RUSSIA IN THE EAST

Evening Star, Issue 12094, 15 January 1904, Page 2

RUSSIA IN THE EAST

ALL ABOUT COEEA.

Strictly speaking (saj[3 a writer in 'Harper's Weekly"), Corea is a Chinese colony, planted among Mongolian aborigines. But the planting of the colony is so remote that it goes back before the foundation of Bomi —even before the traditional date of the Trojan War. Nevertheless, the Chinese coloring remains clear and definite to-day, though it is true that the picture has once or twice been renovated by later Chinese conquests. Cqrea inherited from China an alphabet, or, rather, the ideograph system still in use, the religion of ancestor-worship, and the arts and sciences, as known to the ancient Chinese. Ancestor-worship, which fixes the memory in the past, is the most conservative of all forces, and inevitab'tytends to crystallisation, to moral shrinkage, to narrowness, bigotry, and obscurantism. All these causes worked in Corea. Then Corea is in a sense more Chinese than China, because the Manchu conquest, which stirred China up so forcibly in the seventeenth century, and gave it its present dynasty and ruling race, never touched Corea, The Mancnus made the Chinese alter their dress and wear pigtails, in the Tartar fashion. The Coreans preserve the old Chinese fashions unpbanged.

. —The Museum of China.— Thus the Hermit Kingdom is, in a way, the museum of- China. It is also the refuge of all Chine&e abuses'. Ten years ago its government—an absolute monarchy, supported by a privileged aristocracy—was the most backward, obstinate, and obscurantist in x the world. The " lower orders" were treated much as "the Turks treat the Macedonians. The one function of government was extortion, through the farming out of taxable areas, with the descending cascade of bribery which that implies, and the endless misery therefrom inevitably flowing. The "religion" of Corea was something like what we are growing familiar with in this country—a methodised spiritualism, lined by fees. The magicians, astrologers, necromancers, palmists, mind-enrers, did a business almost as good as that testified to by our own Sunday papers, and superstition was rampant Corea was in every way benighted, miserable, weak, and corrupt In 1867 Japan overthrew the Shogunate, liberated the-Mikado from ages of practical bondage, ended the feudal system, and set her feet firmly on the path of constitutionalism and progress. The process of law was made uniform, taxation was based on representation, and the " career open to talent" was preached with conviction and zeaL This was the birth of "the new Japan." And just as the .fathers of this country, fired with their new evangels, looked with pity on the degenerate Old World, and hoped to see the benighted monarchies of Europe enter the path, of democracy, so, no sooner was her own house set in_ order, than Japan began to consider the pitiable plight of her neighbor on the Asian mainland. Something must be done, it was felt, to spread thelight in darkest Corea.

—Japan's First Advance.—

Japan began to strengthen her position, in Corea just as the Powers have recently done in Pekin—by adding to her Embassy guards. She gradually gathered the nucleus of a small army at Seoul, and at the same time her Minister to the Corean Court encouraged the Radical, or pro-Japanese, party, which opposed the Court and all the abuses of the Court. As a result of some of these abuses, insurrections broke out in Southern Corea nine years ago. The Corean soldiers sent to quell" them refused to obey orders, as they strongly sympathised with the insurgents. Then Corea appealed for assistance to China, on the ground of a shadowy suzerainty. Japan at once resented this, as a victory for the pro-Chinese, or extreme Tory, party, and as the Chinese troops were sent in spite of the protest, Japan replied by bringing a considerable number of troops to Chemulpho, the j port of SeouL The Japanese were soon in ! practical occupation of the capital, and ' held the Corean King in a sort of bondage, constantly bringing pressure on him to sign constitutional reforms and various measures of modernity. The Chinese resisted, and the quarrel, soon leading to war between j China and Japan, jhus came to a head. | The Japanese were completely victorious, though the Chinese fought courageously and with much persistence in adversity, and the Japanese armies were presently in occupation of Corea, Southern Manchuria, and Weihaiwei, on the Shantung Peninsula, directly south of Port Arthur. Japan proposed terms of peace which would have fiven her the whole of Manchuria, three undred and sixty thousand square miles in area, the Island of Formosa with the Pascadores group, and a large money, indemnity. China was for compromising by the cession of Southern Manchuria and Formosa and the payment of a.smaller indemnity, when the Powers intervened. Russia, Germany, and France acted together, while England strongly advised Japan to accept the decision of the Powers. This was that Japan should receive a cash payment in lieu of Manchuria; that she should have Forand that the independence and full Tover.\ignty of Corea should be recognised by aU parties. —Japan Losing Ground.— After the treaty of Shimonoseki, the Japanese, although exerting themselves as strenuously as before, began to lose ground at Seoul The Queen, the strongest antagonist of the 'Japanese, was murdered, and the King fled for safety to the Russian Embassy, where he remaned for over a year. The forces of conservatism began gradually to get the upper hand, and it was soon evident that Corea was not te become a modern country within a few months by the fiat of Japan. _ Nevertheless, ttie Japanese hold a position of great strength in Corea. They have nourishing settlements at Seoul, Chemulpho, and Fusan. They hav* telegraphs from the Yalu River to SeouL then to Fusan, and thence a cable to Nagasaki They have concessions to mine gold, anthracite, coal, iron, and other minerals. They have whaling rights in three provinces. All the fisheries are in their hands. They conduct a postal department, carry on twenty schools, and support twenty missionaries of the Buddhist faitk They have carried out large foreshore reclamations at Chemulpho, Mokpho, Kumsanpho, and Massanpho. They own most of the banks, have built a mint, and keep the account of the Corean Treasury. Twelve hundred steamer cargoes of Corean goods go annually to Japan, which sends more than half the total imports of Chemulpho. They are thus graduallY acquiring the whole country, and the contest with Russia arises from the latter's apprehension that her own interests in Corea may thereby be prejudiced.