmuch as an open port in Chinese territory, without a corresponding port of entry in neighboring Korean territory, could not fail to be prejudicial to the interests of Korea. Accordingly the American and British representatives at Seoul were instructed to urge upon the Korean Government the necessity of opening these ports.

This was done, but the attempt to persuade the Emperor met with strenuous opposition on M. Pavloff’s part, and finally failed, apparently because of the incapacity of His Majesty’s nearest advisers to grasp the real significance of the crisis and the momentous effect which the decision must have upon Korea’s fortunes. The struggle was a fierce one while it lasted and, among other minor results, led to the resignation of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The gentleman who succeeded him, as Acting Minister, was disposed to favor the opening of the ports, in spite of the strong opposition of the palace coterie. He went so far as to prepare letters to the foreign representatives declaring the ports open, and was actually about sending them out, on his own responsibility, when he was stopped, partly by a peremptory order from the palace, and partly by the persuasion of his friends who represented to him the great personal danger he would incur by such a step.