As the summer of 1905 drew to a close it became more and more clear that the j.a.panese Government, despite its many promises to the contrary, intended completely to destroy the independence of Korea. Even the Court officials were at last seriously alarmed, and set about devising means to protect themselves. The Emperor had thought that because Korean independence was provided for in various treaties with Great Powers, therefore he was safe. He had yet to learn that treaty rights, unbacked by power, are worth little more than the paper upon which they are written.
The Emperor trusted in particular to the clause in the Treaty with the United States in 1882 that if other Powers dealt unjustly or oppressively with Korea, America would exert her good offices to bring about an amicable arrangement In vain did the American Minister, his old friend Dr.
Allen--who had not yet gone--try to disillusion him.
Early in November the Marquis Ito arrived in Seoul on another visit, this time as Special Envoy from the Emperor of j.a.pan. He brought with him a letter from the Mikado, saying that he hoped the Korean Emperor would follow the directions of the Marquis, and come to an agreement with him, for it was essential for the maintenance of peace in the Far East that he should do so.
Marquis Ito was received in formal audience on November 15th, and there presented a series of demands, drawn up in treaty form. These were, in the main, that the foreign relations of Korea should be placed entirely in the hands of j.a.pan, the Korean diplomatic service brought to an end, and the Ministers recalled from foreign Courts. The j.a.panese Minister to Korea was to became supreme administrator of the country under the Emperor, and the j.a.panese Consuls in the different districts were to be made Residents, with the powers of supreme local governors. In other words, Korea was entirely to surrender her independence as a State, and was to hand over control of her internal administration to the j.a.panese. The Emperor met the request with a blank refusal. The conversation between the two, as reported at the time, was as follows.
The Emperor said--
"Although I have seen in the newspapers various rumours that j.a.pan proposed to a.s.sume a protectorate over Korea, I did not believe them, as I placed faith in j.a.pan"s adherence to the promise to maintain the independence of Korea which was made by the Emperor of j.a.pan at the beginning of the war and embodied in a treaty between Korea and j.a.pan. When I heard you were coming to my country I was glad, as I believed your mission was to increase the friendship between our countries, and your demands have therefore taken me entirely by surprise."
To which Marquis Ito rejoined--
"These demands are not my own; I am only acting in accordance with a mandate from my Government, and if Your Majesty will agree to the demands which T have presented it will be to the benefit of both nations and peace in the East will be a.s.sured for ever.
Please, therefore, consent quickly."
The Emperor replied--
"From time immemorial it has been the custom of the rulers of Korea, when confronted with questions so momentous as this, to come to no decision until all the Ministers, high and low, who hold or have held office, have been consulted, and the opinion of the scholars and the common people have been obtained, so that I cannot now settle this matter myself."
Said Marquis Ito again--
"Protests from the people can easily be disposed of, and for the sake of the friendship between the two countries Your Majesty should come to a decision at once."
To this the Emperor replied--
"a.s.sent to your proposal would mean the ruin of my country, and I will therefore sooner die than agree to it."
The conference lasted nearly five hours, and then the Marquis had to leave, having accomplished nothing. He at once tackled the members of the Cabinet, individually and collectively. They were all summoned to the j.a.panese Legation on the following day, and a furious debate began, starting at three o"clock in the afternoon, and lasting till late at night. The Ministers had sworn to one another beforehand that they would not yield. In spite of threats, cajoleries, and proffered bribes, they remained steadfast The arguments used by Marquis Ito and Mr. Hayashi, apart from personal ones, were twofold. The first was that it was essential for the peace of the Far East that j.a.pan and Korea should be united. The second appealed to racial ambition. The j.a.panese painted to the Koreans a picture of a great united East, with the Mongol nations all standing firm and as one against the white man, who would reduce them to submission if he could.[1] The j.a.panese were determined to give the Cabinet no time to regather its strength. On the 17th of November, another conference began at two in the afternoon at the Legation, but equally without result. Mr. Hayashi then advised the Ministers to go to the palace and open a Cabinet Meeting in the presence of the Emperor. This was done, the j.a.panese joining in.
[Footnote 1: As it may be questioned whether the j.a.panese would use such arguments, I may say that the account of the interview was given to me by one of the partic.i.p.ating Korean Ministers, and that he dealt at great length with the pro-Asian policy suggested there. I asked him why he had not listened and accepted. He replied that he knew what such arguments meant. The unity of Asia when spoken of by j.a.panese meant the supreme autocracy of their country.]
All this time the j.a.panese Army had been making a great display of military force around the palace. All the j.a.panese troops in the district had been for days parading the streets and open places fronting the Imperial residence. The field-guns were out, and the men were fully armed. They marched, countermarched, stormed, made feint attacks, occupied the gates, put their guns in position, and did everything, short of actual violence, that they could to demonstrate to the Koreans that they were able to enforce their demands. To the Cabinet Ministers themselves, and to the Emperor, all this display had a sinister and terrible meaning. They could not forget the night in 1895, when the j.a.panese soldiers had paraded around another palace, and when their picked bullies had forced their way inside and murdered the Queen. j.a.pan had done this before; why should she not do it again? Not one of those now resisting the will of Dai Nippon but saw the sword in front of his eyes, and heard in imagination a hundred times during the day the rattle of the j.a.panese bullets.
That evening j.a.panese soldiers, with fixed bayonets, entered the courtyard of the palace and stood near the apartment of the Emperor. Marquis Ito now arrived, accompanied by General Hasegawa, Commander of the j.a.panese Army in Korea, and a fresh attack was started on the Cabinet Ministers. The Marquis demanded an audience of the Emperor. The Emperor refused to grant it, saying that his throat was very bad, and he was in great pain. The Marquis then made his way into the Emperor"s presence, and personally requested an audience. The Emperor still refused. "Please go away and discuss the matter, with the Cabinet Ministers," he said.
Thereupon Marquis Ito went outside to the Ministers. "Your Emperor has commanded you to confer with me and settle this matter," he declared. A fresh conference was opened. The presence of the soldiers, the gleaming of the bayonets outside, the harsh words of command that could be heard through the windows of the palace buildings, were not without their effect.
The Ministers had fought for days and they had fought alone. No single foreign representative had offered them help or counsel. They saw submission or destruction before them. "What is the use of our resisting?"
said one. "The j.a.panese always get their way in the end." Signs of yielding began to appear. The acting Prime Minister, Han Kew-sul, jumped to his feet and said he would go and tell the Emperor of the talk of traitors. Han Kew-sul was allowed to leave the room and then was gripped by the j.a.panese Secretary of the Legation, thrown into a side-room and threatened with death. Even Marquis Ito went out to him to persuade him. "Would you not yield," the Marquis said, "if your Emperor commanded you?" "No," said Han Kew-sul, "not even then!"
This was enough. The Marquis at once went to the Emperor. "Han Kew-sul is a traitor," he said. "He defies you, and declares that he will not obey your commands."
Meanwhile the remaining Ministers waited in the Cabinet Chamber. Where was their leader, the man who had urged them all to resist to death? Minute after minute pa.s.sed, and still he did not return. Then a whisper went round that the j.a.panese had killed him. The harsh voices of the j.a.panese grew still more strident. Courtesy and restraint were thrown off. "Agree with us and be rich, or oppose us and perish." Pak Che-sun, the Foreign Minister, one of the best and most capable of Korean statesmen, was the last to yield. But even he finally gave way. In the early hours of the morning commands were issued that the seal of State should be brought from the Foreign Minister"s apartment, and a treaty should be signed. Here another difficulty arose. The custodian of the seal had received orders in advance that, even if his master commanded, the seal was not to be surrendered for any such purpose. When telephonic orders were sent to him, he refused to bring the seal along, and special messengers had to be despatched to take it from him by force. The Emperor himself a.s.serts to this day that he did not consent.
The news of the signing of the treaty was received by the people with horror and indignation. Han Kew-sul, once he escaped from custody, turned on his fellow-Ministers as one distraught, and bitterly reproached them.
"Why have you broken your promises?" he cried. "Why have you broken your promises?" The Ministers found themselves the most hated and despised of men. There was danger lest mobs should attack them and tear them to pieces.
Pak Che-sun shrank away under the storm of execration that greeted him. On December 6th, as he was entering the palace, one of the soldiers lifted his rifle and tried to shoot him, Pak Che-sun turned back, and hurried to the j.a.panese Legation. There he forced his way into the presence of Mr.
Hayashi, and drew a knife. "It is you who have brought me to this," he cried. "You have made me a traitor to my country." He attempted to cut his own throat, but Mr. Hayashi stopped him, and he was sent to hospital for treatment. When he recovered he was chosen by the j.a.panese as the new Prime Minister, Han Kew-sul being exiled and disgraced. Pak did not, however, hold office for very long, being somewhat too independent to suit his new masters.
As the news spread through the country, the people of various districts a.s.sembled, particularly in the north, and started to march southwards to die in front of the palace as a protest. Thanks to the influence of the missionaries, many of them were stopped. "It is of no use your dying in that way," the missionaries told them. "You had better live and make your country better able to hold its own." A number of leading officials, including all the surviving past Prime Ministers, and over a hundred men who had previously held high office under the Crown, went to the palace, and demanded that the Emperor should openly repudiate the treaty, and execute those Ministers who had acquiesced in it. The Emperor tried to temporize with them, for he was afraid that, if he took too openly hostile an att.i.tude, the j.a.panese would punish him. The memorialists sat down in the palace buildings, refusing to move, and demanding an answer. Some of their leaders were arrested by the j.a.panese gendarmes, only to have others, still greater men, take their place. The storekeepers of the city put up their shutters to mark their mourning.
At last a message came from the Emperor: "Although affairs now appear to you to be dangerous, there may presently result some benefit to the nation." The gendarmes descended on the pet.i.tioners and threatened them with general arrest if they remained around the palace any longer. They moved on to a shop where they tried to hold a meeting, but they were turned out of it by the police. Min Yong-whan, their leader, a former Minister for War and Special Korean Amba.s.sador at Queen Victoria"s Diamond Jubilee, went home. He wrote letters to his friends lamenting the state of his country, and then committed suicide. Several other statesmen did the same, while many others resigned. One native paper, the _Whang Sung Shimbun_, dared to print an exact statement of what had taken place. Its editor was promptly arrested, and thrown into prison, and the paper suppressed. Its lamentation voiced the feeling of the country:--
"When it was recently made known the Marquis Ito would come to Korea our deluded people all said, with one voice, that he is the man who will be responsible for the maintenance of friendship between the three countries of the Far East (j.a.pan, China, and Korea), and, believing that his visit to Korea was for the sole purpose of devising good plans for strictly maintaining the promised integrity and independence of Korea, our people, from the seacoast to the capital, united in extending to him a hearty welcome.
"But oh! How difficult is it to antic.i.p.ate affairs in this world.
Without warning, a proposal containing five clauses was laid before the Emperor, and we then saw how mistaken we were about the object of Marquis Ito"s visit. However, the Emperor firmly refused to have anything to do with these proposals and Marquis Ito should then, properly, have abandoned his attempt and returned to his own country.
"But the Ministers of our Government, who are worse than pigs or dogs, coveting honours and advantages for themselves, and frightened by empty threats, were trembling in every limb, and were willing to become traitors to their country and betray to j.a.pan the integrity of a nation which has stood for 4,000 years, the foundation and honour of a dynasty 500 years old, and the rights and freedom of twenty million people.
"We do not wish to too deeply blame Pak Che-sun and the other Ministers, of whom, as they are little better than brute animals, too much was not to be expected, but what can be said of the Vice-Prime Minister, the chief of the Cabinet, whose early opposition to the proposals of Marquis Ito was an empty form devised to enhance his reputation with the people?
"Can he not now repudiate the agreement or can he not rid the world of his presence? How can he again stand before the Emperor and with what face can he ever look upon any one of his twenty million compatriots?
"Is it worth while for any of us to live any longer? Our people have become the slaves of others, and the spirit of a nation which has stood for 4,000 years, since the days of Tun Kun and Ke-ja has perished in a single night. Alas! fellow-countrymen.
Alas!"
Suicides, resignations, and lamentation were of no avail. The j.a.panese gendarmes commanded the streets, and the j.a.panese soldiers, behind them, were ready to back up their will by the most unanswerable of arguments--force.
Naturally, as might have been expected by those who know something of the character of the j.a.panese, every effort was made to show that there had been no breach of treaty promises. Korea was still an independent country, and the dignity of its Imperial house was still unimpaired. j.a.pan had only brought a little friendly pressure on a weaker brother to a.s.sist him along the path of progress. Such talk pleased the j.a.panese, and helped them to reconcile the contrast between their solemn promises and their actions. It deceived no one else. Soon even, the j.a.panese papers made little or no more talk of Korean independence. "Korean independence is a farce," they said.
And for the time they were right.
The Emperor did his utmost to induce the Powers, more particularly America, to intervene, but in vain. The story of his efforts is an interesting episode in the records of diplomacy.
Dr. Allen, the American Minister, wrote to his Secretary of State, on April 14, 1904, telling of the serious concern of the Korean Emperor over recent happenings. "He falls back in his extremity upon his old friendship with America.... The Emperor confidently expects that America will do something for him at the close of this war, or when opportunity offers, to retain for him as much of his independence as is possible. He is inclined to give a very free and favourable translation to Article I of our treaty of Jenchuan of 1882" (_i.e._, the pledge, "If other Powers deal unjustly or oppressively with either Government, the other will exert their good offices, on being informed of the case, to bring about an amicable arrangement, thus showing their friendly feeling").
In April, 1905, Dr. Allen transmitted to Washington copies of protests by an American missionary and certain Koreans against the conduct of j.a.panese subjects in Korea. Dr. Allen was shortly afterwards replaced by Mr. Edwin V. Morgan.
In October, 1905, the Emperor, determined to appeal directly to America, enlisted the services of Professor Homer B. Hulbert, editor of the _Korea Review_, who had been employed continuously in educational work in Seoul since 1886, and despatched him to Washington, with a letter to the President of the United States. Mr. Hulbert informed his Minister at Seoul of his mission and started off. The j.a.panese learned of his departure (Mr.
Hulbert suggests that the American Minister may have informed them) and used every effort to force a decision before the letter could be delivered.
On the same day that Mr. Hulbert reached Washington the Korean Cabinet were forced to sign the doc.u.ment giving j.a.pan a protectorate over their land.
Formal notification had not yet, however, arrived at Washington, so it was resolved not to receive Mr. Hulbert until this had come.
"I supposed that the President would be not only willing but eager to see the letter," said Mr. Hulbert in a statement presented later to the Senate; "but instead of that I received the astounding answer that the President would not receive it. I cast about in my own mind for a possible reason, but could imagine none. I went to the State Department with it, but was told that they were too busy to see me. Remember that at that very moment Korea was in her death throes; that she was in full treaty relations with us; that there was a Korean legation in Washington and an American legation in Seoul. I determined that there was something here that was more than mere carelessness.
There was premeditation in the refusal. There was no other answer. They said I might come the following day. I did so and was told that they were still too busy, but might come the next day. I hurried over to the White House and asked to be admitted.
A secretary came out and without any preliminary whatever told me in the lobby that they knew the contents of the letter, but that the State Department was the only place to go. I had to wait till the next day. But on that same day, the day before I was admitted, the administration, without a word to the Emperor or Government of Korea or to the Korean Legation, and knowing well the contents of the undelivered letter, accepted j.a.pan"s unsupported statement that it was all satisfactory to the Korean Government and people, cabled our legation to remove from Korea, cut off all communication with the Korean Government, and then admitted me with the letter."
On November 25th Mr. Hulbert received a message from Mr. Root that
"The letter from the Emperor of Korea which you intrusted to me has been placed in the President"s hands and read by him.
"In view of the fact that the Emperor desires that the sending of the letter should remain secret, and of the fact that since intrusting it to you the Emperor has made a new agreement with j.a.pan disposing of the whole question to which the letter relates, it seems quite impracticable that any action should be based upon it."
On the following day Mr. Hulbert received a cablegram from the Emperor, which had been despatched from Chefoo, in order not to pa.s.s over the j.a.panese wires:--
"I declare that the so-called treaty of protectorate recently concluded between Korea and j.a.pan was extorted at the point of the sword and under duress and therefore is null and void. I never consented to it and never will. Transmit to American Government.
"THE EMPEROR OF KOREA."