Secretary Adee that I was in no position to discuss the matter, this question nettled me a trifle and I declined to discuss it. I have sometimes wished that I had not, and yet perhaps it was as well, for if I had said anything it would have been this: "If it lies between the stultification of the American Government and trouble I will take the trouble every time," but of course this might have been considered discourteous! I said that I was merely commissioned to deliver the document, and then retired.

I am told that a few days after this occurred one of the most eminent international lawyers in America went to Secretary Root with a copy of the Korean treaty, placed his finger on that first clause in which we guarantee to use our good offices for Korea, and asked the Secretary to read it; and that when the Secretary had read it he exclaimed, "I did not know that was there."

The following day I received a cablegram from the Emperor. It had been taken over to Chefoo by boat so as to escape transmission by Japanese lines. In it the Emperor declared that the treaty was null and void, that it had been secured at the point of the sword, that it had been wrested from his Foreign Minister under duress, and that he himself had never signed it or acquiesced in its signature.

I took that cablegram to the State Department. I was received by Assistant Secretary Bacon, who took the cablegram and said that it would be put on file, or words to that effect. A

few days later I received from Secretary Root a letter referring to the document that I had placed in his hands, and saying that since the Emperor of Korea had desired secrecy to be observed and had already taken final action in this matter referred to, it would be impossible for the American Government to move in the matter.

No, our Government had done all its moving earlier in the game. Why the matter of secrecy should have been brought up I do not know. The Emperor is no such novice in politics as to suppose that the American Government could have moved to help Korea without letting the Japanese Government suspect that he (the Emperor) had appealed for such help. They did not expect me to shout the matter from the housetops, I should fancy.

Soon after this I returned to Korea. I was told there by some friends that Mr. Morgan had, perhaps inadvertently, intimated that " We knew that Japan was going to take Korea, but we did not expect it quite so soon."

This brings up the question why it was that two months before the seizure of Korea by Japan the American Minister at Seoul, Dr. H. N. Allen, was suddenly recalled and Mr. E. V. Morgan put in his place. I believe an effort was made to learn the reason, that the President and the Secretary of State were non-committal, but that another member of the Cabinet intimated that Dr. H. N. Allen was so friendly with the royal family in Seoul that without a change in

the legation it would be difficult for the Administration to carry out the policy upon which it had determined.

One question remains. When was that policy determined upon? I do not know; but taking all things into consideration, and putting two and two together, I am forced to believe that it was determined upon at the time of the Portsmouth Treaty.

This is a correct account, so far as I can remember, of the seizure of Korea by Japan and the part that our Government played in it. Some of my statements can be corroborated by others, some rest upon my unsupported word, but the part that can be corroborated is sufficient to prove my main contention.

I am quite willing to grant that my belief in President Roosevelt's previous knowledge of the contents of that letter rests upon circumstantial evidence, but I ask the American people to decide for themselves whether his memory is not, perhaps, slightly at fault when he declares that he did not know the exact wording but the essential gist and purport of the letter several days before it was delivered. I trust it is within the bounds of courtesy to ask him to tell the people of this country why the message from the Emperor was held off for two days until he had taken action in the matter. If he was at that time convinced that Korea's autonomy was already injured beyond repair, why did he not receive the message and answer it according to the tenor of his belief? If he says that it was

because I had no credentials, how comes it that he did not also know what I had come to do without credentials? I ask him how it came about that one of his under-secretaries in the White House knew more about the contents of that letter than he himself did.

In conclusion, I may say that in my estimation comparatively little blame should rest upon Elihu Root in this matter. He was necessarily under instructions. Whether those instructions were agreeable to him or not the world will never know, but I hope they were not. To my mind he was less culpable than unfortunate.

K

KOREA UNDER JAPAN'

HENRY CHUNG

"If the lips are destroyed, the teeth get cold.” This is a literal translation of a Korean proverb, Chinese in origin. The Chinese orator and diplomat in the feudal period of the Chow dynasty who originated this epigram conceived, long before the birth of European nations, the principle of balance of power as necessary to the peace and independence of nations contiguous in territory. At the opening of the twentieth century Korea was the lips and China was the teeth. Now the lips are destroyed, and the unprotected surface of the Chinese teeth are ex

From the Chinese Students' Monthly, vol. XIII, No. 7, pp. 400-403, May, 1918.

posed to the corrosion of Japanese aggression. Every Chinese who carries the welfare of his Fatherland in his heart ought, therefore, to study with vital interest the recent history of Korea, for there we find the example of what may befall China, unless the present tendency of Japanese imperial expansion on Asiatic mainland is checkmated either by China herself or by a concerted action of Western powers in the Eastern theatre of international politics.

In destroying a nation-if the destruction be complete-two things are essential: economic subjection and spiritual massacre. The former is a comparatively easy matter as its execution is based entirely on physical force, but the latter requires time and assiduous effort on the part of the conquering nation. Japan, profiting by the experience of the colonizing nations of the West, is applying in Korea a method the most unique and effective known in the history of imperial conquests. When Bismarck wanted to Prussianize Poland, he moved several million. Germans into German Poland to help assimilate the Poles. Money was appropriated by the German Government to buy land from the Poles for these newcomers. The Poles clung to their lands and refused to be assimilated, with the consequence that the price of land in German Poland went up and the Poles became prosperous. Japan pursued the same policy in a more efficacious way. The Oriental Colonization Company was organized under the direction of the government, and is supported by an annual