Can Korea—such a people, with such rulers—be reformed and redeemed? Can her rulers be made to rule at least in some semblance of righteousness, as preparatory to its more perfect and substantial form? Can the people learn to prize order, to obey law, and to respect human rights? Probably, yes; but certainly never without help from the outside. And this help must be something more than the missionary can give. It must lay foundations of industrial, judicial, and governmental reform: it must also enforce them. Such political disease does not, if left alone, perfect its own cure. The knife of the surgeon is first of all needed; the tonic of the physician and the nourishment of good food and the bracing of a purer air come afterward. We cannot, therefore, agree with the small body of Christian workmen—now, happily, a minority—who try to believe that the needed redemption of Korea could be effected by their unaided forces. A union of law, enforced by police and military, with the spiritual influences of education and religion, is alone available in so desperate a case as that of Korea to-day.

It is to the task of a political reformation and education for both rulers and people in Korea that Japan stands committed before the world at the present time. As represented by the Marquis Ito, she has undertaken this task with a good conscience and with a reasonable amount of hope. Among the administrative reforms in Korea[56] one of the most important is the “Purification of the Imperial Court.” This “singular operation the Resident-General caused to be resolutely carried out in July, 1906.” At that time “men and women of uncertain origin and questionable character ... had, in a considerable number, come to find their way into the royal palace, until it had become a veritable rendezvous of adventurers and conspirators. Divining, fortune-telling and spirit-incanting found favor there, and knaves and villains plotted and intrigued within the very gates of the Court, in co-operation with native and foreign schemers without. By cheating and chicanery, they relieved the Imperial treasury of its funds, and in their eagerness to fill their pockets never stopped to think of what dangerous seeds of disorder and rapine they were scattering broadcast over the benighted peninsula.”

It must doubtless be confessed that under the ex-Emperor the efforts of the Residency-General to effect the needed reforms were successful only to a limited extent. But with his last piece of intriguing to “relieve the Imperial treasury of its funds,” by sending a commission to the Hague Conference, “in co-operation with native and foreign schemers,” the old era came quickly to an end. The history of its termination will be told elsewhere; but the fact has illumined and strengthened the hope that Korea, too, can in time produce men fit to rule with some semblance of honesty, fidelity, and righteousness. Meantime, they must be largely ruled from without.

How this hope of industrial and political redemption may be extended to the people at large and applied to the different important interests of the nation, both in its internal and foreign relations, will be illustrated in the several following chapters. Now that the Emperor[57] is publicly committed to an extended policy of reform; that the Ministers are for the first time in the history of Korea really a Cabinet exercising some control; that the Resident-General has the right and the duty to guide and to enforce all the important measures necessary to achieve reform; that the foreign nations chiefly interested have definitively recognized the Japanese Protectorate; and that the leaders of the foreign moral and religious forces are so largely in harmony with the plans of Japan;—now that all this is matter of past achievement, the prospects for the future of Korea are brighter than they have ever been before. One may reasonably hope that the time is not far distant when both rulers and people will be consciously the happier and more prosperous, because they have been compelled by a foreign and hated neighbor to submit to a reformation imposed from without. That they would ever have reformed themselves is not to be believed by those who know intimately the mental and moral history and characteristics of the Koreans.

CHAPTER XIII
RESOURCES AND FINANCE

The resources of the Korean peninsula have never been systematically developed; indeed, until a very recent date no intelligent attempt has ever been made to determine what they actually are. The Korean Government has usually been content with such an adjustment of “squeezes” as seemed best to meet the exigencies of the times—administered according to the temperament and interests of the local magistracy. At intervals, however, the Court officials have carried their more erratic and incalculable method of extortion and of plundering the people rather widely into effect. Then those of their number who chanced to be His Majesty’s favorites of the hour have enjoyed most of the surplus; the people have submitted to, or savagely and desperately revolted against, the inevitable; but the country at large has continued poor at all times, and has frequently been devastated by famine. As to the exploiting of Korea’s resources by foreign capital, the facts have been quite uniformly these: a combination of adventurers from abroad with Koreans who either possessed themselves, or through others could obtain “influence” at Court has been effected; sometimes, but by no means always, the Emperor’s privy purse has profited temporarily; but the main part of the proceeds has been divided among the native and foreign promoters. Of late years, some of the “concessions” have been almost, or quite, given away in the hope of thus obtaining foreign interference or sympathy. In only rare instances has the national wealth been greatly increased in this way, or even the treasury of the Government been made much the richer.

It is plain, then, that if the Japanese Protectorate is to be made really effective for the industrial uplift and development of the Korean people, as well as capable of rewarding Japan for its expenditure in substantial ways, the resources of the country must be intelligently explored and systematically developed. Here is where the work of reform must begin. In intimate relations with this work stands, of course, the establishment of a sound and stable currency. For the financial condition of Korea up to very recent times was as disgraceful as its industrial condition was deplorable. To this important task of developing the resources of Korea and reforming its finances, Marquis Ito, as Resident-General, and Mr. Megata, as Financial Adviser, have devoted themselves with a patience, self-sacrifice, and skill, which ought ultimately to overcome the tremendous difficulties involved.

“Korea,” says the Seoul Press, “is essentially an agricultural country. Eighty per cent. of her population till the soil, and stinted as are the returns which the soil is willing to yield under the present method of cultivation, the produce from land constitutes at least ninety per cent. of the annual income of the country. To improve the lot of the toiling millions on the farms is therefore to improve the lot of virtually the whole nation. It was in recognition of this obvious fact that Marquis Ito, in addressing the leading editors of Tokyo, in February, 1906, previous to his departure for Korea to assume the duties of his newly appointed post as Resident-General, laid particular emphasis on the urgent importance of introducing agricultural improvements in this country. This question was consequently the very first to engage the serious attention of the authorities of the Residency-General.”[58] The statistics for the year ending December 31, 1906, show that out of an amount of taxes estimated at 6,422,744 yen, the sum of 5,208,228 yen was apportioned to the land tax, and 234,096 yen to the house tax. The difficulty of collecting the taxes, either through the corruption of the officials, or by reason of the inability or inexcusable and often violent resistance of the people, can be estimated by the fact that, of the land tax 2,214,823+ yen was still “outstanding,” and of the house tax, 68,794+ yen.[59]

The institution of an Experimental Station and Agricultural School at Suwon has already been described ([p. 122 f.]). But in order to accomplish the needed development of Korea’s agricultural resources, the peasant farmers must themselves be induced to reform their methods of cultivation. As might be expected, however, the Korean peasant farmer is suspicious of all attempts to improve his wasteful methods, is extremely “conservative” (a much-abused word) in his habits, and slow to learn. Some good work has, however, already been done by way of opening his eyes. The example of the Model Farm, which is limited to one locality, is supplemented by the example of the Japanese farmers who are settling in numerous localities. To take an instance: improved Japanese rice seed was distributed gratis in various parts of the country. But even then it was necessary to guarantee the farmers against loss in order to induce them to try the experiment of cultivating it. The result of the experiment was most encouraging. The yield was in every case greater than that obtained from the native seed; in some cases the gain in the product being as much as from six to ten tō (3-5 bushels) per tan (¼ acre). Similar experiments are now in progress with the seed of barley and wheat, imported from Japan, America, and Europe.