In Korea with Marquis Ito

by George Trumbull Ladd

Another instance which illustrates, however, the habitual exaggeration and ignorant credulity of the Koreans rather than their well-known official capacity for fraud, is connected with the establishment of the royal “stud-farm” near Pyeng-yang. In this case two native pastors from this city, as members of a deputation to petition the redress of a great wrong, came to a missionary friend in Seoul in great distress. Their story was that the Korean officials of the Household Department, in complicity with the Japanese officials, had enclosed in stakes a territory having a population of fifty thousand people and comprising a vast quantity of arable land. Within this large area, no one could sell the land, or cut timber or grass, or plant crops, or bury the dead; or, in brief, put the land to any of its ordinary uses. These official prohibitions were said to have been inscribed upon the stakes—although the petitioners, on being questioned, could not tell upon just how many of them. At Seoul, neither the Korean nor the Japanese officials knew of any such project in connection with the proposed stud-farm; although it was true that such a farm was to be established, under the joint patronage of their Majesties, the Emperors of Japan and Korea. Communication with Marquis Ito, who was then in Tokyo, brought a reassuring telegram from him. Investigation showed that no notice of the kind had been put upon any of the stakes which had been erected to show that all the government lands within the area delimited were reserved for the uses of the farm. Nor did the placing of the stakes put any restrictions whatever upon the people, so far as concerned their own property. The one stake on which the mysterious notice did appear had been driven some time previous to the very existence of the scheme for a royal farm; and it had reference to a totally different piece of Imperial property which it had been designed to guard against encroachments from both Koreans and Japanese dwelling in Pyeng-yang. All this excitement could have been avoided if the Korean officials had done their duty by way of informing and instructing the people. But the simple truth is that many of them and of the “foreign friends” of Korea do not wish to avoid any popular excitement which will contribute to the embarrassment and discredit of the Japanese Government in Korea. The rather do they welcome all such excitement.

The truth of this last remark is amply illustrated by the treatment given to the “Pagoda Incident”—one of the “flagrant wrongs” done to Korea by the Japanese which was on the carpet during our entire stay of two months in the land. Viscount Tanaka, who is described as “an ardent virtuoso and collector,” while visiting in Seoul was approached by a Japanese curio dealer with the suggestion that he might add to his collection the ancient but neglected pagoda then situated near Song-do. Mention of the matter was made to the Korean Ministers of the Interior and of the Household, and their approval obtained; and through them the sanction of the Emperor was gained for its removal, as a present to his distinguished guest. The actual work of the removal was committed to the dealer who made the unfortunate suggestion, and who executed his job “with his characteristic skill and audacity.” Previous to its removal this relic of former grandeur had for a long time been wholly neglected by the Korean Government and was, in fact, in process of destruction by the Korean people, who were in the habit of removing bits from it to use as medicine. At once, however, a storm of indignant protest broke out; not, indeed, among the Koreans left to themselves so much as on the part of the “foreign friends” of Korea in their English papers and foreign correspondence. The Viscount was called by terms applicable to a common thief; the “robbery of the Pagoda,” the “rape of the Pagoda,” the plunder of this “precious religious relic” of Korea’s former grandeur, was deplored and abjurgated in the most extravagant terms. The Emperor doubtless chuckled; for while he cared little for the Pagoda, he cared much for the discredit which the taking away of it brought upon the Japanese. The unwise act was virtually disowned by the Residency-General (Marquis Ito was absent in Japan at the time of its removal), and was severely criticised by the Japanese themselves; with the departure of Mr. Hulbert for Russia the excitement over this act of oppression gave way to more important political affairs.

The Stone-Turtle Monument.

Most ludicrous and pathetic—but highly characteristic—of all these popular excitements was, perhaps, that which arose through the mere proposal of a subject of debate by a Japanese student in Waseda University, Japan: Whether the Korean Emperor should not be made a noble of Japan? (Thus implying, of course, his descent from his Imperial dignity and the virtual annexation of Korea.) The proposal was indeed never adopted, and the debate never took place. But the intolerable insult to the Korean students at the same university, and to the whole nation of Korea—although the authorities of Waseda at once rebuked the unfortunate student—was dwelt upon, and exaggerated, and rubbed into the inflamed and sensitive skins of the people, with all the vigor which the Korean patriots and their “foreign friends” could command. And when some obscure but self-conceited Japanese official, in Japan and not at all in Korea, published a brochure giving fully two-score and more reasons why Japan should promptly annex Korea, these same patriots and their friends made all the use in their power of this insignificant document to stir up sedition and murderous revolt. It was the issue of it as a forgery bearing the official authorization of the Japanese Government, which caused the excitement in Pyeng-yang—the story of which has already been told (see [p. 104 f.]).[91]

It is not necessary, however, to multiply instances under any of these heads. All classes of wrongs done the Koreans by the Japanese—important and trivial, real, exaggerated, or falsely claimed—are fast diminishing and are destined in time to be reduced to a minimum. The Korean Central Government is now more genuine, more intelligent, and more efficient—as distinguished from the mere wilfulness of the ex-Emperor—than it has ever been before. The reforms possible under the Convention of July, 1907, will afford a judiciary system and judicial procedure hitherto impossible as respects the administration of justice. The control of the local magistrate and of the policing of city and country will contribute something quite new in the way of the blessings of peace and prosperity to the common people. The reforms in the public finance and in taxation will stimulate trade and commerce; the industrial and common-school education will bring about an economic redemption. And if the teachers of morals and religion, both native and foreign, behave with a reasonable wisdom and self-control in the future, and with the same devotion and enthusiasm which they have displayed in the recent years, wrongs will be righted; justice will be done; enlightenment will be spread abroad; and the Korea of the near future will be a quite different nation from the Korea of the long-continued, disgraceful, and distressful past.

CHAPTER XVII
MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES

Among the many vexatious problems occasioned in modern times by the increased intercourse of Western nations with the Orient, those which arise in connection with the advent and development of Christian missions are of no small importance. In general, in this quarter of the world the diplomats and business men are upon one side of most of the controverted questions; the missionaries and their supporters upon the other. It is inevitable, and not necessarily discreditable to either party, that differences of opinion should exist between these two classes as to the best practical answer to some of these questions. Those few of the former class, who are sincerely and unselfishly interested in moral and spiritual things, and in the higher welfare of the world, and the scarcely greater number of the latter class who have the spirit of knightly gentlemen, a thorough culture, and are also of a wise and broad mind, can usually approach very closely to a sympathetic understanding of each other, if not toward active co-operation. If, however, the diplomat or business man, as is so frequently the case, does not like to see the cause of religion advancing, because of the sure instinct that its success will limit, or stop, many a nefarious or morally doubtful practice, then, of course, the support of all who care for the higher values must be given to the side of the missionaries. On the other hand, if the narrow prejudice, fanaticism, or intellectual and ethical weakness of the teacher of foreign religion are seriously interfering with the legitimate practices of diplomacy or commerce, our sympathies can scarcely fail to turn in the other direction. Especially is this true where such interference tends to produce disturbance of the public order and to check genuine political and economic reform. Yet in the one case, we cannot forget the injunction of the Founder of Christianity to his disciples: “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves”; or the rebuke implied in the declaration: “The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.” In the other case, we have ringing in our ears the declaration which so many centuries of history have confirmed: “Think not that I came to send peace on the earth; I came not to send peace but a sword.”

In most cases of prolonged controversy over the conduct of the missionary and the character of his work, there is more or less of misunderstanding and of faulty behavior on both sides. For missionaries are but men; and like men of all other trades, businesses, professions, or callings, they have their peculiar temptations, their liability to peculiar mistakes, and—to use the theological term—their besetting sins. The past and present relations of Christian missions to the Government and people of Korea will be the better understood if we consider briefly what some of these temptations are. One of the most potent, if not important, is the temptation to make a good showing in the matter of statistics. That the workman on the field should rejoice in a bountiful harvest is not, in itself, a matter for surprise or rebuke; just the contrary is true. Nor is it necessarily prejudicial to the real good of the cause, if the home officers and supporters of the foreign denominational enterprise implicitly seem to require, as a prerequisite to their continued zeal and generous subscriptions, a fair annual showing as to the increase in the number of converts. But especially in Korea at the present time, it is quality and not numbers that ought chiefly to be allowed to count. And yet it is numbers and not quality which is most reasonably to be expected and most likely to be found, for two or three generations to come.