Page:The Independent (January 13, 1909, Page 93) - The Japan of 1909 by J. H. de Forest.jpg

The Japan of 1909

by J. H. DE FOREST

The sad event of the latter part of the year should be mentioned first --- the assassin's act of October 26, a deed that called forth the sympathy of the whole world for Japan. The assassin made a great mistake, for he killed the best friend Korea had among the Japanese; the wisest official protector of the great missionary movement in Korea; the man known throughout the world as the framer of Japan's remarkable Constitution, with its open recognition of the liberties of the people; the greatest statesman of the East; a profound lover of peace.

Strange, indeed, that such a man should have been decades an object for an assasin's weapon. At times he had to be protected from this peril at the hands of his own countryman. Then he was always in danger so long as he lived in Seoul. "I often wonder that my life has been spared so long," he recently said. At last, at the ripe age of sixty-nine, he met his fate a thousand miles from home in North Manchuria.

But really such a death was great good fortune for Prince Ito. "Vastly better than to die on his mat at home, said an aged Samurai to me with convetous expression. "He couldn't have lived much longer anyway," said another with the same envious look. Very likely he would have had a national funeral in any event, but the manner of his death made his funeral the greatest national manifestation any Japanese has ever received. And in addition to all the Imperial honors conferred upon his during his life, posthumous honors, precious to Japanese and a potent source of noble endeavor, have been bestowed by the Emperor.

How did the Japanese regard this Korean murderer? A few of the papers asserted that now was the opportunity for a more positive attitude toward the whole Korean problem, probably hinting at absolute annexation. But the more influential papers recognized that political assassination is something that all nations suffer from and freely cited such cases as that of the Japanese policeman who, twenty years ago, thru his distorted patriotism, almost killed the present Czer, when as Crown Prince he was visiting Japan; and that another Japanese did Li Hung Chang at the Shimonoseki Peace Conference. There is quite a line of Japanese assassins who took the valuable lives of such men as Okubo and Mori and others, just missing that of Okuma.

No, Japan will not take this occasion to tighten her grip on helpless Korea. The Koreans have long been inviting their political doom by their utter incapacity to deal with international problems, and have become a standing peril to the peace of the East. It was a choice between China, Russia and Japan, one of which had to protect and control that peninsula. While such an experiment of necessity brings much of profound suffering and loss and even brutality, together with the indescribable pain patriotic people feel at the loss of their country's independence, yet it is apparent that Korea never had, in education, in finance, in all that pertains to civil and criminal law, the blessings Japan has thus far given her, or rather forced her to take for the food of the world.

The fact is that Japan is more or less suspected and disliked by considerable section of people all over the world. I think the best explanation is found in a statement that the Premier Marquis Katsura made to me a year ago: "The only reason I know of for being misunderstood and disliked is our too rapid progress." And, indeed, there is nothing else that can account so well for nine-tenths of suspicions so freely bestowed upon Japan. As an ediorial in the most widely circulated paper in Northern Japan recently said: "These wide suspicions of us all come from amazement at out rapid progress, and therefore we are badly misunderstood."

The real meaning of these words comes