All through this year 1901 were heard the distant rumblings of that storm that was to break three years later. Every movement of the Russians by land or sea was watched with a fascinated attention and every proposition of the Japanese was closely scrutinized. As a fact the war was already in existence, only it had not been declared. Even then Japanese agents were swarming all over Manchuria gaining exact information of its geography and products and Japan was hastening the preparation of her navy for the struggle that she felt to be inevitable.
As the year 1901 came to a close the tension was beginning to be felt. People were asking how much longer Japan would acquiesce in the insolent encroachments of Russia. But the time was not yet. As for material advances the year had seen not a few. Seoul had been supplied with electric light. The Seoul-Fusan Railway had been begun. Plans for the Seoul-Wiju Railway had been drawn up. Mokpo had been supplied with a splendid sea-wall. Building had gone on apace in the capital and even a scheme for a system of water-works for the city had been worked out and had received the sanction of the government. Education had gone from bad to worse and at one time when retrenchment seemed necessary it was even suggested to close some of the schools, but better counsels prevailed and this form of suicide was rejected.
With the opening of the year 1902 there were several indications that the general morale of the government was deteriorating. The first was a very determined attempt to revive the Buddhist cult. The Emperor consented to the establishment of a great central monastery for the whole country in the vicinity of Seoul, and in it was installed a Buddhist High Priest in Chief who was to control the whole Buddhist Church in the land. It was a ludicrous attempt, for Buddhism in Korea is dead so far as any genuine influence is concerned. Mixed with the native spirit-worship it has its millions of devotees, but so far as becoming a fashionable cult is concerned nothing is more unlikely. But it has been the case for over a thousand years that when things have gone badly in the government there has been a harking back to the old Buddhist mummery, to fortune-tellers, geomancers and the like, and the only significance of this attempt was to prove that there was something “rotten in Denmark.”
Another evidence was the constant and successful attempt to centralize the power of the Government in the hands of the Emperor. The overthrow of the Independence Party, whose main tenet was curtailment of the Imperial prerogative, gave a new impulse to the enlargement of that prerogative so that in the year 1901 we find almost all the government business transacted in the Palace itself. The various ministers of state could do nothing on their own initiative. Everything was centered in the throne and in two or three favorites who stood near the throne. Of these Yi Yong-ik was the most prominent.
A third evidence of deterioration was the methods adopted to fill the coffers of the Household treasury. The previous year had been a bad one. Out of a possible twelve million dollars of revenue only seven million could be collected. There was great distress all over the country and the pinch was felt in the palace. Special inspectors and agents were therefore sent to the country armed with authority from the Emperor to collect money for the Household treasury. These men adopted any and every means to accomplish their work and this added very materially to the discontent of the people. The prefects were very loath to forego a fraction of the taxation, because they saw how previous prefects were being mulcted because of failure to collect the full amount, and so between the prefect and the special agents the people seemed to be promised a rather bad time. In fact it caused such an outcry on every side that the government at last reluctantly recalled the special agents.
Early in the year the fact was made public that Korea had entered into an agreement with Russia whereby it was guaranteed that no land at Masanpo or on the island of Kö-je at its entrance should ever be sold or permanently leased to any foreign Power. Russia had already secured a coaling station there and it was generally understood, the world over, that Russia had special interest in that remarkably fine harbor. Avowedly this was merely for pacific purposes, but the pains which Russia took to make a secret agreement with Korea debarring other Powers from privileges similar to those which she had acquired, naturally aroused the suspicions of the Japanese and of the Koreans themselves, those of them that had not been in the secret; and this step, inimical to Japan as it undoubtedly was, probably helped to hasten the final catastrophe. Meanwhile Russian subjects were taking advantage of the influential position of their Government in Seoul and through ministerial[ministerial] influence some glass-makers, iron-workers and weavers were employed by the Government without the smallest probability of their ever doing anything in any of these lines. In fact at about this time the Government was induced to take on quite a large number of Russians and Russian sympathisers who never were able to render any service whatever in lieu of their pay. In many cases the most cursory investigation would have shown that such would inevitably be the result. It is difficult to evade the conclusion that the Government was deliberately exploited.
It was in the spring of this year that the project began to be seriously discussed in Japan of colonizing portions of Korea with Japanese, and a society or company was formed in Tokyo with this as its avowed purpose. This naturally evoked a good deal of feeling in Korea where the Japanese were not at the time enjoying any considerable influence at court. The fact then came out for the first time, and has been further emphasized since, that the Korean, whatever he may feel for his Government, is passionately attached to the soil.
But at this time another and a far greater surprise was in store for the world. It was the announcement of a defensive alliance between Japan and Great Britain. By the terms of this agreement Japan and Great Britain guaranteed to insure the independence of Korea and the integrity of the Chinese Empire. The tremendous influence of this historic document was felt at once in every capital of Europe and in every capital, port and village of the Far East. It stung the lethargic to life and it caused the rashly enthusiastic[enthusiastic] to stop and think. There can be no manner of doubt that this alliance was one of the necessary steps in preparing for the war which Japan already foresaw on the horizon. It indicated clearly to Russia that her continued occupation of Manchuria and her continued encroachments upon Korea would be called in question at some not distant day. But she was blind to the warning. This convention bound Great Britain to aid Japan in defensive operations and to work with her to the preservation of Korean independence and the integrity of China. It will be seen, therefore, that Japan gave up once and for all any thought that she might previously have had of impairing the independence of this country and any move in that direction would absolve Great Britain from all obligations due to the signing of the agreement.
The year had but just begun when the operations of counterfeiters of nickel coins became so flagrant as to demand the attention of all who were interested in trade in the peninsula. Japan had most at stake and Russia had least, and this explains why the Russian authorities applauded the work of Yi Yong-ik and encouraged him to continue and increase the issue of such coinage. In March matters had come to such a pass that the foreign representatives, irrespective of partisan lines, met and discussed ways and means for overcoming the difficulty. After careful deliberation they framed a set of recommendations which were sent to the Government. These urged the discontinuance of this nickel coinage, the withdrawal from circulation of spurious coins and stringent laws against counterfeiting. But this was of little or no avail. The Government was making a five cent coin at a cost of less than two cents and consequently the counterfeiters with good tools could make as good a coin as the Government and still realize enormously on the operation. It was impossible to detect the counterfeited coins, in many cases, and so there was no possibility of withdrawing them from circulation. The heavy drop in exchange was not due so much to the counterfeiting as to the fact that the intrinsic value of the coin was nothing like as much as the face value, and by an immutable law of finance as well as of human nature it fell to a ruinous discount. But even this would not have worked havoc with trade if, having fallen, the discredited coinage would stay fallen, but it had the curious trick of rising and falling with such sudden fluctuations that business became a mere gamble, and the heavy interests of Japanese and Chinese merchants were nearly at a standstill.