The- unsympathetic survey which has been made of the concrete results actually obtained by the Japanese reformers has been necessary in order to accentuate light and shade; but even thie survey, hostile as it may appear at first sight, by no means conveys an adequate idea of the extraordinary change of opinion which has taken' place in' the country' amongst those classes of Europeans and natives who are xt heart favourable to Japan and whose views.
sagely correspond with the views onunciated in the new Anglo-Japanese alliance instrument. It is generally believed that there is not a single person of European or American nationality in the whol of Corea—and I speak mainly of people who are true friends of Japan—who does not privately think that the Japanese have wasted magnificent opportunities, have adopted entirely wrong principles, and that something must be quickly done to recover lost ground. They see in the termination of the McLeavy Brown Customs Administration and the approaching substitution of a purely Japanese service a desire not for actual reform but for absorption It is of course frankly and freely admitted that Mr. McLeavy Brown had become unsuitable owing to the impossibility of his accepting the new: Financial Adviser as his chief, and that he himself is severely to be blamed for not organising a proper Corean Customs Service in place of the make-shift affair composed of borrowed men'and indifferent underlings which hiad too long done duty. But it would have been possible to retain the essentials of this English-modelled service whilst doing away with its unacceptable feature Everyone sees in this sudden aboliti whet as late as. year ago the Bri Legation openly stited that Duivning Street did not intend to agree' to any change; the first act of a deep-lai For as Corean Legitions i are paid, directly out of the: reve collected' by the Chief Cotamissioner of Customs, the pasiing of the Corean Customs into. Japanese" hands wi that these sal still its tender, colo ho 30 long ago from the dainter's hand." Not i by the' of the' pi their" capitals." The woiidn' too iti Fléreaée; as leaders of literary society, preserve the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.