order, to obey law, and to respect human rights ? Probably, yes; but certainly never without help from the outside. And this help must be something more than the missionary can give. It must lay foundations of industrial, judicial, and governmental reform: it must also enforce them Such political disease does not, if left alone, perfect its own cure. The knife of the surgeon is first of all needed; the tonic of the physician and the nourishment of good food and the bracing of a purer air come afterward. We cannot, therefore, agree with the small body of Christian workmen now, happily, a minority who try to believe that the needed redemption of Korea could be effected by their unaided forces. A union of law, enforced by police and military, with the spiritual influences of education and religion, is alone available in so desperate a case as that of Korea to-day.
It is to the task of a political reformation and education for both rulers and people in Korea that Japan stands committed before the world at the present time. As represented by the Marquis Ito, she has undertaken this task with a good conscience and with a reasonable amount of hope. Among the administrative reforms in Korea[1] one of the most important is the "Purification of the Imperial Court." This "singular operation the Resident- General caused to be resolutely carried out in July, 1906." At that time "men and women of uncertain origin and questionable character . . . had, in a considerable number, come to find their way into the royal palace, until it had become a veritable rendez-vous of adventurers and conspirators. Divining, fortune-telling and spirit-incanting found favor there, and knaves and villains plotted and intrigued within the very gates of the Court, in co-operation with native and foreign schemers
- ↑ See a pamphlet bearing this title as an "Authorized Translation of Official Documents published by the Resident-General, in Seoul, January, 1907," p. 7.
