Page:In Korea with Marquis Ito (1908).djvu/321

Rh additional evidence to that now available by the world at large. Strangely inconsistent in some of its features as it may seem to be, the portrait is unmistakably true to life. No wonder then, that, after exhausting all his resources of advice, rebuke, and warning, the Resident-General was regretfully forced to this conclusion: no cure for the temperament and habits of His Majesty of Korea could possibly be found. But this had long been the conclusion of his own Cabinet Ministers and all others among the wiser of the Korean officials. It was finally by these Ministers, without the orders, consent, or even knowledge of the Marquis Ito, that in order to save the country from more serious humiliation and disaster, movements were initiated to secure his abdication of the throne he had disgraced for more than forty years.

As to the Korean ruling classes generally, the Yang-bans so-called, it may be said that for centuries they have been, with few exceptions, of a character to correspond with their monarchs. The latter have also been, with few exceptions, such in character as to represent either the weak side or the corrupt and cruel side, or both, of the ruler just described. This truth of "like king, like nobles," was amply illustrated by the case of Kwang-ha, in the early years of the seventeenth century. When the monk Seung-ji induced this king to build the so-called "Mulberry Palace," thousands of houses were razed, the people oppressed with taxation, and the public offices sold in order to raise the funds. When the same monarch, yielding to the influences of his concubine and her party, committed the infamy of expelling the Queen-Dowager from Seoul, only one prominent courtier, Yi Hang-bok, with eight others, stood out against 930 officials and 170 of the king's relatives who were ready to vote for the shameful deed.

The proportion of courageous and honest officials