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

But

subsidy of 500,000 yen ($250,000) from the imperial treasury. Its purpose is to colonize Korea with Japanese who are unable to make a living in Japan proper. A Japanese emigrant is given free transportation to Korea, and is provided with a home and a piece of land together with necessary implements and provisions when he gets there. He is expected to pay back to the company in three or four years what he thus receives. For this purpose the Japanese Government in Korea confiscated all public lands formerly under the control of local communities, and all lands owned by Buddhist temples and cultivated by Buddhist priests. these were far from being enough to meet the demand. Korea has an area of 80,000 square miles inhabited by 15,000,000 agricultural population. The Oriental Colonization Company tried to buy lands from the Koreans, but the Koreans refused to sell them. Here the government aid was brought in. All financial machinery in Korea is controlled by the Bank of Chosen, a government bank in Seoul. This powerful financial institution through its branch banks and agencies called in all the specie in the country and made the land practically moneyless as far as the circulating medium was concerned. Cash the Koreans must have to pay taxes and to buy the necessities of life. The only way they could get money was to sell their real estate. The value of land dropped to onehalf, in many localities as low as one-fifth, of its original value. Then the Bank of Chosen sent

out agents all over the country and bought the land for tens of thousands of Japanese emigrants sent over by the Oriental Colonization Company. This process has been repeated time and again. The Koreans know the game of the government, but they have no means to counteract this government speculation. Technically, the Japanese Government in Korea has never carried on a wholesale confiscation of individual property, but this governmental speculation is nothing short of confiscation. Already more than one-fifth of the richest land in Korea is in the hands of the Japanese, and the amount is increasing steadily.

In commerce and industry, the Japanese have the complete monopoly. While Korea was independent, all nations enjoyed equal commercial privileges. Now the Nipponese tradesmen practically drive out all other nationals and have the market to themselves. The Korean merchant cannot compete with his Japanese competitor because of the preferential treatment shown by the government. All the rights to develop the resources of the country are given to the Japanese, and Korean enterprise, even of the humblest sort, is insidiously hampered by the Japanese. Thus the Korean people are reduced to industrial serfdom, and are forced to submit to Japanese rule through economic pressure.

The Korean has a proud history and a civilization of four thousand years back of him, and he is unwilling to abandon his traditional culture under any circumstances. Something more