The passing of Korea/Chapter 35

by Homer Bezalee Hulbert

CHAPTER XXXV
THE FUTURE OF KOREA

IT will be seen from the foregoing chapters, especially those in which the actions of Japan have been traced, why I name this book "The Passing of Korea." Japan by a series of successful wars has secured a position from which she can dictate to Korea. That this is satisfactory to any of the other treaty powers can hardly be believed. They acquiesce in it for personal convenience. There are very cogent reasons why the arrangement should be distasteful to British, German and American merchants. This point is worth careful study. The forced agreement of last November^[1] included a clause in which Japan promised to carry out the terms of the treaties between Korea and the other powers. Now these treaties guarantee to the subjects of the different governments extraterritorial rights in Korea.

They are under the legal jurisdiction of their own consular authorities. These treaties also fix, in a general way, the amount of customs duties to be levied on foreign imports. It is clear that these two things are of great importance to American and other foreign trade in the peninsula; but since the conclusion of the so-called "agreement" of November some of the leading Japanese papers have strongly advocated the setting aside of the extraterritorial rights of foreigners in Korea, on the ground that this will facilitate the establishment of uniform courts of justice. These papers must think that the powers interested are so impressed by Japanese military successes that any proposals she may broach will be acceded to without opposition,—an opinion in which the attitude of the American government certainly tends to confirm them. How otherwise would semi-official organs of the Japanese government venture the wild proposal to break another of Japan's recent promises?

Japan began and carried through this whole matter by the clever use of misinformation and broken promises, which successfully hoodwinked the American public. For this reason I urge with all the power at my command that the course of events should be carefully watched by those who are interested in the preservation of the principle of an open door in the Orient, and the preservation of rights which, though only partially utilised as yet, are full of potentialities for the future; and I urge that immediate steps be taken to forestall the concession to Japan, by the executive department of our government, of the right to dominate the persons and the interests of American citizens in Korea.

My belief that vigilance is necessary is based upon the following consideration. The treaty-making power is vested in Congress and not in the executive. The latter cannot add a single word to a treaty between the United States and a foreign power. It follows that the executive cannot abrogate, or drop a single word from, an existing treaty. Is it not pertinent, then, to ask by what authority our treaty obligations to Korea were so summarily impaired? If the clause by which we guarantee to use our good offices to help Korea in case she is oppressed can be ignored by our executive officials, why should they not be able to turn over our nationals to Japanese jurisdiction or consent to a change in Korean customs tariffs which would kill our promising trade. This would be only a natural outcome of the manifest tendency of our executive to assume legislative functions. The trouble is that Americans do not realise that the tender feeling of Japan toward us politically is based upon the fact that we are giving her every opportunity to kill us commercially in the Far East.

But even the establishment of a protectorate by Japan would not necessarily mean the certain destruction of Korean nationality if it were carried out along internationally legal lines. Japanese statesmen who are supposed to represent the real feelings of the Japan government announce that Korea has not been annexed but is still a separate state. There is one fact which belies this statement, and shows conclusively that Korea can never become an autonomous power except through some great international cataclysm which is not at present contemplated. This fact is that Japan manifestly intends to allow Korea to be filled with Japanese subjects, and so rapidly, that within a decade they shall form a body strong enough to hold Korea in the event of an armed protest on the part of the Korean people. This enormous inrush of Japanese is not the result of a glut of labour or a lack of opportunity in Japan, for, as has been recently shown in a most illuminating book,^[2] the arable land in Japan is but half utilised. The present deplorable famine in that country, which has called forth the laudable sympathy of Americans, was doubtless greatly aggravated, if it was not actually caused, by the rush of able-bodied workmen to Korea, where, partially freed from the restraints of their strict police surveillance, they could reap golden harvests by taking advantage of the helplessness of the Koreans. This is the darkest cloud which overhangs Korea, and it is one that has no silver lining. Thus it is that Korea is taking her place in line with Poland, Armenia and the Congo "Free" State.

The question arises, what should Korea do under these circumstances? What can she reasonably do to preserve from extinction the people who form the nation? There is only one answer. She must bend herself to the task of educating the people up to a point where they can prove themselves the equals of their conquerors and, by the very force of genuine manhood, exert an influence which shall counteract the contempt which the Japanese feel. This may not avail, for the Japanese are slow to show respect to any form of ability which cannot be measured in terms of military or brute force. To-day, in spite of America's intellectual achievements, the Japanese are laughing in their sleeves at us, because they think we are afraid of them; what, then, must they think of the Korean? Baron Kaneko^[3], in his campaign of education in America, told us that Japan intended to colonise largely in Korea, but that she would discourage intimate relations between the two peoples, that she would consider the Koreans a "lower race." Significant words these, which should be put alongside the specious protestations of Japanese statesmen that Koreans are to be humanely treated.

Every day brings news of the existence of a surprising and hitherto unguessed-at warmth of feeling for their country on the part of Koreans. This has given the lie to those special pleaders for Japan who have denied the existence of patriotism in Korea, and gives promise of a determination to do whatever may be done to weld the Korean people into a peaceful but intelligent and prosperous body which even the Japanese will be slow to stigmatise as contemptible.

As to the agencies at hand for the carrying on of this important work, a few words here will not be out of place. Without doubt the most powerful agency will be the American missionaries now resident in Korea. Not even the Japanese can openly object to any efforts that are put forth for the elevation of the intellectual and moral condition of that people, and there are special reasons for believing that only those who can speak the language, and thus can get near to the Korean heart, will be able to carry out a thorough consistent and continuous plan for the vindication of Korea's claim to intellectual capacity. The missionaries are set apart from all political complications, and their efforts for Korea can affect political affairs only as a stiffening of Korea's moral fibre and a thorough awakening of her dormant intellectual life shall make inevitable her reinstatement in the regard of the Japanese themselves.

In this great work the American people ought to be deeply interested, and with it they should be more closely identified than by an occasional word of sympathy. If there is any nation on earth that deserves the active and substantial aid of the American people that nation is Korea. We were the first Western power to conclude a treaty with her, and in making that treaty we guaranteed to keep a watchful eye upon her safety and interests. For twenty-five years American representatives and other residents in Korea reiterated the statement that we stood for the "square deal," for the ascendency of right as against mere brute force, and Korea had a right to regard our government as the one above all others which would demur at any encroachment upon her independence. But when the time of difficulty approached and America's disinterested friendship was to be called upon to prove the genuineness of its oft-repeated protestations, we deserted her with such celerity, such coldheartedness and such a refinement of contempt that the blood of every decent American citizen in Korea boiled with indignation. While the most loyal, cultured and patriotic Koreans were committing suicide one after the other because they would not survive the death of their country, the American Minister was toasting the perpetrators of the outrage in bumpers of champagne ; utterly callous to the death throes of an empire which had treated American citizens with a courtesy and consideration they had enjoyed in no other Oriental country.

How can we, the American people, prove to the Koreans that we were not accessory to this act which was so contrary to the principles we have professed to hold? There is only one way, - by helping them to the one thing that will enable them to hold together as a nation, and give them time and opportunity to prove the falsity of the libellous statements that have been so freely circulated, and which have temporarily alienated the goodwill of so many of our people. That one thing is education. The Koreans have awakened to the fact that this, which should have been their first consideration many years ago, is now their last resort, and they are clamouring for education. I believe there are thousands of Koreans who will open their purses and subscribe generously to the funds required for this great work. Much is already being done by the various missions, but it is necessarily circumscribed and cramped by the lack of funds. What is needed is a wide-spread and thorough canvass of the entire empire for the purpose of getting the subject rightly before the Korean people. There would be nothing in this suggestive of opposition to Japan. On the contrary, every effort should be expended with special reference to cooperation with whatever plans the dominant power may have formed for common school education. Korea can gain nothing by holding back and offering to the plans of Japan a sulky resistance. They are face to face with a definite condition, and theories as to the morality of the forces which brought about the condition are wholly academic.

My discussion of these forces in the foregoing pages is partly by way of record and partly to awaken the American people to the duty which lies upon them. The Koreans need help in establishing such a system as I have hinted at above. They will do all they can, but the question arises whether generous-minded people in America will come to the aid of the Koreans and give their personal services or financial support to such a movement. Is there any man or body of men in this country who will seize the opportunity to found in the city of Seoul an institution of learning which shall be the nucleus, the rallying-ground, of a great national movement? It is the opinion of those most conversant with the feeling of the Korean people that there is no other place in the world where money invested in education will bring larger, surer or more beneficent results.

1. Japan-Korea Protectorate Treaty (1905) (Wikisource contributor note)
2. The New Far East, by Thomas F. Millard.
3. w:Kaneko Kentarō (Wikisource contributor note)