Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/275

 carried the day, and a man who had held the property for years was summarily ejected.

A bishop of the Methodist Church in America was travelling with two missionaries through the country near Seoul. They had to cross a railroad embankment that was in construction. They walked a few rods along the embankment, and because of this they were attacked by a gang of Japanese coolies, and the two missionaries were severely hurt. It was only by the merest good luck that any of them escaped with their lives. No punishment at all commensurate with the crime was inflicted. A Japanese refused to pay his fare on the American electric cars and was put off. He ran into a near-by Korean rice shop, turned the rice out of a bag, placed it on the track and lay down upon it. He defied the Korean motormen to ride over him. No one dared to touch him, for this would have been the signal for a bloody reprisal on the part of the Japanese who lived all about. When the Americans complain of such things, they are told by the Japanese authorities that they can be easily avoided by employing Japanese.

As the year advanced, the Japanese kept at work gathering in the material resources of the country. Fishing rights along the whole coast were demanded and given. No one who knows what Japanese fishermen are like will doubt for a moment that the Koreans will be driven from the fishing grounds. Then the coast-trading and riparian rights were seized, looking toward a complete absorption of the large coastwise and river traffic. Korean methods are slower and more cumbersome, and herein lies Japan's excuse for driving Koreans from the business.

The signing of the Treaty of Peace with Russia at Portsmouth was the signal for a still more active policy in Korea. The American people had been brought to believe that the Korean people were as unworthy of regard as the Japanese were above criticism, and steps were taken to arrange for the declaration of a protectorate over the peninsular kingdom.

It must be remembered that Japan had solemnly promised,