he is convinced of the material advantages of the Japanese
rule, while admitting that they have been guilty of grave errors in handling a formidable task. The old Korean regimei
was incompetent and extortionate—the sole exception being the Foreign Customs Department—and put a• premium on indolence and unthrift. The Japanese have built a railway across the peninsula from Fusan to Wiju ; they have greatly improved and developed the roads ; carried out extensive harbour works at Fagan and Cheraulpho ; encouraged fishery, forestry, and scientific agriculture ; founded agriCultural banks and model farms; and are doing their best to revive the decayed industries for which Korea was once famous. But so far Japan has failed to conciliate Korean goodwill. This, in the view of the correspondent, is largely due to the harshness of the military occupation, the misconduct of the Japanese immi- grants, and the memory of the unfortunate complicity of the Japanese in the murder of the Queen after the war with Oiling None the less the firm yet more liberal policy of reform initiated by Prince Ito is beginning to bear fruit. Racially Japan is so far nearer Korea than China that "the gulf cannot prove in the long run impassable, unless the Japanese themselves make it so."
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