In Korea with Marquis Ito

by George Trumbull Ladd

[27] The Passing of Korea, p. 210 f.

[28] Manchuria and Korea, p. 119.

[29] See Appendix A for its text.

[30] See Appendix B.

[31] War and Neutrality in the Far East, p. 216 f.

[32] See especially Hulbert, The Passing of Korea, p. 464 f.

[33] The narrative which follows may be trusted to correct most of these misstatements. But among them, some of the more important may here be categorically contradicted. Such are, for example, the statements that armed force was used; that General Hasegawa half drew his sword to intimidate Mr. Han; that Hagiwara seized the latter with the aid of gendarmes and police; that the Minister of Agriculture continued to hold out; that he and Minister Pak, during the conference, withdrew from the Japanese Legation and betook themselves to the Palace, denouncing the compact (something no one acquainted with the geographical relations of the two places would be likely to assert with a sincere belief); that the Emperor ordered the consenting Ministers to be assassinated; that Japanese troops patrolled the streets all night, etc., etc. One curiously characteristic error of Mr. Hulbert is involved in the statement, published in one of the papers of the United States, which makes his commission by the Korean Emperor to lodge an appeal with President Roosevelt the cause of hastening the Japanese Government in their iniquitous coup d’état. The truth is that the Japanese Government had made all the preparations for Marquis Ito’s departure, and the plan afterward carried out had been carefully formulated, weeks before it was known that Mr. Hulbert was going to the United States. The Marquis was only waiting the return of Baron Komura to Japan before leaving for Korea. No thought whatever was at any time given to Mr. Hulbert. It is, in general, late now to say that the efforts of those “friends of Korea,” who have taken the Korean ex-Emperor’s money while holding out to him the hope of foreign intervention, have done him and his country, rather than Japan, an injury impossible to repair.

[34] In order to understand the following negotiations and all similar transactions conducted in characteristic Korean style, it should be remembered that delay, however reasonable it may seem or really be, is in fact utilized for purposes not of reflection and judicious planning for future emergencies, but the rather for arranging intrigues, securing apparent chances of escape from the really inevitable, with the result of an increasing unsettlement of the Imperial mind.

[35] He was preparing to go when the Minister of the Household called with a message requesting the Marquis to postpone the conclusion of the Treaty two or three days.

[36] None of the party gathered in the council chamber saw Mr. Han after that. It seems from the accounts subsequently given by Palace officials that a little later Mr. Han went upstairs still deeply agitated. His evident purpose was to gain access to the Emperor, which, as he had not requested an audience, was a flagrant violation of etiquette from the Korean point of view. But the poor man in his confusion turned the wrong way and stumbled into Lady Om’s quarters. Some of the officials led him to a small retiring room, where he spent the night. The next morning it was officially announced that he had been dismissed from office in disgrace and would be severely punished. Marquis Ito immediately begged that the Emperor would pardon him, and, in deference to this request, Mr. Han was permitted to go into retirement with no other punishment than the loss of his office. The whole proceeding was one of those things which apparently can happen only in Korea and not excite any one’s special wonder. No one seemed to know precisely why the Minister was punished. He was amiable, not very strong mentally, but well-meaning and of comparatively good repute; he had done his best to carry out the Emperor’s wishes as he understood them, and, having failed, as was inevitable, his grief was the best proof possible of his sincerity; and one would think it might have excited sufficient pity to preclude resentment. However, it should be added that the sincerity manifest in Mr. Han’s grief did not extend to his memory or his powers of narration. At least that is an inference which one may draw from certain published accounts of these occurrences—Mr. Han having seemingly been the fountain-head of the information.