One good result of this great victory is that the state of harrowing uncertainty in which the more conservative officials of Korea were plunged has been cleared up. They know now definitely who their masters are to be and they can prepare as best they may to accept the inevitable with good grace.
There are so many rumors circulating that one can hardly put confidence in the statement of any proposed reform in Korea until after the actual event, but we hope that there is more than the ordinary amount of truth in the report that Japanese police are to be stationed in each of the prefectures of Korea. If this means a court of appeal to which Koreans can bring cases of ill treatment with some hope of redress, a very important step in advance will have been taken. Whatever happens to the official ranks of Korea, we protest that the common people should be left unmolested and that their personal liberty and their property rights should not only not be impaired but, under the influence of the more enlightened power of Japan, they should be more carefully preserved than they ever have been under purely native control. American sympathy for Japan is based upon the belief that Japan stands for the “square deal,” and Americans believe the justice of Japan’s contention in this present war is based upon Russia’s departure from this principle. Whatever America’s good will may or may not mean to Japan, it will be lost if in the flush of victory the latter should take undue advantage of their power to despoil the Korean people of their territory either by seizure or by forced sale. Such acts have been going on all about us, but it is the hope of Japan’s well-wishers that the Japanese authorities will repudiate such actions and put themselves on record as being unalterably determined to give the common people of this country a “square deal.”
The appearance on June 3rd of the first number of the weekly Seoul Press is a matter on which foreign residents in Seoul and every other portion of Korea should be congratulated. It is published by the firm known as the Seoul Press of which Mr. J. W. Hodge is the manager. No intimation is given in the first number as to the personnel of the management of this weekly but we are pleased to learn from the editorial column that “Our little paper will be run on a strictly honest and independent basis, and will be the tool of no particular party, but maintain itself on sound journalistic lines and principles.” The editor invites all who are of a literary turn of mind to make use of his columns and to endeavor to make the paper a success. We trust that our new contemporary will not be disappointed in his plan and that he will have the hearty support of the reading, the writing and the advertising portions of our foreign community.
We feel sure that this publication will meet a very decided need in our community and the fact that it is not a party organ nor committed to any faction makes it doubly valuable. We shall expect to see facts published, whoever may be pleased or displeased thereby. Almost all the news that foreign papers in Japan get about Korea is taken from the reports in native papers, from Japanese reporters in Korea. They thus get but one side of the story. The world wants to know what is being done in Korea not mere statements of plans and theories. Every effort which the Japanese authorities or private citizens put forth for the benefit of the Korean people should be clearly and fully stated and full acknowledgement should be made, and if there are evils which need to be remedied they should be, in a kindly way, brought to the notice of the public so that an intelligent opinion can be formed as to the exact situation here. Public opinion is a mighty agency either for good or ill, but the only way it can be legitimately used is by feeding it upon cold, hard facts. That is what makes the difference between public opinion in England, and in Russia. So we hope that this new periodical will hunt assiduously for facts, and give them to us. We would rather have one column of facts about Korea than ten columns of clippings from abroad. For this reason we are pleased to see that the management of the Seoul Press intends to increase gradually its staff of reporters and correspondents throughout the peninsula.
We wish this journalistic venture all success. The past ten years of Korean history are strewn with wrecks of similar ventures but we trust the time has now come when something permanent can be undertaken; and when in about 1970 the citizens of Seoul look over the back files of the Seoul Press, which will then be in its sixty-fifth year, they will say with pride “This is the first genuine foreign newspaper in Korea.”
News Calendar.
The Home Department has written to all the provinces to the effect that many of the laws are being disobeyed and people without means of livelihood are wandering about the country accompanying powerful Koreans or foreigners and tempting young people to sell or pawn their rice fields or other property, generally in secret and then spend the proceeds in riotous living. These debts have finally been collected of parents or brothers by force, and these innocent parties complain that their property is taken from them without cause. It is a shameful state of affairs, and hereafter a father will not be compelled to pay the debts of his son, and the son cannot sell the fields of his father. Any one charged with this offence in future will be severely punished and the governors are asked to notify all the magistrates.