30th Nov. IN the October issue of that bulky periodical, Zhe Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review and Oriental and Colonial Record, is _a brilliant little article on Corea by Mr. A. Michie. We confess to laving long ago given up Corea, It ought to be a very interesting country. It was closed to foreigners for centuries, and a country so jealously guarded ought to have been worth guarding, but when it was opened there was nothing in it, Its geographical position between China, Siberia, and Japan, wakes it an important matter to any two of these Powers that the third shall not possess it; and there are obvious reasons why it would be inconvenient to Great Britain if Russia should acquire it; but to the rest of the world it seems to matter very little who rules it, nominally or actually. The mineral wealth that it was supposed at one time to contain it has so far succeeded in concealing from the prospectors who have been sent to discover its secrets. The people ave poor, but content with their poverty; as Mr. Michie puts it: "hey are reputed to be the most oppressed people on the face of the earth, and the exaction of officials is always given as their reason for idleness, it being quite useless for the common people to own the least property, personal or real. All that is Uoubtless true; and yet the back has so adjusted itself to the burden that the Coreans are entirely free from the outward signs of misery so common in other countries: no squalor meets the eye in village or city, and their only crying want, which most strangers would agree upon, is that of soap. The oppression of the nobles may have had the effect of checking the increase of ful blessing perhaps, but ye ional life which is not without its advantages. Recent estimates by the way have reduced the nal population of the peninsula siderably, sowle writers putting the figures as low as five millions."
Mr, Michie thinks that in the midst of the alien and conflicting forces operating in Corea the position of the government is not to be envied or admired. It seems to us, on the contrary, that the position of the Corean government is not at all a bad one, and could only be bettered if all the Powers concerned were to agree in formally neutralizing Corea, The government is virtually directed by the Chinese Resident, who has a much superior position to that of the representative of any other Power. He "is accorded in the royal presence privileges which none of his colleagues enjoy. They, for example, have to stop their sedans at the palace gate and walk a considerable distance to the audience hall, while the Chinese Resident's chair is carried through the gates and into the precincts. Many other like distinctions emphasise the fact that the Resident is quite another personage from the rest of the foreign representatives, no matter by what title they may be designated. In a word, he represents the Suzerain, exactly as the Resident at the Court of an Indian rajah does." Ihe government of Corea, therefore, can do exactly as it likes in internal matters, and has the Chinese Resident to lean on in external affairs; while, if the latter should be overbearing, it has a number of foreign representatives to whom it can make its complaints, and who, having nothing whatever to do at Seoul, must be only too glad to have a grievance brought to them to amuse them. Mr. Michie notes the various forms that foreign representation takes. The United States, which has always had a very exaggerated idea of the importance of Corea, "on the conclusion of their "Treaty at once accredited a Minister Plenipotentiary to the Royal Court. Russia sent a Consul-General and Charge @ Affaires; France sent a Consul and Commissaire; Germany a Consul Great Britain a Consul-General; Japan a Resident Minister and Charoé a Afraires; China a 'Resident' Of these various forms of representation of the Western Powers that of Great Britain happens to be the most, while that of the United States is the least, in harmony with the actual facts of the situation; the British representa ti being strictly subordinate to our Minister in Peking, while the American is himself a Minister of full rank, accredited to a Prince whose policy is controlled by a Suzerain to whom the Minister is not accredited. Ihe positions of the others are nondescript and incousistent." Ihe contention of the United. States, in accrediting a Mivister Pleuipotentiary to Corea, is, that in the treaties which Li Hung-chang persuaded Corea tu make with foreign Powers, it is distinctly stated that Corea is an independent State, which it never has been, Mr. Michie mentions that this gratuitous statement, which cannot be called misleading as it ought not to have misled anybody, "was, however, qualified by a letter from the King to each of the treaty Powers, declaring that although he was independent enough to sign treaties, he remained in fact the vassal of China."
Corea is full of anomalies. It is independent enough to sign treaties, and its foreign Customs are controlled and the officials appointed by Sir Robert Hart, the Inspector-General of Chinese Customs. Of the goods it imports, considerably more than half come from Great Britain and its dependencies, and there is not a single Englislman engaged in trade in the country. A great part of the import trade, and practically: the whole of the export trade, are in the hands of the Japanese, who have had a settlement at Fusan for some three centuries; but Chinese merchants are improving their position in the country very rapidly, "and as to their superior commercial instincts they add remarkable popularity with the Corean people, they are not unlikely in the long ran to gain the lion's share of the future foreign trade of Corea,"
Mr, Michie thoroughly approves of China's conduct to Corea, and she has, he says, "throughout been the consistent, friend and patron of the little country,' and not merely in the general sense of endowing it with her literature andeivilisation, while Japan has been the equally. consistent and ruthless enemy, notwithstanding that Japan stands indebted to Corea as the intermediate source of all her literature, art, and civilisation." Fortunately, Japan is checked from interfering in Corea by the possession of so large a share of the country's foreign trade; and there is no reason why the present condition of things, anomalous though it be, should not: continue, Meanwhile, the foreign trade is improving the condition of the people by giving them fresh incentives for exertion., hey are being taught. by government teachers imported from abroad, and the spontaneous devotion of numerous missionaries. 'I'he result, says Mr. Michie, will be a compound "for the missionaries mix political socialism largely with their religious instruction, and many of them, believe that a deutocratic fur of government is the panacea fur worldly ills. This new wine may intoxicate, or it may fortify, the Corean people, but it will not leave them as they are. Something will come out of all this social commotion, What? is the question."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.