Page:Korea (1904).djvu/208

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156
KOREA

mining supplies, household goods and agricultural implements, clothing and provisions, drills, sheetings, cotton goods, and cotton yarn. The American mine at Un-san employs seventeen Japanese and one hundred and thirty-three Chinese, one hundred Europeans, of whom thirty-five are American, and four thousand natives, whose wages range from 8d. to 1s. 2d. daily. The private company that has acquired this concession works five separate mines with enormous success; four mills, two of forty stamps and two of twenty stamps, are of long standing. An additional mill of eighty stamps is of more recent construction. During 1901 gold to the amount of £150,000 was exported by the company, while in the year following this sum was very vastly exceeded. The area of the concession is eight hundred square miles.

The future alone can disclose whether Korea is to be absorbed by the Japanese. At present, the Japanese population in Korea exceeds twenty thousand, the actual estimate falling short of twenty-five thousand. The Japanese control the railway between Chemulpo and Seoul, as well as the important trunk line to Fusan, an undertaking now in course of construction and under the immediate supervision of the Japanese Government. The new company has since absorbed the parent line from Seoul to Chemulpo. The capital of this company is twenty-five million yen, £2,500,000, which is to be raised in annual instalments of five million yen, counting from the time when one-tenth of the first instalment of five million yen was found. As a matter of fact, the preliminary turning of the first sods took place at Fusan on September 21st, and at Yong-tong-po on August 20th, in the summer of 1901. From that moment, the Japanese Government made itself