CHAPTER XXXVII

LAST WORDS ON KOREA

The patient reader has now learned with me something of Korean history during the last three years, as well as of the reorganized methods of Government, and the education, trade, and finance of the country. He has also by proxy travelled in the interior, and has lived among the peasant farmers, seeing their industries, the huckstering which passes for trade, something of their domestic life and habits, and the superstitions by which they are enslaved, and has acquired some knowledge of the official and patrician exactions under which they suffer. He has seen the Koreans at home, with their limpness, laziness, dependence, and poverty, and Koreans under Russian rule raised into a thrifty and prosperous population. He can to some extent judge for himself of the prospects of a country which is incapable of standing alone, and which could support double its present population, and of the value of a territory which is possibly coveted by two Powers. Having acted as his guide so far, I should like to conclude with a few words on some of the subjects which have been glanced at in the course of these volumes.

Korea is not _necessarily_ a poor country. Her resources are undeveloped, not exhausted. Her capacities for successful agriculture are scarcely exploited. Her climate is superb, her rainfall abundant, and her soil productive. Her hills and valleys contain coal, iron, copper, lead, and gold. The fisheries along her coast-line of 1,740 miles might be a source of untold wealth. She is inhabited by a hardy and hospitable race, and she has no beggar class.

On the other hand, the energies of her people lie dormant. The upper classes, paralyzed by the most absurd of social obligations, spend their lives in inactivity. To the middle class no careers are open; there are no skilled occupations to which they can turn their energies. The lower classes work no harder than is necessary to keep the wolf from the door, for very sufficient reasons. Even in Seoul, the largest mercantile establishments have hardly risen to the level of shops. Everything in Korea has been on a low, poor, mean level. Class privileges, class and official exactions, a total absence of justice, the insecurity of all earnings, a Government which has carried out the worst traditions on which all unreformed Oriental Governments are based, a class of official robbers steeped in intrigue, a monarch enfeebled by the seclusion of the palace and the pettinesses of the Seraglio, a close alliance with one of the most corrupt of empires, the mutual jealousies of interested foreigners, and an all-pervading and terrorizing superstition have done their best to reduce Korea to that condition of resourcelessness and dreary squalor in which I formed my first impression of her.

Nevertheless the resources are there, in her seas, her soil, and her hardy population.

A great and universal curse in Korea is the habit in which thousands of able-bodied men indulge of hanging, or “sorning,” on relations or friends who are better off than themselves. There is no shame in the transaction, and there is no public opinion to condemn it. A man who has a certain income, however small, has to support many of his own kindred, his wife’s relations, many of his own friends, and the friends of his relatives. This partly explains the rush for Government offices, and their position as marketable commodities. To a man burdened with a horde of hangers-on, the one avenue of escape is official life, which, whether high or low, enables him to provide for them out of the public purse. This accounts for the continual creation of offices, with no other real object than the pensioning of the relatives and friends of the men who rule the country. Above all, this explains the frequency of conspiracies and small revolutions in Korea. Principle is rarely at stake, and no Korean revolutionist intends to risk his life in support of any conviction.

Hundreds of men, strong in health and of average intelligence, are at this moment hanging on for everything, even their tobacco, to high officials in Seoul, eating three meals a day, gossiping and plotting misdeeds, the feeling of honorable independence being unknown. When it is desirable to get rid of them, or it is impossible to keep them longer, offices are created or obtained for them. Hence Government employment is scarcely better than a “free coup” for this class of rubbish. The factious political disturbances which have disgraced Korea for many years have not been conflicts of principle at all, but fights for the Government position which gives its holder the disposal of offices and money. The suspiciousness which prevents high officials from working together is also partly due to the desire of every Minister to get more influence with the King than his colleagues, and so secure more appointments for his relations and friends. The author of the Korean Dictionary states that the word for _work_ in Korean is synonymous with “loss,” “evil,” “misfortune,” and the man who leads an idle life proves his right to a place among the gentry. The strongest claim for office which an official puts forward for a _protégé_ is that he cannot make a living. Such persons when appointed do little, and often nothing, except draw their salaries and “squeeze” where they can!

I have repeated almost _ad nauseam_ that the cultivator of the soil is the _ultimate sponge_. The farmers work harder than any other class, and could easily double the production of the land, their methods, though somewhat primitive, being fairly well adapted to the soil and climate. But having no security for their gains, they are content to produce only what will feed and clothe their families, and are afraid to build better houses or to dress respectably. There are innumerable peasant farmers who have gone on reducing their acreage of culture year by year, owing to the exactions and forced loans of magistrates and _yang-bans_, and who now only raise what will enable them to procure three meals a day. It is not wonderful that classes whose manifest destiny is to be squeezed, should have sunk down to a dead level of indifference, inertia, apathy, and listlessness.

In spite of reforms, the Korean nation still consists of but two classes, the Robbers and the Robbed,--the official class recruited from the _yang-bans_, the licensed vampires of the country, and the _Ha-in_, literally “low men,” a residuum of fully four-fifths of the population, whose _raison d’être_ is to supply the blood for the vampires to suck.

Out of such unpromising materials the new nation has to be constructed, by education, by protecting the producing classes, by punishing dishonest officials, and by the imposition of a labor test in all Government offices, _i.e._ by paying only for work actually done.

That reforms are not hopeless, if carried out under firm and capable foreign supervision, is shown by what has been accomplished in the Treasury Department in one year. No Korean office was in a more chaotic and corrupt condition, and the ramifications of its corruption were spread all through the Provinces. Much was hoped when Mr. M’Leavy Brown accepted the thankless position of Financial Adviser, from his known force of character and remarkable financial capacity, but no one would have ventured to predict what has actually occurred.

Although his efforts at financial reform have been thwarted at every turn, not alone by the rapacity of the King’s male and female favorites, and the measureless cunning and craft of corrupt officials, who incite the Sovereign to actions concerning money which are subversive of the fairest schemes of financial rectitude, but by chicane, fraud, and corruption in every department; by the absence of trustworthy subordinates; by infamous traditional customs; and the fact that every man in office, and every man hoping for office, is pledged by his personal interest to oppose every effort at reform actively or passively, Korean finance stands thus at the close of 1897.

In a few months the Augean stable of the Treasury Department in Seoul has been cleansed; the accounts are kept on a uniform system, and with the utmost exactitude; “value received” precedes payments for work; an army of drones, hanging on to all departments and subsisting on public money, has been disbanded; a partial estimate has been formed of the revenue which the Provinces ought to produce; superfluous officials unworthily appointed find that their salaries are not forthcoming; every man entitled to receive payment is paid at the end of every month; nothing is in arrears; great public improvements are carried out with a careful supervision which ensures rigid economy; the accounts of every Department undergo strict scrutiny; no detail is thought unworthy of attention, and instead of Korea being bankrupt, as both her friends and enemies supposed she would be in July, 1896, she closed the financial year in April, 1897, with every account paid and a million and a half in the Treasury, out of which she has repaid one million of the Japanese loan of three millions. If foreign advisers of similar calibre and capacity were attached to all the departments of State similar results might in time be obtained.

One thing is certain, that the war and the period of the energetic ascendency of Japan have given Korea so rude a shake, and have so thoroughly discredited various customs and institutions previously venerated for their antiquity, that no retrograde movements, such as have been to some extent in progress in 1897, can replace her in the old grooves.

Seoul is Korea for most practical purposes, and the working of the Western leaven, the new impulses and modes of thought introduced by Western education, the inevitable contact with foreigners, and the influence of a free Press are through Seoul slowly affecting the nation. Under the shadow of Chinese suzerainty the Korean _yang-ban_ enjoyed practically unlimited opportunities for the extortions and tyrannies which were the atmosphere of patrician life. Japan introduced a new theory on this subject, and practically gave the masses to understand that they possess rights which the classes are bound to respect, and the Press takes the same line.

It is slowly dawning upon the Korean peasant farmer through the medium of Japanese and Western teaching, that to be an ultimate sponge is not his inevitable destiny, that he is entitled to civil rights, equality before the eye of the law, and protection for his earnings.

The more important of the changes during the last three years which are beneficial to Korea may be summarized thus: The connection with China is at an end, and with the victories of Japan the Korean belief in the unconquerable military power of the Middle Kingdom has been exploded, and the alliance between two political systems essentially corrupt has been severed. The distinction between patrician and plebeian has been abolished, on paper at least, along with domestic slavery, and the disabilities which rendered the sons of concubines ineligible for high office. Brutal punishments and torture are done away with, a convenient coinage has replaced _cash_, an improved educational system has been launched, a disciplined army and police force has been created, the Chinese literary examinations are no longer the test of fitness for official employment, a small measure of judicial reform has been granted, a railroad from Chemulpo to the capital is being rapidly pushed to completion, the pressure of the Trades Guilds is relaxed, a postal system efficiently worked and commanding confidence has been introduced into all the Provinces, the finances of the country are being placed on a sound basis, the change from a land-tax paid in kind to one which is an assessment in money on the value of the land greatly diminishes the opportunities for official “squeezing,” and large and judicious retrenchments have been carried out in most of the metropolitan and provincial departments.

Nevertheless, the Government _Gazette_ of the 12th of August, 1897, contains the following Royal Edicts:--

I

We have been looking into the condition of the country. We have realized the imminent danger which threatens the maintenance of the nation. But the people of both high and low classes do not seem to mind the coming calamity and act indifferently. Under the circumstances the country cannot prosper. We are depending upon Our Ministers for their advice and help, but they do not respond to our trust. How are we going to bring the nation out of its chaotic condition? We desire them to pause and to think that they cannot enjoy their homes unless the integrity of the nation is preserved. We confess that We have not performed our part properly, but Our Ministers and other officials ought to have advised Us to refrain from wrongdoing as their ancestors had done to Our forefathers. We will endeavor to do what is right and proper for our country hereafter, and We trust Our subjects will renew their loyalty and patriotism in helping Us to carry out Our aim. Our hope is that every citizen in the land will consider the country’s interest first before thinking of his private affairs. Let Us all join Our hearts to preserve the integrity of Our country.

II

The welfare of Our people is our constant thought. We realize that since last year’s disturbance Our people have been suffering greatly on account of lack of peace and order. The dead suffers as much as the living, but the Government has not done anything to ameliorate the existing condition. This thought makes Us worry to such an extent that the affluence by which We are surrounded is rather uncomfortable. If this fact is known to Our provincial officials they will do their best to ameliorate the condition of the people. Compulsory collection of unjust taxes and thousands of lawless officials and Government agents rob the helpless masses upon one pretence or another. Why do they treat Our people so cruelly? We hereby order the provincial officials to look into the various items of illegal taxes now being collected, and abolish them all without reservation. Whoever does not heed this edict will be punished according to the law.[60]

Though the Koreans of to-day are the product of centuries of disadvantages, yet after nearly a year spent in the country, during which I made its people my chief study, I am by no means hopeless of their future, in spite of the distinctly retrograde movements of 1897. Two things, however, are essential.

I. As Korea is incapable of reforming herself from within, that she must be reformed from without.

II. That the power of the Sovereign must be placed under stringent and permanent constitutional checks.

Hitherto I have written exclusively on Korean internal affairs, her actual condition, and the prospects of the social and commercial advancement of the people. I conclude with a few remarks on the political possibilities of the Korean future, and the relations of Korea with certain other powers.

The geographical position of Korea, with a frontier conterminous with those of China and Russia, and divided from Japan by only a narrow sea, has done much to determine her political relationships. The ascendency of China grew naturally out of territorial connection, and its duration for many centuries was at once the cause and effect of a community in philosophy, customs, and to a great extent in language and religion. But Chinese control is at an end, and China can scarcely be regarded as a factor in the Korean situation.

Japan having skilfully asserted her claim to an equality of rights in Korea, after several diplomatic triumphs and marked success in obtaining fiscal and commercial ascendency, eventually, by the overthrow of her rival in the late war, secured political ascendency likewise; and the long strife between the two empires, of which Korea had been the unhappy stage, came to an end.

The nominal reason for the war, to which the Japanese Government has been careful to adhere, was the absolute necessity for the reform of the internal administration of a State too near the shores of Japan to be suffered to sink annually deeper into an abyss of misgovernment and ruin. It is needless to speculate upon the ultimate object which Japan had in view in undertaking this unusual task. It is enough to say that she entered upon it with great energy; and that, while the suggestions she enforced introduced a new _régime_, struck at the heart of privilege and prerogative, revolutionized social order, and reduced the Sovereign to the position of a “salaried automaton,” the remarkable ability with which her demands were formulated gave them the appearance of simple and natural administrative reforms.

I believe that Japan was thoroughly honest in her efforts; and though she lacked experience, and was ofttimes rough and tactless, and aroused hostile feeling needlessly, that she had no intention to subjugate, but rather to play the _rôle_ of the protector of Korea and the guarantor of her independence.

For more than a year, in spite of certain mistakes, she made fair headway, accomplished some useful and important reforms, and initiated others; and it is only just to her to repeat that those which are now being carried out are on the lines which she laid down. Then came Viscount Miura’s savage _coup_, which discredited Japan and her diplomacy in the eyes of the civilized world. This was followed by the withdrawal of her garrisons, and of her numerous advisers, controllers, and drill instructors, and the substitution of an apparently _laissez-faire_ policy for an active dictatorship. I write “apparently,” because it cannot for a moment be supposed that this sagacious and ambitious Empire recognized the unfortunate circumstances in Korea as a finality, and retired in despair!

The landing of Japanese armies in Korea, and the subsequent declaration of war with China, while they gave the world the shock of a surprise, were, as I endeavored to point out briefly in