PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC

Otago Witness, Issue 2860, 6 January 1909, Page 15

PROBLEMS OF THE PACIFIC

'•THE TRAGEDY OP KOREAN JAPANESE METHODS IN KOREA. Br Professor J. Macmillan Bbown. {Specially written for the Otago Daily Times.) Palace Hot-el, Seoul, Korea, September 14, 1908. . At all hazards the autiharitaes mean to Japanase Korea. This may be the meaning of Prince Ito's frequent assurances $hat whenever the country was, able to stand by itself it would be* given its in<?epenidence. Tliere is no chance, he mast ste, for a purely Koreaai State to govern or defend itself; that is the plam declaration of ©very act in the Japarw.-,e occupation of the pou-ntry, the assasi*j.'i4ion of the Queen, the sanguinary disbar, irojent of the Royal Korenu tv&ops, -Jsi« substitution of && moie piati>ic son for the less plastic- father on the throne, niA the hustling of aJI the Korean leaders into' signing v away the independence of the oounfcry. It ib a lesson -written large on the -whole history of the little kingdom — it can never stand alone; nor can its government ever be anything but corrupt and weaik; its (rulers and their aiistoci'aer have oppinissed t<h>e people for centuries, and the best irot>e«i.'»ts of the country were not only neg'. acted, but a-uia&d deliberately. Even the hard-woilc-ing people out in the rural district failed to see beyond the intei-e^td of the uioqient. They kept the wi«ole laiid doiorejae'l, and the end would be 4she steri&adon of their rich levels by uncontrolled t<«rrtmls from the mountains. The Japanese r<i-e beginning to stop this, and gwueitMly to conserve the resouroerf of %he tom^ry. Th>ey are spending liberally on its dvvelopanent. But this is not meant for the Korean. It is to be a Japanese colony like HokkajQjo. Hea-e in Seoul ypu can see how lapidJy the Japanese quarter is growing, driving T,he Koreans their thatched houses into the folds of the hills beyond. The process was even more manifest in Fusan ; there the whole commercial and mannfacturintg development is in the Japanese settlement ; there is the port, there the station, there the gathering of merchants' warehouses and factories ; it ds enterprise itself. The Korean town is as it wais ; plenty of stately movement of white-robed, black-hatted hen, but little done. It is clear to the visitor from the moment the steamer ties up at ,the wharf that Fusan is pxsedominantly Japaxtese, and is going to be more and more Japanese. And in the towns all along the line, though the process has not gone go far, Japanese and Japanese enterprise are to be seen in tte forefront. This is doubtless vrhat is in the nvimd of the fai'-seeing- statesman o? Japan when they assert that Korea will eouoie day' be independent ; it will be a, Japanese Korea, a Korea so predominantly Japanese that there will be no question of its loyalty. But there fronts them the fact that ther are 10 million Koreans. Probably there may be much crossing of the races; and those who know them best say they would make a fine cross; the Korean would contribute his stature and Gne proportions and his imperturbability ; the Japanese would bring his restless energy, his fiery mercuriality and his das>h. J3ufc those who look deeper hdd that they will no more mix than oil and water. The gulf of hatred is too wide and deep to be bridged. Nor are the Japanese or the Koi'eans doing anything to bridge it. The authorities are too' earnestly bent on hustling Korea into a form and strength that will resist aggression from over the border to bring about any real approach from either side. The less cultured and less scrupulous Japanese are too busy exploiting the country and getting quickly rich to attend to the feelings or the interests of the Koreans. Whilst the low class Japanese are too brutal and truculent in their r,i-caxq.icnt of the people to jet tlie Jinmr-morial hatted die out of their minds, the Koreans or.' their side sit stiii in the- towns and nurse their indignation and abhorrence; whilst the young anil vigorous in the couutiy go to the mountains and keep up the fire of insurgency. And the very methods of the Japanese soldiery in their attempts to suppress this . fire fan its flames. Every village they burn and every household they wrong or outrage or do injustice to sends its contribution to the guerilla bands in the mountain?. T.t is more than likely, then, that crossing of the races will not come about to any large extent, although the Korean evidently crossed with the Japanese on the south-west coast of Hondo and the Japanese with the Korean on the south coast of the peninsula. Solution of the Japanese dilemma will not come from this direction. It lies rather in swamping the country with Japanese colonists. And that this is the plan is evident from the new vigour put into the Oriental Colonisation Association, formed for the purpose of colonising and exploiting Korea and under Ministerial patronage. But there is a constant and natural Japanese immigration into Korea, as is evident in all the towns from Fusan to Seoul. A generation will probably see the south and the pacified or reduced parts of Korea as much Japanese as Hokkadao is. . THE FATE OF THE KOREAN. Will the result be the same for the Korean as it has been for the Ainu '! The Ainu had command of the whole archipelago, having mastered or absorbed or driven into the isolated refuges the aboriginal Caucasian inhabitants. But slowly through the centuiies were they driven northwards by the iron-weaponed Japanese, fighting to the last, though often deserted by their own chiefs and often absorbed. Now in the forests ot Ihe island through which they entered

'Japan they liv« a defeated life. And ' the Japanese scorn of them and treatment of them as "jnu," or dogs, has taken the "vitality out of them ; they are now a dying people, no longer fertile; their death rate is rising rapidly above their birth rate; and even tfieir crossing with the Japanese is ineffective. In former days, when they made the best Japanese warrior fear, the cross was that of races more on a level in» power and vitality ; now the heart has gone out of them, and they are a defeated, degraded, dying : race; there is a gulf between) the elements that go to make the crossbred, and they die out in the third or fourth* generation. I The same may be the story of the i Koreans, even though they are still iv j millions and both virile and fertile. Their j struggle is a losing game ; they are un- ; organised, ill-e.quipped, and unskilled in the arts of war ; and however bravely thf-y may fight Tn the mountains and in i the coastal archipelagoes, they can never i make headway againss the tkillcd soldiers and leaJe-s of Japan. It look*:, then, as If the centimes to --cv.ie would see the fc.une plow devilaliii' ion and steriliso- , tion of the Korean race. Bat in this j case there is a new factor in the problem, j There is tire Russian over the border j waiting his chance of retaliation and of reaching an ice*free port. The Amu had ', no pov.erfal backer in Lib icar. The j Jloreaj) has got «.is ea*y rcLre-ti into safe ■ qu&rie-s acro-3 the Ya!u, jva.l as rhe '. Spanish insurgents uiidsr Napoleon's j yoke had a re r age v/ii"hin British lines in Portugal. It is thio will i keep insurgency and the spirit of ■ the people aHve for ger.fv-tlcns, ! for centuries if need be, and will j make Korea Japan's runnii.sj t;3oor. I do i not think that the fata ot the Ainu is ; before the Korean. ] But there is a fate almost as bad j written broadly across the people by the geographical and physical environment of the country. It is the fate of Ham. They v. ill ever have to serve. Tlip v.-hole j recorded history of the Korean is tho' oi dependence on some other nation, or fear of it.» China, Japan, and Manchuria took turns at lording \t over them. And this destiny was fixed for the land millions of years ago, if noL millions of years before i man entered it. As a peninsula cut off i by natm-al features froiri the ecruneiit it ! was bound to become a racial and j national unity as sock as the genius of some leader overcame the differences betwean tribes. Bui it is too small to resist the forces that were bound to gather »n the plains of Manchuria, across the Yellow Sea in the rich silt or ! the Hoangho, and across the Japan Sea, > in the moist, evergreen Archipelago, with i its pirate-nursing protected waters. And j the position has become worse since the s great Oriental Empire of the West has i stretched her long arm acrors Siberia, i and laid claim to so much of Asia and ' th-3 Pacific coast. Between China ami ; Japan Korea was ever between the devil : and the deep sea. She was the battle- j field for all their struggles and ambitions. With Russia added his fate is threefold j that of Ham. The only question before her is whirh master she will serve. Over her there --vil! be fought such a series of v/ars and battles ac ths word has not i ever vet vti : riessed. The peninsula vail j be still the cockpit of the «East ; only the ] issues will be far less localised ; for the j North Pacific i 3 about to become the t great arena of history, taking rhe place j of the Atlantic as the Atlantic took the | place of Uia Mediterranean. Hcrp are ! coticentrafif.;- al! the Interests of the corri>'j merc ; al and nta^arful nations o? the j wori-3. Aad in this little peninsula will j coma into collision the explosive forces of j East and V-'g--.;,. THIS TRAGEDY OF KOREA IS NOT OF TO-DAY. The phrase, '" The Tragedy of Korea," cxy.rt-^cs bat an episode in the widewr.vld iraieily ; it does not cover the whoi^ tel'^o^y. It is meant to picture tho a'Tfmv of PCv)?ea in losing her indeppndeju I*-.1 *-. Bur she lost it thousands of years ?go: rhe Tijs never been independent s'mi- evrfr she has been a kingdom. Shj ha J only the shadow of it urid^r the sizeraiiuy of a powerful neighbour, sn ' *he tragedy was only that of changing mast^vp, its bitterness in changing from one she was familiar with to one she has ever repelled and disliked. And if ever a nation deserved and required a change it was Korea ; her Gov-^rnment had become as effete and corrupt as Oriental Government, has ever been ; it oppressed the people and drove them into slavery ; by | its feebleness and corruption it turned J its aristocracy and officials into tyrants j and oppressors. The whole nation had I fallen into a rigid caste system which ] prevents free movement from the lower ! to the upper strata, th-? «no\oj<;ent that! a.one prevents an ar'stoci'ar-y from fall- j in« into effeminacy, feeLienesy. and sterility. Nothing could save the country from its downward race but the hand of a vigorous and therefore despotic ruler. Some of the best friends of the Koreans, men who have lived long with them and done much for theiis. have confessed to me that they have two incurable weaknesses — they are born parasites ; they must sponge on somebody ; they have a consuming passion for getting something for nothing (a trait, by the way, not confined to Koreans), and this leads them into a habit of indolence, waiting for some blessing xo fall on them from the poweie above : they are bom loafers, dignified loafers, it k true, j in their wh'te robes, but yet loafers. And, libo all loafer*, they are shifty and untrustwoitlty : they have the Oriental disregard for truth and the fulfilment of a piomi.-e, and thoy will report to labyrinths of fiction rather than resort to haid work and self-dependence. Of course, thi? applies more to the urban people than to the farmers, but the farmers' sons come into the towns for education, and get this Korean taint. I heard a missionary tell a story of this the other day. A farmer had pinched and scraped to

r give his Benjamin the best education the town could supply. At the end of the course the youth failed to return and entered no career, spending his father's | money on riotous living; the father begged him in vain to come back and work on the farm, and at last sent his eldest son to bring him back. The .youth tried to escape by a subterfuge^ »ut his brother seized him and was dragping him along by main force, much to the detriment of his fine garments, when the missionary appeared on the scene. He interfered and, after long effort, persuaded the youth to return peacefully with his brother. This is a specimen of what is going on amongst the Koreans, and has bsen going on for ages. There is no salvation for the people in themselves. Had it not been written upon their country since the beginning of the world, they would have brought their iiis upon them by their own parasitism, indolence, and improvidence. The only possibility of redemption lay in the vigorous "hand of some outside Power, ana that they have got in the victorious and masterful Japan. RUSSIA, JAPAN, AND KOREA. The hand is somewhat too heavy, not merely Koreans, but foreigners think, and all foreign feeling has dnfttd round from pro-Japa3iese to ant i- Japanese. But they lovge^ vhe Uxh. that Japan ha-s before her. •t'iie -.. arcc.it leave !£orea, weak ac she -was, io be tiio U>2~ of diplomacy an<l war. The moment another strong Power was established in the country, the independence and very life of Japan would be threaloned. "it is little wonder that she is trying to lm.«tle the peninsula into somei!:':"<X like order io anticipale any attack •.•jzi'iiutv be U-. d?. Wlk:. Kuo-ia begins to me-, c, it will be txiror-gh Korea t»be will move. Before the war she demanded from the Korean Government a site for an arsenal at Masampo, on the south coast; Japan knew that that would menace her life, so 6fre sent in Japanese, who bought up the -proposed site from the native owners before the hand of the Government was forced. And since the wsr this has been sold to the Japanese Government for the same purpose. Japan, in fact, is laying such a strong grip upon the south of Korea, not only by such means, but by Jap-nne -# immigration and commerce, that it will take a lift-and-death struggle to dislodge hc-r. Whatevev Russia may do, I have little doubt that Fusan and Masampo, and the country around, will remain Japanese, for Japan will always dominate at sea and command the coastline, and she knows that, these in the hands of a powerful enemy, the archipelago iireH will lie at the mercy of his attacks. If Hcosia should retaliate with complete preparation for the combat, she will undoubtedly force her way by the aid of the exiled Koreane and friendly natives down as far as she can into the peninsula. It will be striking ac near to -the heart of Japan as it is possible to do against a nation of sailors tbat has & strony navy and complete organisation. THE TRAGEDY OF JAPAN. It seems to me, then, that as far as tlie future is concerned, it is the tragedy of Japan that is enacting in Korea. She dare not let the peninsula weakly ni'6govevn itself, eus it did before, and so invite strong masters fiom over the Yalu. And so fhe has become a continental nation, and mu^t always be one. The result/is that she lays herself open to attack by land, aiid open her ilanK to enemies t;iat would never have thought of invading her in her own archipelago. There &lie ha 6 ever been, safe from even the strongest navy and army. Now a great military Power, with but a secend-rate commercial and naval marine, will be able to strike at a vital part of her, and strike with much chance of success. PJven if China were to awaken and abandon her fccorn of soldiership, she might do much to retrieve tha failure of her expeditions against Japan. The only time she hver defeated and drove back the island-nation was in the sixteenth century, when ifideyoshi led its warriors on to the peninsula.Russiii is a more bristly and formidable enemy, and lies in wait just over the frontier of Korea. And he has an unslakable thirst for an ice-free port. Yensan, and perhaps Chinampo, will be the immediate aims of the next war, aucPThey are feasible aims, for the north id the home of Korean insurgency. And there is another tragic phase to Japan's- occupancy of Korea. She must continue her campaign against the insurgents; nor can she abandon it until it is final. And how can any campaign be final against ins, urg rats with an inextinguishable hatred of the campaigners and a friendly retreat over the boders ? And against guerilla forces their own methods have to be adopted, and these destroy the reputation of any civilised army "and na:ion. In tins everlasting broil Japan has already lost the sympathy of the world, and turned its money markets against her — an even more important effect. And the longer she goes on with it tlie worse it will be for her reputation, the more a baibarous nation she will seem. , Nor is there any possibility of getting i out of it unless ]!ussi;t pushes into the , peninsula and shoulders half the burden of bad repute. And this will probably be one result of the next war between j the two nations in the Ea&t. Japan ] will hold (tho south and Russia the | north. j But that, of course, is not the end. It J is difficult to see any md on even the j most distant horizon. Japan, not Koiea, is now between the devil and the deep sea. It will be an everlasting struggle for the preservation of her national life. And one seems to be gazing at an old Greek tragedy, in which the hero or victim is involved in a struggle with destiny. The spectators see the inevit- , able end of it all ; and perhaps the com- j batants are told of it, or even have a ' glimpse of it, but they have to struggle on all the same. Russia, Japan, China, these are the three possible actors in this vast drama z and Korea is the stage. The destinies unseen urge them ever on to the combat, a combat that must he renewed

from ags to age, from century to century, till one at least of the actor-nations succumbs from exhaustion.