JAPANNED KOREA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2989, 29 September 1919, Page 2

JAPANNED KOREA.

(By Mr Adam McCay, Editor of the Sydney Sun.)

Visiting this country, the Australian iiHirnalist lias not yet seen Korea. \ istLmg Korea, lie will have a picturesque railway journey, and will stun away in Ins ninid ;i pictorial impression of that country s resources, and its positive material development under Japanese Government. Mr Morrison told ns in Sydney that there could not be two opinions concerning the superior efficiency ol .Japanese control to that of the old Korean princedom. The 'whole world, as lac as I can gather from Ministers and Ambassadors, il ol the same opinion. All. the same an Australian thinks that he does not want to be a Korean living under the government of Japan. in point of 1 act, Japanese publicists to .whom i have spoken peers and commercial magnates —realise that a great international blunder has recently been committed in Korea. It does not matter two straws whether one believes in the h-umanitariaiusm of “Westernised residents of Japan, or whether, like many of the anti-Japanese foreigners living here, one says that oveiy concession to European ideals springs only lcoin motives oi policy., .The fact remains that. Japanese soldiery- in Korea have behaved as British people could not behave, and that hero m this city ui Tokio there are Japanese men who proclaim that punishment is due to the men who have been guilty of the Korean excesses. What follows is printed by ti ’imln who knows nothing about Korea from, Ins own experience, but . who has been given the documents by an acquaintance who came direct from that Japanese colony, and showed the signatures to tho documents. Korea hits been shouting “Mansei,” which is the equivalent of a call ior Home Mule or independence. Everybody- joins in it vivifying clarion like that. Among the eager voices for Korcanism (says my informant) were those of 55 school girls, who wore promptly arrested and taken to tho West Gate Prison in Seoul, to remain there for a fortnight. You may make up your own mind whether the story of a patriotic schoolgirl put into a gaol is wholly reliable. Anyway, hero is the narrative to which one girl subscribed her mime: —-.“I was taken to tho West Gate Prison. There I was stripped naked and looked at by the men. I was. sneered tit and cursed at beyond power to tell.*- After being allowed to dress I was put into a room not very large, with lb others, and so we were packed together. Ihe toilet was placed in the room, like a pigs’ shelter. It was filthy. We were given beans and salt to eat. While eating they called us names:-“ You dogs, yon pigs.” The second day . the Japanese called a police doctor, and several others came. They stripped me naked, and weighed me, and' sneered,* and spat on me, too. They said I should be tried publicly, and I hoped to he able to state my case; but at hist I was let out without trial, and was not even told the nature' of my offence.” However much you may be charmed by the beauties of Japan, you have to admit that womanhood goes bereft of. tho reverence and respect which we Eti- , ropeau-born pay to it. Another girl, a Christian convert of the missionaries, signs her story: “I saw each-girl sent out of tho room naked, carrying her clothes in her arms, and her hair hanging down her back. Then my turn came. I was taken in before the Japanese officer with gold braid and a, Japanese policeman. They, told me to take off my clothes. J refused. They said that I must, as I was a condemned prisoner. At last I took them off, struggling. 1 had to stand undressed tea minutes before the officer. I never looked tit his face.”

1 have not the slightest idea whetbei nakedness is or is not a supreme sliaiiu to the Korean woman.' In their photo graphs some of the Koreans wear ; curious dress, which, covers 1 lit* neck but leaves the breasts bare, in accord aueo with a quaint hygienic theon which says that children are better non risked when the breast of the mothei receives sup and air. in Japan I liavi heard this question of carnal modesty summed up in the epigram: “There i: no country in the world where naked ness is more seen and less noticed. But to return to our Korean school girls, there are a few more sentence; to quote*: “Five girls had to sleep under one quilt infested with vermin They, called vis awful uaines, yml salt we were not virgins. We had to batlu 104 persons in one tub; so dirty wastlu water 1 cannot describe it.” In a thousand ways a visitor lias pleasant feelings towards Japan. Bui Japan dealing with Europe is one tiling and Japan dealing with Asia is another, \“Race equality” is mere talk; one neyd not discuss superiority or inferiority in intellectual capacity; the fact remains that whatever the Germans may have dune among the Herreros iu Africa, the stories •ol Japanese ‘‘repression” in Korea would not bo possible under an Anglo-Saxon Government. In have refrained from sending the photographs of mutilated Korean corpses, which are passing from hand to hand in Japan—pictures which show also a man with his flesh flogged into raw meat. From a pro-Japanese source I learn that it is always, the same picture of the same horror. Let it go at that. Neither have I troubled to record the quite unreliable statistics of the number of persons killed in Korea in order to dismiss the threat to Japan’s security in government. Human life is less precious in Asia than in a community like ours. But, of -the things which I have read, and of which witnesses have come to ine, I believe enough to be certain that Japan has an Asiatic as well as a European mind, and that the Asiatic mind in Japan has not lost the old medieval brutality. One does not believe that this' malignant spirit of cruelty exists among those simple peasants with whom wp, cracked our biscuits and our jokes in the first motoring tour; nor can one think that there is latent savagery in the charming men who are the social diplomats of club life in Tokio. But Japan is still steeped in the dye of feudal government, and to that ensanguined color is added the dye from Germany. Upon Asiatic disregard of life and of suffering has been imposed a callous officialdom. AVLiat is to follow? For me. I have been so captivated by those far-away rustics that I believe tbe Japanese people to he infinitely hotter than their Government and their governing system Any country, when yon come to think of it, would he pretty miserable if it had to be- judged by its politicians and its policemen. In the dear old days

of Japan, not so very long ago, the Samurai cut off the bead of a wandering peasant just because they felt the need of some physical exercise. The “Zaheni incident” in the pre-war Germany was hut a trifle compared with Japan’s aristocratic amusements. There is still prevalent in Ihis country the idea that government is founded upon the two-handed sword. That is why thev shoot the benighted Korean for waving a flag* why the school teachers in “the colonies” wear daggers at thenhips. The notion of the ruling powers has not yet swung awav from the old powers which thrashed and slew. The Japan Advertiser (Tokio') has just printed an ac-nunt of some wicked shooting of which Japanese soldiers were guilty in Korea a few weeks ago. The paper stars the story under big headlines: “Awful Tales of Korean Re-

pre.Si.itm. Eye-witnesses Tell ol' Soldiery Burning Homes ami Shooting Fame-stricken \Yemen.” Among English language newspapers in Japan tinAdvertiser can by .no means ho regarded as anti-Japanese; on the .contrary, it shows a much readier sympathy with Japan than do some other English prints in this country. I know that the Advertiser sifts carefully all its .Korean stories, because I have been within its sanctum when a lurid tale has been estimated, and “tuiftcd do-vn” for »ack of conoboration. What unas just printed is, therefore, all the more .significant and till the more reliable. The narrative relates events in the Korean village ol Ghaiain on April 15. Lite little town contains about Id houses and a f Kristian church. “tbi this date," say the witnesses, “a -lapai ie.se lieutenant with a number oi soldiers appeared in the town, and ordered 2d men into the church, under ine pretence ol giving them a lecture. . . The lieutenant began haranguing the men.” His harangue contained questions regarding the precepts oi e nnsimiuiy, together with criticisms of ihe practice ol Christian milieus, 'the lieutenant must have been a reader ol newspapers, because tins kind oi homily has been in favor with the Japanese Press recently, especially in association with attacks on President Wilson. But the lieutenant showed his disapprobation ol the Christians by sharper means than words. “hinally the lieutenant stepped qut ol the building. 1 here were three sharp comma mis, and the soldiers at the door tired into* the church. Men sitting on the tloor crumpled up and tell over. Additional tragedies happened outside the .church. , The wile ol a man named Kang, who himself had been shot, was looking at her burning home. “Suddenly a soldier came running down the lull at her. She turned and opened her lips to protest, when the soldier swung his sword, and with two blows cut oil her head.” A man named Hong had also been shot. His wile, “finding the town on tiro, ran from her home. As she passed from the village a soldier shot her twice. Her two sons carried her homo, ami she died that night.” Again, “the soldiers entered the village of Acham, about 20 Hi’ west of Chaiam, and burned the town. A woman ran from the raiders. . . . The soldiers followed her tor more than a .mile and shot her. Many a Japanese of high place is “deploring” such outrages as these, but there is no burst of popular indignation. The old Asiatic acquiescence prevails, and it is from America, not Irom within Japan, that the protest in the name of humanity is coming. Very many American missionaries arc in Korea, and through their home Press and their home organisations they are. going to be a powerful international mlluence. Members ol the “Kenseikai. .1 he middle political party of Japan, afterwards approached the Prime Minister (Mr Hara) to ask whether he admitted the truth of what the Japan Advertiser had published, and what actum the Government had taken. Mr Hara answered that he “could hardly recognise as a fact” the whole storyj hut he admitted “more or loss traces ui the story. ’ He added that the officers and men concerned had been punished, the worst offenders prisoned. The Prime Minister’s reticence aijd the secrecy attached to the • “punishment” are characteristic ol bureaucracy. So are the following, question and answer:; —“None oi the Japanese papers litis published an account of these massacres. Is this due to any prohibition from the Government*/” “The authorities might have issued a warning to the newspapers, but no order has been issued such as to prohibit publication,” the Premier replied. It is interesting also to remember that \ iscount Kato is leader of the Keusekai, and that ho has yet U, atone for a bad mistake in his arrogance towards China —and China is Korea’s neighbor. Let us hope that this deputation to Mr Hara was purely humane, not political. But \ iseount Kato is “tough, sir, tough, and devilish sly.” The Korean Declaration ol Independence wits issued at Seoul, signed by JJ representatives of the various religions. The object of this religious classification. which begins. with Prcsby tei huts, then follow Methodists, Roman Catho-

lics, and. last of all, Buddhists, is to show that the movement is not one of any particular church or religion, but ol all Korea. The signers were arrested before the printed handbills containing it were on the streets of Seoul one hour. Following on the declaration ol Ihe National Committee a later issue urged tin' people that- there must he no destruction of property and no violence against (.he life or safety -ol anyone, advising til the. same lime that any Korean who resorted to violence would disgrace liis nation and injure her cause. The declaration went on to say; “To hind by force 21* millions of resent fid Koreans will mean not only loss of peace for ever of this pari, of the Far East, hut will also mean lor the centre

of danger ns well ns safety ihe lUO millions ol Chinn, a suspicion ol Japan, and nn ever-deepening hatred. From this nil the rest of the East will suffer. To-day Korean independence would mean not only life and happiness for us. but also it would mean Japan’s departure from an evil way and exaltation to the place of true protection of the East, so that China, too, even in her dreams, would put all fear of Japan aside. This thought comes from no minor resentment, but from a large hope for the future.” Korea has now appealed to tho world at large, and to the United States in particular, against the Japanese stranglehold on her liberties, and the National Association have drawn up this formidable indictment; — Our richest lands'are rapidly passing under private and Japanese Government ownership. The Korean language lias been abolished from,the public schools, with the substitution of the Japanese. Korean schools are not permitted higher education. The history of a proud Korea is excluded from the schools to make way for .lapanose culture. All Koreans are forced to salute tlit' Japanese flag and to worship the Japanese Emperor’s tablet. Constant and bitter persecution of Christianity in all its activities —both in its distinctive religious activities and in its social and educational work, while official sanction is given to JJuddhist and Shinto propagandists. Japanese are in control of all businesses and industries. Constant inhumane treatment ol any Korean who exhibits outwardly Ins endeavor to remain Korean.