General of Korea, is recently quoted as saying, according to the Seoul correspondent of the Osaka "4sahs," "That Christian wissionaries are behind the disturbances in Korea is an undeniable fact and a man named Schofield, is one of the most pronounced type of these agitators." Also "Yamatu" one of the Japanese dailies in Tokio, said "Mr, Akaike, Director of the Police Affairs in the Government General of Chosen, has published a startling fact. The intrigues of the Koreans were due to the instigation of the American missionaries."
These assertions are certainly at variance with the repeated statements of those Japanese officials who declared that the missionaries had nothing to do with the Korean Independence movement, As a matter of fact they did not even know that there was to be an independence movement, much less instigated it. Mr. Katsuo Usami, director of Internal Affairs, declared during the spring demonstrations that missionaries were not concerned in the disturbance: Yamagata, the former civil admini-strafer of Korea, said that the demonstrations were first started by the Chundokyo. The Ministry of Justice also stated that after investigation there was no sign of the missionaries having anything to do with the uprising.
In view of these official exonerations of the missionaries from politics of Korea, it is highly surprising that Governor Saito should again bring up a question which was thought to have been settled satisfactorily.
It ought to be almost self-evident to anyone with any brains at all that the missionaries could not even, if they wanted, have engineered such a vast movement. The task is impossible. How can a_ few hundred missionaries in Korea incite 20 millions of contented and loyal" Koreans in Korea, China, Siberia, Hawaii, America, Europe, and Mexico. Unless one attributes a unique psychological trait to the Korean, such a transition, from a perfect state of loyalty and adoration of the Japanese Empire to a diametrically -opposite state of open rebellion, is imeonceivable. The Independence Movement is by no means the work of the missionaries. Tt is the spontaneous expression of the Korean people against the 10 years of Japanese oppression for the like of which there is no parallel, the expression of the historical instinct of the Korean resist alien domination.
Down deep in the hearts of the Japanese there is a conviction that the missionaries are not the culprits. The fundamental reason for this anti-missionary attitude the Japanese is that the Japanese do not want the missionaries in Korea. The missionary, bringing with him words of comfort to the tortured and imprisoned, wins the heart of the people, while the Japanese with guns on their shoulders and swords at their sides are a source of silent laughter and contempt. The missionary teaches the equality of man and individual worth, while the usurper proclaims that the Japanese are the Lords of creation, and that the world now temporarily disinherited will soon return to the paternal folds of the alleged son of heaven There is a law ai the Government General of Korea which provides that beginning January 1, 1919 (7 1920), Japanese will be the only language to be used in the schools, This regulation has never been rescinded and there is no sign that it will be. If this regulation be enforced beginning next month what will become of the missionaries who have spent their lives in studying the Korean language, and who, when the new regulation goes into effect, will be unable to carry on their former duties?
The Government General is always desirous of having the missionaries involved in some complication. In 1912 during the famous "Conspiracy Trials" when leading Koreans were arrested and torture ed two American missionaries, Dr. McCune and Dr. Moffet were dragged into the mesh, and now we have the arrest of Mr. Mowry, an American missionary for harbouring Koreans. The facts in the case were that five Koreans, pupils of Mr. Mowry, came to Mowry's house for shelter as they were afraid to go out in the night, when Japanese with long iron hooks attacked anybody who might the be passing. These boys were not wanted by the police and they had not done anything, but they just wanted to stay in' Mr. Mowry's house as a matter of precaution. But for this offence Mr. Mowry is fined and imprisoned, and even now when the facts show that he is absolutely innocent the Supreme Court has confirmed the previous sentence.
Yet. the Japanese want the missionaries to assist them in putting down the Independence movement, for we find the Seoul Press," the official organ of the of Korea, openly soliciting the help of the missionaries. We read in the issue of March 22, 1919, "What is now of importance is the restoration of normal conditions, for the doing of this work the foreign missionaries seem to us te be in particularly advantageons position. To be quite frank, we think that they would have rendered a great ° and good service. had they at the beginning of the trouble, put forth more efforts to persuade, those Christian Koreans to stop it."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.