In addition to the trade of the three ports open to Foreign Trade in 1896, to which the returns given refer exclusively, there is that carried on by the non-treaty ports, and on the Chinese and Russian frontiers.
In concluding this brief notice of the Foreign Trade of Korea, I may remark that Japanese competition, so far as it consists in the ability to undersell us owing to cheaper labor, is likely to diminish year by year, as the conditions under which goods can be manufactured gradually approximate to those which exist in England; the rapidly increasing price of the necessaries of life in Japan, the demand for more than “a living wage,” and an appreciation of the advantages of combination all tending in this direction.
On the subject of Finance there is little to be said. The principal items of revenue are a land tax of six dollars on a fertile kyel, and five dollars on a mountain kyel, a house tax of 60 cents annually, from which houses in the capital are exempt, the ginseng tax, and the gold dues, making up a budget of about 4,000,000 dollars, a sum amply sufficient for the legitimate expenditure of the country. The land tax is extremely light. Only about a third of the revenue actually collected reaches the National Treasury, partly owing to the infinite corruption of the officials through whose hands it passes, and partly because provincial income and expenditure are to a certain extent left to local management. If the Government is in earnest in the all-important matter of educating the people, the increased expenditure can readily be met by imposing taxation on such articles of luxury as wine and tobacco, which are enormously consumed, Seoul alone possessing 475 wine shops and 1,100 tobacco shops. But even without resorting to any new source of revenue, with strict supervision and regular accounts the income of the Central Government is capable of considerable expansion.
In spite of the awful official corruption which has been revealed, and the chaos which up to 1896 prevailed in the Treasury, the Korean financial outlook is a hopeful one. At the close of 1895 the King persuaded Mr. M’Leavy Brown, LL.D., the Chief Commissioner of Customs, to undertake the thankless office of Adviser to the Treasury, confirming his position some months later by the issue of an edict making his signature essential to all orders for payments out of the national purse. Korean imagination and ingenuity are chiefly fertile in devising tricks and devices for getting hold of public money, and anything more hydra-headed than the dishonesty of Korean official life cannot be found, so that it is not surprising that as soon as the foreign adviser blocks one nefarious proceeding another is sprung upon him, and that the army of useless drones, deprived of their “vested interests” by the judicious retrenchments which have been made, as well as thousands who are trembling for their ill-gotten gains, should oppose financial reform by every device of Oriental ingenuity.
However, race, as represented by the honor and capacity of one European, is carrying the day, and Korean Finance is gradually being placed on a sound basis. With careful management, judicious retrenchments of expenditure, the reduction of the chaos in the Treasury to an orderly system of accounts, and a different method of collecting the land tax, which is now being remitted with tolerable regularity to the Treasury, an actual financial equilibrium was established and maintained during the year 1896, which closed with a considerable surplus, and in April, 1897, one million dollars of the Japanese loan of three millions was repaid to Japan, and there is every prospect that the remaining indebtedness might be paid off out of income in 1899, leaving Korea in the proud position of a country without a national debt, and with a surplus of income over expenditure!
The prosperous financial conclusion of 1896 is all the more remarkable because of certain exceptional expenditures. Two new regiments were added to the army, the old Arsenal, a disused costly toy, was put into working order, with all necessary modern improvements, under the supervision of a Russian machinist, the Kyeng-wun Palace was built, costly ceremonies and works connected with the late Queen’s prospective funeral were paid for, and a considerable area of western Seoul was recreated. All civil Government employés (and they are legion), as well as soldiers and police, are paid regularly every month, and sinecures are very slowly disappearing.
A Korean silver, copper, and brass coinage, convenient as well as ornamental, is coming into general circulation, and as it gradually displaces cash, is setting trade free from at least one of the conditions which hampered it, and increased banking facilities are tending in the same direction.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] For detailed statistics of Korean Foreign Trade, see [Appendix C].
[49] This seems incredible, and compels one to suppose that £ is a misprint for $.