Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/69

 to be more and more frequent. Personal responsibility was unknown among officials, family influence overshadowing everything. To be a member of the Bin family, to which the Queen belonged, was to possess a passport to office and an indemnity against the consequences of abuse of power, however flagrant. From time to time the advocates of progress or the victims of oppression rose in arms. They effected nothing except to recall to the world's recollection the miserable condition into which the peninsula had fallen. Chinese military aid was always furnished readily for the suppression of these émeutes, and thus the Bin family learned to base its tenure of power on ability to conciliate the Middle Kingdom and on readiness to obey Chinese dictation, while the people at large fell into the apathetic condition of men that possess neither the blessing of security of property nor the incentive of national ambition.

As a matter of State policy the Korean problem caused much anxiety to Japan. Her own security being deeply concerned in preserving Korea from the grasp of Western Powers, she could not suffer the little kingdom to drift into a condition of such administrative incompetence and national debility that a strong aggressor might find at any moment a pretext for interference. On two occasions, namely in 1882 and 1884, when China's armed intervention was employed in the interests of the Bin to suppress