CONTROL OF COREA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13780, 19 June 1908, Page 5

CONTROL OF COREA.

EDITOR TRIED FOR SEDITION. By Telegraph Association.—Copyright. London, June 17. A Court, nominated by the British Privy Council, is trying Mr. Bethell, the editor of a newspaper published in Seoul, the C'orean capital, on a charge of creating seditious disturbances in Corea. The Japanese Resident Governor is prosecuting. The defence contends that Japan does not control Corea. A treaty between Corea and Japan, signed at Seoul on November 17, 1905, provided that Japan, through the ' Department of Foreign Affairs at Tokio, should control and t direct the external relations and affairs of Corea ; that Japan should be represented at the Court of the"Emperor of Corea by a Resident-General, and should have the right to station Residents at the several open ports and other such places in Corea as it .might jdeem necessary. Writing recently from Yokohama, a correspondent remarked: —" There is no blinking the fact that Japan is steadily absorbing Corea. Of, the foreign trade, which is already developing, the volume in 1905 being 28,000,000 veil, against 16,000,000 in 1903, no less than two-thirds is in Japanese hands*. Further, the same may be said of the banking business. There are, indeed, some Corean banks, but they are on a very small scale, and cannot at all compete with the First Bank and the Eighth Bank, both Japanese institutions, which practically monopolise- the banking work. There has also been a marked increase of Japanese settlers. Thus, in 1904, they ! numbered only 31,000, but- the returns showed that in September, 1905, there were 65.000, and in January, 1907, the figure had grown to 82,000. ' Besides, there are the temporary sojourners who cross to the peninsula for fishing and other transient business. These swell the total to over 100,000. The Japanese communiticr have formed in nearly every case leagues for social purposes, and wherever they are sufficiently numerous they exercise municipal authority over their, own affairs." !■ ' -