This theme of the community of interest may further be elaborated. Korea and Manchuria may with profit remain open, not only for the trade, but also for the emigration and industrial enterprise, of the Japanese people. Since 1902 no passports have been required for travelers from Japan to Korea, whither, in spite of the occasional obstacles placed in their way by Korean officials, the emigrants have proceeded, now for years, in increasing numbers, until there resided in 1903 nearly thirty thousand Japanese in the Peninsula.[[39]] It takes only thirteen hours on sea from Bakan in Japan to Fusan in Korea, and the cost is even less than that of sailing to the Japanese colony of Formosa, the former being fifteen yen and the latter twenty. It seems easier to go from Bakan to Fusan than it is from Osaka to the Hokkaidō within Japan proper.[[40]] The expense of living in Korea is also as low as one third the corresponding figure in Japan, a monthly income of ten or thirteen yen being considered sufficient to support a family of three persons in a rented house.[[41]] It is not strange, under these conditions, that the Japanese migrate to Korea, not always singly, like the Chinese, but often in families,[[42]] so that their settlements assume there a normal and permanent character unseen even in Japan’s own island of Formosa. Nor are all these colonists mere laborers like their brethren in Manchuria and the Hawaiian Islands, but many are independent men of business. They also naturally manifest a stronger sense of kinship and coöperation in Korea than the merchants and capitalists do in Japan. In several Korean towns these Japanese settlers have established their own municipalities, with modern improvements, chambers of commerce, police, and public schools, all of which compare favorably with those of the larger cities in Japan, and the advantages of which are enjoyed by native Koreans and resident Chinese. It is said that in some places the influx of the Japanese and their investments have caused a rise in the price of land and house rent.[[43]] In Fusan, the port nearest to Japan, the 10,000 Japanese who live there own large tracts of land and occupy the main sections of the city. Here and everywhere else the Japanese colonists seem to hold a position similar to that of the foreigners living in the so-called settlements in the larger treaty ports of China. Tourists are wont to contrast the clean and well-ordered streets and the general energetic appearance of the Japanese quarters in Korean cities with the comparatively filthy and slothful Korean quarters. The branches of the First Bank of Japan have been issuing recently one-, five-, and ten-yen bank-notes,[[44]] which have been of immense value to the foreign trade in Korea, the native currency of which is in a deplorable condition.[[45]] The coasting and river navigation, so far as it concerns foreign trade, is largely controlled by the Japanese, who, besides, own the only railway line in operation in Korea, twenty-six miles long, running between the capital, Seul, and its port Chemulpo.[[46]] They are also building,[[47]] under the management of substantially the same company, another and longer line—two hundred and eighty-seven miles—between Seul and the port of Fusan, which passes through the richer and economically by far the more important half of the Peninsula.[[48]] It is not impossible to suppose that the Japanese people will succeed in their efforts to secure the right of extending this line beyond Seul up to Wiju on the northern border,[[49]] and thence ultimately connecting it with the Eastern Chinese and the Peking-Shanghaikwan-Sinminting Railways, so as to render the connection by rail between Fusan and China and Europe complete.[[50]] The Mitsui Produce Company, another Japanese concern, monopolized the export of Korean ginseng, and, in 1903, despite the competition of the Russian Baron Gunzburg,[[51]] succeeded in extending the term of the monopoly for five years. Twenty to forty thousand Japanese fishermen along the Korean coast report an annual catch amounting sometimes to large figures.
No part of Korea’s economic life, however, would seem to be of greater importance to her own future, or to depend more closely upon the enterprise of the Japanese settlers, than her agriculture. If it is remembered that nearly all her exports consist of agricultural products, and also that they largely supply the needs of Japan, we can readily comprehend the great community of interest felt by both countries in the agriculture of the Peninsula. It is remarkable to note, to take a single instance, that the production of cereals and beans (respectively about eight and four million koku) in Korea has grown to its present dimensions largely owing to the stimulus given to it by the increased demand for these articles in Japan.[[52]] We shall presently note also that, owing to the peculiar circumstances prevailing in Korea, her purchasing power and general commercial activity are so completely ruled by the conditions of her weather and crops as is seldom the case with other agricultural nations. The Koreans are comparatively happy in good years, while in bad years they are reduced to great miseries and bandits infest all parts of the country. Upon the state of her agriculture, then, must depend the trade conditions of Korea, as well as most of her material strength and much of that of Japan. From this it is plain that the profound community of interest of the two nations calls for both the extension and the improvement of the agriculture of Korea. It is estimated that the extent of her land under cultivation is hardly more than 3,185,000 acres, or about 6.3 per cent. of the 82,000 square miles known as the total area of the country,[[53]] and that there exist at least 3,500,000 more acres of arable land, which would be fully capable of sustaining five or six millions of new population, and of increasing the annual crops of the land by not less than 150,000,000 yen.[[54]] Unfortunately, however, the Koreans lack energy to cultivate those three and a half million acres of waste land. For it is well known that the irregular but exhaustive exactions of the Korean officials have bred a conviction in the mind of the peasant that it is unwise to bestir himself and earn surplus wealth only to be fleeced by the officials. His idleness has now for centuries been forced, until it has become an agreeable habit. It is in this state of things that is has often been suggested that the cultivation of the waste lands may most naturally be begun by the superior energy of the Japanese settlers.[[55]] Not less important than the cultivation of new land is the improvement of old land in Korea, where the art of husbandry is far less advanced than in either China or Japan. Lots are marked out carelessly, improvements are crude, and the manure most universally used is dried grass. The great rivers with all their numerous ramifications are hardly utilized for the purpose of irrigation, and the forests have been mercilessly denuded for fuel and in order to forestall the requisition of the government,—which formerly used to order without compensation the cutting and transporting of trees by their owners,—so that a slight drought or excess of rain works frightful disasters upon agriculture. Another serious effect of the absence of a good system of irrigation is the comparative want of rice land, which always requires a most careful use of water.[[56]] These conditions are all the more to be regretted, when it is seen that the soil is generally fair and the climate favorable. The cultivation of rice is said to have been first taught by the Japanese invaders toward the end of the sixteenth century, and yet, with all their primitive method, the Koreans are already exporting rice to the value of four million yen or more. Sericulture is still in its infancy, while tea, cotton, hemp, sugar, and various fruits are all declared to be tolerably well suited to the soil. The Japanese farmer finds here, particularly in the south, a climate and general surroundings very similar to his own, and otherwise eminently agreeable to his habits, and, along with the application of his superior methods of cultivation, irrigation, and forestry, the common interests of his country and Korea are bound to develop with great rapidity. The progress of agriculture would also gradually lead the Koreans into the beginnings of an industrial life, while the expanding systems of railways and banking would be at once cause and effect of the industrial growth of the nation. Another inevitable result would be the development of the economic sense and the saving capacity of the Korean, the latter of which has had little opportunity to grow, not so much because of his small wage and high rent and interest, as because of the onerous, irregular local dues and the systematic exactions in various forms by the official.[[57]] An advanced economic life, itself necessitating a reform of the official organization, would at least make it possible for the peasant to work, earn, and save. Simultaneously and in increasing degree would his wants, as well as his purchasing power, increase. Around the progress of Korea’s agriculture, then, must be built all other measures of her growth and power, as, for instance, transportation, industries, trade and commerce, finance, political reform, and military strength. In no other way can we conceive of the possibility of her effective independence, the cause of which has cost Japan, and is now costing her, so dearly. In no other light can we interpret the Korean sovereignty under the assistance of Japan.
In regard to Manchuria, where the chances for development are far vaster, the Japanese people do not possess there as large vested interests, but entertain as great expectations for its future settlement and industry as in Korea. It was estimated before the present war that there resided more than ten thousand Japanese in Manchuria, who were either under the employment of Russian authorities in public works along the railway, or engaged in such small occupations as laundry work, carpentry, restaurant-keeping, photographing, and hair-dressing,[[58]] while many of the Japanese women, whose numbers in many a town preponderated over those of men, had been allured by unscrupulous parties, who consigned them to disreputable occupations. Merchants and business men of greater capital and resources would be, as they often have been, attracted to Manchuria, were it not for the exclusive, and in the hands of some of their officials, arbitrary, measures of the Russians.[[59]] Under normal conditions of peace and “open door,” the immensely greater resources of Manchuria and the much greater productiveness of its people[[60]] would seem to promise even a more important economic future than in Korea.
In summing up our preceding discussion, it may be stated that the natural growth or unnatural decay of the Japanese nation will greatly depend—ever more greatly than it now does—upon whether Manchuria and Korea remain open or are closed to its trade, colonization, and economic enterprise; and that, in her imperative desire for the open door, Japan’s wish largely coincides with that of the European and American countries, except Russia, whose over-production calls for an open market in the East.
Thus far we have discussed only Japan’s side of the economic problem in Manchuria and Korea. Passing to Russia’s side, it is seen that her vested interests in Manchuria are as enormous as her commercial success there has been small. The building of the Eastern Chinese Railway has cost the incredible sum of 270,000,000 rubles, making the average cost per verst more than 113,000 rubles,[[61]] or over $87,000 per mile, besides 70,000,000 rubles lost and expended during the Boxer outrages and Manchuria campaign of 1900,[[62]] to say nothing of the normal annual cost of guarding the railway by soldiers, estimated at 24,000,000 rubles.[[63]] The investments in permanent properties alone, besides the railway, are moderately valued at 500,000,000 rubles.[[64]] In return for these heavy outlays, the trade relations between Russia and Manchuria have been most disappointing. Though it is not possible to obtain the exact figures of the actual trade between Manchuria and European Russia, we can establish approximate estimates in the following manner. According to official returns, exports from Russia to her Far Eastern Possessions were as follows:—
| 1900 | 56,000,000 | rubles |
| 1901 | 51,000,000 | |
| 1902 | 38,000,000 |
The decline must be largely due to the decreased demand for military and railway supplies, for it is seen that the falling-off has been most conspicuous in iron and steel wares and machinery.[[65]] At the same time there was little or no import trade from the Russian possessions in the East into Russia, for the native products sent out from the former never passed beyond Eastern Siberia. It would be interesting if we could find out how much of these Russian exports went to Manchuria. The figures for the Pacific ports are given as follows:[[66]]—
| 1900 | 51,157,000 | rubles |
| 1901 | 49,827,000 | |
| 1902 | 37,704,000 |
If these figures are reliable, the difference between them and those given above, namely:—
| 1900 | less than | 5,000,000 | rubles |
| 1901 | more than | 1,000,000 | |
| 1902 | less than | 300,000 |