JAPAN'S MISTAKE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 249, 17 October 1908, Page 4

JAPAN'S MISTAKE.

The rumour of serious complications between China and Japan over Korea is the natural sequel of the policy of aggression and spoliation that Japan has been pursuing ever since the war closed in the "Land of the Morning Calm." Korea has always been regarded by Japan as a legitimate object of her am- ! bition for territorial expansion. She needs scope for the overflow of her own tueming population, and she has always j cherished a sort of traditional claim j upon Korea. But in every treaty that '■ she has made with Korea or with other ' Powers about Korea, during the j past ten years she has guaranteed the I "territorial integrity and independence" ■ of the Hermit nation. In the protocol of ; 1398, defining her attitude toward Korea, in the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of i 3902, in the Imperial rescript with which . the Mikado opened the war in 1904, in i the treaty between Korea and Japan ' signed in 1904, Japan specifically undertook to leave Korea free and independent And territorially intact. In the Peace of Portsmouth, which closed the great war, and in the renewed Anglo-Japanese Alliance, also signed in 1905, England and Russia admit that Japan possesses "paramount political, military and economic interests" in Korea; but these conventions, like all , those thai; preceded them, declare clearly and emphatically that Japan will maintain the policy of the "Open- Door," and that she will not attempt to secure special commercial advantages for herself in Korea at the expense of other foreign nations. But it is not too much to say I that Japan has broken her pledged word to Korea and the Powers in all important particulars. Three months after the Peace of Portsmouth and the new Anglo-Japanese Alliance had been signed,! Japan forced the Emperor of Korea to : accept a treaty which practically trans-1 ferred the complete political and adminis- I trative control of the country to the Mikado and his Ministers. The evidence of such disinterested authorities as V. A. Mackenzie, Douglas Story, and Putnam Weale proves conclusively that this agreement was extracted by deliberate coercion, that the Korean people resisted it desperately, and that their Emperor gave way only to compulsion and terrorism, and subsequently repudiated the whole treaty. This is bad enough in j all conscience; but worse remains. For Japan, in her resolve to bend Korea' to her will, has treated the Koreans with extreme severity and in justice. She has despoiled and plundered thorn, and has put down any attempt at reusistancn with the utmost vigour. The murder of the Korean Queen 13 years ago for daring to resist the encroachments of Japan has been the prelude for many other crimes, if not authorised at least connived at by the Japanese. At the .same time Japan has made every possible effort to shut the "Open Door" and to reserve for herself an absolute ' monopoly of Korea's internal and foreign trade. It is regrettable that such a! conviction should be forced upon the eivi- j lised world, which, so far as England and her colonies are concerned, has always striven to do Japan justice and to believe in her protestations of disinterestedness. But the evidence compiled in such works as Weale's "Truce in the East and Its Aftermath" and "The Coming Struggle in the Far East," Mackenzie's "Tragedy of Korea," and Story's "Tomorrow ia the East" is irresistible in its cumulative force, and even the best friends of Japan are reluctantly driven to admit that she hns disappointed the high hopes that the West once formed of her integrity and honour by her conduct in Korea.