By the Protocols of February and August, 1904, and still more perfectly by the Convention of November, 1905, Japan became the sole official medium for communication between Korea and all other foreign Powers. Indeed, as the history of the relations between the two countries—already narrated in summary form—abundantly shows, thus much of control over Korean affairs had been demonstrated to be necessary for the welfare of both. But apart from considerations which are fitted to influence the judgment of either Japanese or Koreans, the question arises: How is the Protectorate of Japan likely to affect other foreigners in their relations to Korea? At present the foreign interests concerned in the solution of the general problem are chiefly of two orders: they are the interests of trade and commerce, and the missionary interests. The larger diplomatic controversies, except so far as these may possibly arise in adjusting these two classes of interests, have now, it would seem, been satisfactorily arranged for some time to come. The recent treaties concluded between Japan on the one side, and Great Britain, France, and Russia on the other, all expressly guarantee respect for Japan’s control over the peninsula. In addition to the arrangement for a sort of reciprocal “hands-off” from each other’s possessions and “paramount interests” in the Far East, into which France and Russia have entered, Great Britain has pledged her support in defence of the Protectorate. All these nations have, moreover, solemnly committed themselves to the maintenance of the integrity of the Empire of China and to the policy of the so-called “open door.” How unlikely it is, then, that the Japanese Government should proceed at once to violate treaty obligations which it has itself been at such pains and expense of men and money to secure, and the maintenance of which, to the satisfaction of its foreign allies, so intimately concerns its own future welfare.
These same Conventions which confer certain rights upon the Japanese Government in Korea just as plainly put this Government under certain solemn obligations. The foreign Powers have, strictly speaking, no diplomatic corps at Seoul. Their Ambassadors and Ministers at Tokyo are their representatives for Korea as well as for Japan. All foreign Powers are represented by officials residing in the capital city of Korea who have consular functions only. Since, however, such functions must, in general, be exercised on the spot, and since other business can often be transacted only there, with any tolerable degree of convenience, the Consuls at Seoul are admitted to correspond with the Residency-General and with the various subordinate Residencies. Naming them in the order of their seniority, Belgium, China, Great Britain, Russia, France, and the United States are now (in 1907) each represented by a Consul-General, and Italy by a Consul. “Where foreign rights of any kind,” says Mr. Stevens—who in saying this speaks both as Adviser to the Korean Council of State and also as Counsellor to the Resident-General—“are threatened or molested, it is the duty of the Japanese Government to furnish safeguards or to provide a remedy. The Japanese Government has the right to employ for that purpose all the machinery which the laws of Korea place in its hands; and it would seem logically to follow, also, that where such means prove inadequate, it is the right, as well as the duty, of the Japanese Government to insist that the deficiency shall be supplied by appropriate legislation or by such other method as may be reasonable and just under the circumstances.”
It does not follow from this, however, that either the rights of the Japanese Government allow, or their obligations compel, it to go to any length demanded by foreign business men, or concessionaires, or even by foreign missionaries, in promoting their real or fancied interests, or in redressing their fancied as well as their real wrongs. There are plainly limits to be observed in meeting demands and requests of this character. It may be the duty of the Japanese Government, for example, to secure and defend all the mining and other concessions made to foreigners which can prove themselves to have been honestly obtained and administered in substantial accord with the initial contract. Inasmuch as few concessions of any sort among those obtained from the last Emperor can stand the test of honesty, or even of tolerable freedom from corruption, it will doubtless be well for the Japanese Government not to be over-scrupulous or too curiously enquiring in many cases. But it certainly is not its duty to allow the Imperial treasury to be plundered ad libitum by contracts made, and concessions obtained, through combinations of corrupt Korean officials with greedy and unscrupulous foreigners. Again: it may be the duty of the Japanese Government to protect a certain “freedom of the press,” in the case of publications owned and managed by foreigners, even if printed in the vernacular and distributed widely among the more ignorant and excitable of the native population. It is certainly greatly to the credit of the Japanese officials to have borne so quietly the slanderous and abusive attacks upon their government of one such publication in Seoul. But surely there may be a limit here also. Undoubtedly that limit was reached, when the vernacular edition of this publication excited the natives to sedition, revolt, and assassination, especially at so critical a juncture in the national affairs as occurred during the spring and summer of 1907. Possibly, there is also a limit beyond which misrepresentation and falsehood directed against individuals not connected with the government ought not to be allowed to pass.[79]
It must also be remembered that the success of the Residency-General in the economic, educational, and judicial reform of Korea depends largely upon husbanding and developing the resources of Korea. In all this, Mr. Megata, the Financial Adviser, has been the right-hand man of Marquis Ito, the Resident-General. If these resources are squandered, or “conceded” in such a way as to deprive the Korean Government and the Korean people of the natural wealth of their own land, then the plans for every kind of reform will be crippled, if not wholly thwarted. To encourage legitimate business with all nations is for the advantage of both the Japanese and the Korean Governments; such a policy is directly in the line of Marquis Ito’s intentions for the reform and uplifting of the economic condition of the peninsula. No one person would suffer so severely in mind and in reputation as would the Resident-General himself if this policy failed through any fault of his own or of his country’s administration in Korea. But, on the other hand, to check the evil consequences of illegitimate schemes of promotion already accomplished, and to prevent the initiation of such schemes in the future, is an equally necessary part of this policy.
On the whole subject of the attitude of the Japanese Government toward foreign business interests in Korea the following lengthy quotations may be considered as authoritative:
The foreign trade of Korea has been steadily increasing, especially during the past six years. Making due allowance for the increase of imports brought about by the war, the proportion of normal increase gives every sign of healthy growth. Japan’s trade is much the largest. Korean exports go almost exclusively to Japan, except ginseng, which is sent to China. Of the imports from Japan a large proportion are foreign, as Japan is put down in the Customs Returns as the country from which the importation was made, the country of origin not being given. As Japan is the place of transhipment for much of the trade, and as much of it passes through Japanese hands, it would be difficult to differentiate. There are certain important staples, however, concerning which there can be no ambiguity—American kerosene, for example, which practically monopolizes the market. Rails and railway equipment also come from foreign countries, the cars and engines from the United States. As Korea increases in wealth and her purchasing capacity grows correspondingly, there will be a field for other machinery, modern farming implements among the rest, no doubt.
American and European enterprise has not been so conspicuous in the field of ordinary commercial enterprise as in other directions. Concessions of one kind and another have attracted more attention than trade and commerce. The most conspicuous and successful undertaking of this kind is the Oriental Consolidated Mining Company at Unsan in Northern Korea, originally American; now it is generally understood to be largely English in ownership. This was the first mining concession ever granted to foreigners in Korea. His Majesty the Emperor was originally a half owner in the company, but sold out his interest for 300,000 yen and a payment of 25,000 yen per annum. The company’s concession covers a large area, and the capital is $5,000,000, American money. At the outset the enterprise did not look very promising, but by skilful management it grew until it reached its present important proportions.
It would probably be idle to attempt an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages to Korea of enterprises of this kind. Certainly, if there are any advantages, the Unsan concession should be a favorable example. That it has been of great advantage to Korea is at least an open question. On the one side, in its favor, may be set the large amounts annually expended by the company in wages, etc. This is undoubtedly a good thing while it lasts; but gold mines are exhausted sooner or later, and the benefits they confer are only temporary. The abandoned mining sites in America, no matter how prosperous in their day, can hardly be instanced as examples of prosperity for the people of the country in which they are located, who are not owners of successful mines.... Against this, and other like enterprises, may be cited, for one thing, the disadvantage of the wholesale destruction of timber. The country about Unsan has been practically denuded of timber, and in an agricultural country like Korea this is undoubtedly an evil.
This much has been said of the effects of the operations of a successful company, conducted on a conservative basis, merely to show that the advantages of the development of Korean resources about which so much has been said, are not unmixed blessings. The matter is of some importance in the light of all that has been published of late upon the subject.... English and German companies each obtained a mining concession, but neither proved financially successful. Japanese also obtained one concession, in which American capital is at present interested.... The system of granting mining concessions was open to so many objections that foreign representatives frequently importuned the Korean Government to issue mining regulations under which the mineral resources of the country could be systematically developed. Nothing was done, however, until after the establishment of the Residency-General, when a mining law was passed. This law provides for mining under proper safeguards as regards public and private interests. Under the old system, or rather lack of system, the concessionaire could do practically what he pleased within the limits of his concession. Now he must conform to laws and regulations which permit him to carry on his business under conditions which promote the interests and conserve the rights of all concerned.
The business methods which have developed in Korea since intercourse with foreigners began are the natural outgrowth of the circumstances and of the practices prevailing before that time. Reference is not here intended to ordinary commercial transactions, but to that species of business which has its rise in government favors and thrives by government patronage. In a country where the Government is the fountain-head of favors of every description, it was perhaps inevitable that the results should be those which we see in Korea. Viewed from the most favorable standpoint they certainly leave much to be desired. The Government, or, as has really been the actual fact, the Emperor, has been persuaded to enter into a number of business enterprises, both public and private, not a single one of which has been successful and every one of which has been the occasion of loss either to the public treasury or to His Majesty’s privy purse. Undertakings of various kinds—wooden manufactories, glass factories, railways, etc.—have been projected, but have gone no further than the stage of involving the employment of foreign directors, assistants, and the like, and have stopped there. Sometimes foreign experts have been employed who were really capable of conducting the business for which their services were secured. They have come to Korea, only to discover that no preparations have been made to carry on the enterprises with which they were to be connected. In other cases, the persons engaged to oversee the projected enterprises have been notoriously incompetent, and the whole affair has smacked largely of fraud from beginning to end. It would require too much space to recount the various undertakings of a public nature which have been attempted and have ignominiously failed. The result has been monotonously the same in every instance—namely, the payment by the Korean Government of large sums of money for useless material and for services never rendered. Another source of heavy loss has been the contracts made on behalf of the Government for all sorts of things—rice that was never needed, arms and ammunition which were worthless, railroad material which was never delivered, and so on through the long list of wasteful expenditure of the public funds. It is something hardly capable of direct proof, but there is no reasonable doubt that almost every one of these enterprises had its inspiration in the desire for illicit gain by one or another of the officials interested. The explanation of the foreigners interested may be summed up in the phrase, “that is the way business is done in Korea.” The Empire has been the happy hunting-ground for the foreign business man not over-scrupulous as to the methods by which money was to be made. Equally it has held out golden opportunities to the promoter and hunter for “concessions.” This does not include those foreigners who are willing to take the chances of success and the pecuniary risks inseparable from enterprises like mining, for example, but that other class of promoters who desire to get something for nothing, and then sell it to others. The gentlemen who have so much to say about “enlisting foreign capital” in the development of Korea’s resources will generally be found upon investigation to be prepared only to “enlist” some one else’s capital. The promoter has his uses, no doubt, and, as a pioneer in new fields, unquestionably accomplishes good in some cases. Unfortunately, in Korea the results of his activities can hardly be classed in this category.... Especially is this true of those enterprises with which His Majesty has been most prominently identified as an investor. As before said, they have invariably resulted in heavy losses to the privy purse. Various explanations have been given for this, but the fact remains and cannot be disputed. Others have prospered, but so far as His Majesty is concerned, the balance has always been on the debit side of the ledger.
If it were necessary to multiply instances of the injury done to the economic interests of the Korean people, and of the difficulty of adjusting in any half-satisfactory way the claims of foreign promoters and concessionaires, it could easily be done upon good evidence. But mention of a few such instances only—with the suppression of names and details, for obvious reasons—will suffice to convince the reader, however “patriotic” in such matters, who has even the semblance of a candid mind. Prominent among examples is that of a foreign company of contractors, who have obtained from the Korean Government a variety of claims, such as public-utility franchises, and a mining concession. Of the former, one franchise had cost the Privy Purse of the Korean Emperor not less than 600,000 yen up to 1902; and when it was sold to satisfy a mortgage held by these same contractors, although Mr. J. McLeavy Brown, at the time Commissioner-General of Customs, who had been appointed to audit the accounts, recommended that items aggregating 1,100,000 yen should be disallowed, and gave his judgment to the effect that foreclosure would be a grave injustice to His Majesty, the latter was induced to buy one-half of the property at 750,000 yen. The whole of the same property not long before had been offered at 800,000 yen! This public utility still fails to yield a dollar in dividends to the royal investor.
Another franchise of this same company has been sold, without any investment of capital on their part, to an English company for £15,000 cash and £50,000 in fully paid-up ordinary shares. Under the apparent impression that they have even yet not sufficiently profited from the Privy Purse of the Emperor and the national treasury of this poverty-stricken land, the same company is bringing all possible “influence” to bear in order to validate their claims to a “Mining Concession.” With regard to this last claim, which is still contested, it is enough for our purposes to say that it was surreptitiously obtained; that the stipulation which required a capital of $1,000,000 fully paid up at the time of incorporation has been violated; and that the provision which guarantees that no other mining concession should be made to any one, native or foreign, until these concessionaires had made their choice, is plainly contra bonos mores. Moreover, negotiations have been entered into by this company for the sale of this concession to another foreign syndicate.
The mining claim of these foreign promoters, although it has not yet been wholly adjusted is, indeed, a cause célèbre on account of the large sums involved; but it only illustrates a special combination of the elements which are found, with a difference of mixture, in all the cases of this general character. There was the foolish and wanton Emperor, who has little intelligent care for the material or other interests of his people; the crafty and corrupt Koreans, officials and ex-officials; the land rich in unexplored and undeveloped resources, and the “enterprising” foreigner, unscrupulous as to his methods and ready to utilize—either truly or falsely—his alleged “influence” with the officials of his own Government. Another case, in which all the participants were Koreans with the exception of one foreigner, has also been charged to the account of the Japanese Government on the debit side. This foreigner, having put forth the claim to be a mining engineer (he was in truth only a miner—a so-called “three-yen-a-day” man), associated himself with a Korean, popularly known as “Pak the liar,” and through the latter obtained the assistance at Court of a powerful official and his friends. A “company” was formed, which obtained from the Emperor an elaborate document of the “franchise” sort, giving them the exclusive right to find coal-oil where no coal-oil was, to bottle mineral water from springs which have no valuable qualities to their water, and to export coal which was totally unfit for export. Appeals were constantly made, and answered, for funds to further this enterprise, until His Majesty became tired, and the whole affair was wound up. This was done by paying the foreigner 12,000 yen claimed as back pay. He then departed to his native land to complain that the Japanese were inimical to the investment of foreign capital in Korea. The net result was a few thousand tons of coal taken from one small mine—sold, but the proceeds never accounted for; an expenditure from the Privy Purse variously estimated at from 300,000 yen to 400,000 yen; and the enrichment of certain Korean officials and ex-officials. For all this Mr. Megata, the Japanese Financial Adviser, had to provide the money. The “Poong Poo” Company itself never had any money to put into its “promoting” schemes.
That the charge of favoring their own countrymen in the matter of concessions and monopolies, which has been somewhat freely made abroad against the Japanese Government in Korea, is not justifiable, the following proof may be cited. At some time between January 15 and January 29 of 1905, Mr. Yi-chai-kuk, then Minister of the Imperial Household of Korea, recognized and signed no fewer than twenty-three concessions granted to one Yi-Sei-chik, a Korean, and his four Japanese associates. These concessions included the consolidation of taxation on land, the utilization of the water-ways for various purposes, and state monopolies of tobacco, salt, kerosene, etc. Imperial orders were secretly given to the same Yi to raise a foreign loan of several million yen for the purpose of detecting the secrets of the Military Headquarters stationed in Korea, as well as of the Tokyo Government, and to make reports about them.[80]
These iniquitous transactions in which Koreans and Japanese were concerned were made, when discovered, the occasion of a memorandum of protest. This memorandum reminded the Korean Government and Court that they have often been unfaithful to the “general plan of administrative reform,” based upon the compact made between Korea and Japan, by granting to foreigners various important concessions in secret ways. With a view of putting an end to any further recurrence of such complications, an express Agreement was entered into, August, 1904, by which “it was stipulated that, in case of granting concessions to foreigners, or of making contracts with foreigners, the Imperial Governments should first be informed and consulted with.” The memorandum then goes on to express profound regret that “His Majesty and his Court” had attempted by these concessions, “in defiance of this provision, a breach of faith.” Then follows the demand upon the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Korea to take the following steps:—
1. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, after stating to His Majesty the above facts and reasons, shall announce in a most public way under the Imperial order that the concessions above mentioned are null and void, as they have failed to observe the provisions of the Agreement between Korea and Japan.
2. It shall also be most publicly announced under the Imperial order that, in any case of granting concessions to foreigners, either the Korean Government or the Court shall first consult with the Imperial Government.
This memorandum bears date of July 11, 1905. But this instance of the most decisive steps taken by the Japanese Government to prevent its own subjects from profiting by secret and corrupt alliance with Korean officials, for the obtaining of concessions and contracts, is by no means an isolated one. In truth, the Japanese Protectorate is more severe in dealing with such cases where Japanese are concerned, than where other foreigners have the chief interests. And repeatedly has the Resident-General assured his own countrymen that they must expect no favors in business schemes for exploiting Korea to their own advantage, but to the injury of the Koreans themselves. Indeed, he has publicly declared to all such Japanese: “You have me for your enemy.”
More recently effective measures have been enacted and put into force to make impossible the recurrence of the old-time ways of robbing Korea by schemes for “promoting” her business enterprises and by secret ways of obtaining concessions. Among such measures is the safeguarding of the “Imperial black seal” (the Emperor’s private seal), which could formerly be used to plunder the treasury without the knowledge or consent of its legalized guardians, or even of the Emperor himself. Under the new regulations, the black seal cannot be legally used except with the knowledge and attestation of the Minister of the Household and his Imperial Treasurer.
Among the other foreign relations into which Japan has entered, to substitute for Korea, is the protection of Korean emigrants. Although Korea needs, and can for a long time to come support, all its own natural increase of native population, and several millions of foreign immigrants besides, the complete lack of opportunity for “getting ahead” in their native land caused a considerable exodus of her own population some six or seven years ago. At the instance of an American, about 8,000 Korean men and 400 Korean women emigrated to Hawaii. In 1905 a Mexican prevailed upon 1,300 natives to go to Mexico. This experience led the Korean Government, in April, 1905, to issue an order prohibiting the emigration of Korean laborers. Under the Japanese Protectorate, however, in July, 1906, “An Emigrant Protection Law,” with detailed rules for its operation, was enacted, which came into force on the 15th of September of the same year.
With regard to all foreign relations with Korea, whether of legitimate business, of commerce, or of emigration, the civilized world is undoubtedly much better off now that their custody is in the hands of the Japanese Residency-General. In our judgment the same thing is true of those moral and religious interests represented by the missionary bodies already established, or to be established in the future, in the Korean peninsula. This is not, indeed, the opinion of all the missionaries themselves. As regards the whole subject of the effect of the Protectorate upon mission work—past, present, and future—there is a difference of opinion among the missionaries themselves. As to the attitude of Marquis Ito there can be no reasonable doubt. His expressions of feeling and intention have been frequently mentioned in the earlier chapters of this book. The missionary problem will be discussed, apart, in a later chapter.
As to the general feeling of the Koreans themselves toward foreigners, the following quotations are believed to express the truth:
Since the inauguration of foreign intercourse the anti-foreign feeling of which the Tai Won Kun was so prominent an exponent, appears to have died out. Possibly it may linger still in the minds of some of the old-fashioned Confucian scholars, but not to any appreciable extent. Formerly it was, no doubt, possible to excite the people against foreigners for slight cause; but exhibitions of anti-foreign sentiment in recent times appear to have been officially instigated, as, for example, the massacre of the French missionaries and their converts, for which the Tai Won Kun is held responsible. More intimate intercourse with the representatives of Western civilization, and especially missionary labor which has been so genuinely successful, seem to have eliminated anything like a general feeling of dislike for foreigners.
The case of the Japanese stands by itself in this regard. Much has been written of the ancient hatred of Koreans for Japanese. Traces of that feeling may linger, but that it is an ineradicable national trait, as some would seem to hold, hardly seems possible. Koreans and Japanese have lived together in complete amity and good fellowship in the past, and there is no good reason why they should not live side by side on the best of terms in the future. Certainly none in the sentiment of dislike on one side, for the origin of which we must go back nearly three centuries. The practical difficulty, the dislike which really counts, is of more modern origin. Korea and Japan have been jostled together, as it were, by two wars in recent times, and the weaker of the two has suffered—a circumstance to be regretted, no doubt, but still inevitable. Korea has experienced some of the evils which follow in war’s train; and while they were not nearly so disastrous as has been represented, they have left a feeling of dislike and distrust for those who are held responsible. This was to have been expected and counted upon; for the remedy we must await the wider and more intelligent comprehension of the real meaning of the new order of things. When it is finally understood that even-handed justice is the rule, that the life and property of every man, no matter how humble, are safe under the law, and that the presence of the alien does not mean licensed extortion and oppression, we shall not hear anything more of that racial hatred upon which so much stress has been laid.