Russia begins to show her hand in Corea. Some Russian emissaries have made their appearance at Teighi Ham-gong do and addressed the people on the public roads, inciting them against the Japanese, saying that the order to cut off the top knots and other reformatory orders had been issued at the instigation of the Japanese, and that patriots should tear out
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baga of the Japanese and eat their The incident is very significant for it is very evident that those Russian emissaries did not act without orders, Russian diplomats, therefore, upon the arrival at St. Petersburg of Marquis Yamagata, may amuse themselves by giving him assurances of the most cordial ce-operation in Corea, whilst the events provoc"teurs of the Asiatic Department, judiciously distributed in Corea, stir up the population against the Japenese, and at the very worst the severe punishment" that was meted out by Japan to Viscount Miura would be inflicted upon them. Japan can ask for no more, Russia will find finger posts of precedents established by Japan in Corea in every direction, and meny an evil bird may come home fo roost. The Japanese population in Seoul at present still numbers over 1,300 souls, although it has already diminished by some 300, but whilst the capital must be presumed to be safer than outlying districts, the exodus of Japanese shows that they can no longer pursue their avocations with any profit to themselves, and there are a thousand ways to make life unbearable to them besides open. violence. The Coreans, moreover, know that attacks upon Japanese will neither offend their Government nor Russia, and that in view of the more or less open support. the latter power, Japanese military action on lange scale is out of the question. Chinese merchants are also arriving in increasing numbers, and, according to Japanese papers, carry an a successful war against Japanese trade, so that Japan in Corea is losing ground, all along the line. The mistake has been made not to reckon with Russia at the outset, and the mountain saw no necessity to go the prophet, so that the latter has now to. go the mountain at St. Petersburg.
As time wears on then, the practical results of the war become smaller and smaller. Even if we still pretend to believe in the fiction that furnished the pretence, the independence of Corea, that object has not only not been accomplished, but Japan thas been ousted from the position she held by Russia; taxes have increased by 50 per cent; an immense number of young men will have to be withdrawn for the army from productive pursuits which are already. suffering from want of fairly skilled labour; all necessaries of life have increased in' price from 30 to 50 per cent; wages have increased in the same proportion, and on the whole less work is done for more money. Nor do we judge things from a foreign standpoint only. As rogards Japanese employers it is scarcely any longer correct to speak of wages in their case. They have to hold out special inducements to get workmen who could not earn their salt in any foreign country. Money has to be advanced to them and until that is gone no work is done, and when they can at Inst be persuaded to come to work, they come with the idea that they really work for nothing, since the money they would otherwise have had to receive for their work is already spent, and the work is scamped accordingly. This applies to coolies also, and so far as practical work is concerned the war has made the coolie master of the situation. To be sure, a number of factories have been started which still pay low wages and attract hands on account of the limited intelligence that increases the diftculty'to get hands for work factory work requires, but that fact onl;
that cannot be done by machinery, and it will also result in the creation of a factory proletariat which by purely mechanical work has become unfitted for anything else.
There is already a semi-educated or overeducated proletariat, as represented by soshi and their congeners, against which special legislation has become necessary there is an ever increasing army of jinricsha coolies, now probably numbering over half a million strong and able men who are idle at least three parts of their time, and whom two or three hours' work a day will provide with all the necessaries of life; there is the increased conscript tion for the army; there is emigration, and there is the demand by Formosa for soldiers, artisans, and coolies. Here we have five separate conscriptions then which ordinary productive pursuits in Japan have to bear, with another arising from the increasing number of factories, and ordinary every day pursuits cannot much longer
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.