RUSSIAN INFLUENCE IN COREA.

Evening Star, Issue 10339, 12 June 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

RUSSIAN INFLUENCE IN COREA.

» [By Mes Bishop in the 'St. James's Gajuhte.'] America, Russia, and Japan are represented at Seoul fay Ministers; France by a ; Charge 1 d'Affaires; Germany by a Consuli and England by a Consul-GeneraL who really baa no position, the British Minister at Peking being accredited =1 •> 10 the Corean Court. This dubious and hazy diplomatic relationship with England produces on the Coreans the doable impression el * indifference and feeblen.'w; and now, in * case of diffionlty, the King is absolutely certain not to seek for suggestions from toe British representative. Since January, < 1895, when Corea formally renounced the suzerainty of China, tie King has regarded it as a singular anorcily that be can only communicate with Ejgian i through Peking; and representations, more or less formal, have been made to our Foreign Office on toe subject. These failing of success, the King, in three interviews which I have had with him, has set forth very chaily the disadvantages of the preseLt n.ode of representation and bis claitis a3 an independent Sovereign to a resident Minis-' ter, and both begged and urged me to "bring them before Her Majesty Queen Victoria and the Foreign Secretary " ! The interpreter added: "His Majesty is very anxious on this point." I think that there can be no donbt that, if it be desirable to impress the Coreans with the fact that Eagland continues to be one of the Great Powers, it could be done by the appointment of a Minister, with a Legation guard of ten marines as a representation of force which the common people could understand. It places England in an inferior position in the eyes of all when her Legation gate is kept by an old Corean porter, by no means clean, lodged in a reed beehive or enlarged dog kennel; while the Japanese Legation has a guard of 200 soldiers, and the Russians eighty marines and a piece of artillery. There is no saying to what extent even British trade interests might suffer were it not that British influence,' in Corean eyes, is represented, albeit unofficially, by the fact that the Chief Commissioner of Customs—a man of singular force and capacity—is an Englishman.

Of the growing influence of Russia I hesitate to write at length. The King has now been in the Russian Legation for nearly a year, enjoying a sense of security to which he has long been a stranger, and he will only move to the new palace, for which he has abandoned the stately Eastern and Western Palaces, with their grim associations of assassination and practical imprisonment, when the Russian officers and drill-instructors have created a bodyguard on which, under their auspice?, he can rely for bis personal safety. __ It is generally supposed abroad that the King, being under tremendous obligations for safety and hospitality to Hr Waeber, the Russian Minister, is his submissive tool, but this is very far from being the case, and the great regret prevailing in the foreign community at Seoul, and which is evidently shared by some at least of the foreign representatives, is that Mr Waeber makes so little use of his influence. His attitude, as representing that of Russia, is at present a standing enigma. It is by no means obvious that Russian patronage has replaced Japanese control with any advantage to Corea. Mr Waeber's attitude seems opposed to the drastic; reforms which are necessary, and some of these attempted by the Japanese during their ascendency have been suffered to lapse. O'.d abuses are cropping op vigorously. Ministers and other favorites sell offices unblashingly, and specific charges of receiving bii'aes to a large amount have been made against one ot the King's chief favorite?, the Russian interpreter; but the formal demand for his prosecution has just been met by making him Vice-Minister of Education ! The Sovereign, whose Civil list is ample, appropriates public moneys for his own purposes, has succeeded by arbitrary meaDS in extorting an oppressive increase of Excise duty from the ginseng growers, and through his agents has intercepted revenue on it 8 way to the Treasury. Weak almost to childishness as a ruler, the King i 3 capable of infinite mischief; and I see no chance of good government for Corea uoless he and the Crown Prince can be pensioned oft or subjected to stringent constitutional restraints. He throws people into prison without reason, makes some of the worst of the canaille Ministers of State ; and soma of his recent appointments have been so infamous—such as making a convicted criminal, a man whose life had been ooe career of crime, Minister of Jnstioe—that one is inclined at times to doubt whether he is master of his actions. Consequent upon the surreptitious sale of ofh'ces, the appointment of men to office for a few days to give them "rank" or to enable them to find places for a host of impecunious relations and friends, aad the habit of resigning when the smallest criticism is made, the Administration is in a state of perpetual chaos; the weak and vacillating Sovereign absolutely without an idea of governing, the sport of favorites, usually unworthy, who work on his kindly and amiable feelings, the prey of greedy parasites, and occasionally the tool of foreigh adventurers paralyses all good government by destroying the very elements of permanence, and renders financial reform and economy all but impossible by weakly consenting to schemes of foolish extravagance urged on him by i .terested schemers, the latest being to send a costly peripatetic embassy to the Courts of Europe. Never haß the king mide greater havoc of reigning than since he regained his freedom under the roof of the Russian Embassy.