KOREA'S CLAIMS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 254, 22 July 1919, Page 5

KOREA'S CLAIMS

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

REMARKABLE DOCUMENT

The Korean proclamation of independence, tho full text of which, first promulgated in Seoul ou March 1, is, in many ways, a remarkable document. Sighed by thirty-three pronrnent Koreans, representing many different classes aud creeds, it places the claims of the' country to independence on the broadest possible ba£is, and succeeds in formulating a demand which, tested by the criterion in accordance, with which the world is now being rearranged in Paris., must be pronounced irrefragable. In considering the Korean claim, however, or any similar claim, the fact must bo remembered that, in these days when the education of the West is open so fully to the East, it is always possible for tho most backward eastern country to find within its borders men of education and discernment sufficient to draw up, in all sincerity, a document the ideals of w'hich might presuppose a very high standard of national enlightenment, if it were takeu literally as expressing a widespread national sentiment. Tho thirty-three educated ( Koreans have unquestionably succeeded in producing such a document. "A new era," they declare, "wakes befojs our eyes. Tlie old world of force is gone, and thd new world of righteousness and truth is here." "It is the day of the restoration of all things on the full tide of which we step forth without delay or fear. Wo desire «. full measure of satisfaction in the way of liberty and tho pursuit of happihess and an opportunity to develop what is in us for the glory of our people. 1 '

Now the inalienable right of any people to such rights and privileges is not, and cannot "be, questioned. The only question there is, or can be, is how best they may be secured to people at all, periods in their development. The signatories of tho document under consideration assert that the only way this may be done is bv 'the immediate achievetho ''independence of Korea and the liberty of the Korean people." The Japanese, on the other liaad, 'would maintain that tho great mass of tho Korean people, in spite of all that Japan has done for them in the way of education, and there can be no question that Japan has done a great deal, are s.til] utterly incapable of self-government. They wou.ld point to the fact that before they annexed the country, some nino years ago, Korea was known as the Hermit Kingdom; that its culture and civilisation were amongst the most Ixickward in tho Far East; that the people were notoriously poverty-stricken, primitive, and uneducated; and that to grant such people independence at the behest of a few educated Koreans, oven though they claim to represent some 3,000,000 of their l'ellow countrymen, would really be to sot back the progress of the country to an extent impos.siblo to'estimate. It is, of course, just this argument of the greatest good of the greatest num. ber which is the strong point, and tho only really unassailable point, in tho Japanese rebuttal of the Korean claims. As to the rights which, under tho old order, might be held to How from the fact of annexation, she has none in equity as to-day conceived. Tho proceeding followed the most humdrum lines of the accepted diplomatic method, the gradual absorption of tho country under force majeure. First camo tho "agreement," in 1901, at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese war, (by Korea, lo be "guided by tho advice of Japan," and to permit the occupation by Japanese forces of* any strategical points which might bo deemed necessary for the prolection of the country. Next came Ko. rp'i's pledgo to bo "guided by Japan in all hor fordign relations"; thrin 'her "decision", to place her whole Government in the hands of the Japanese, and to admit Japanese warships into her territorial waters. Later on in the same year, 1905, a Japanese residency was established at Seoul, while tho control oi the country's fnrebn affairs was placed absolutely in JaDa'ncso hands. By tho end of 1909 the King of Korea only retained titular authority, and a year later he had disappeared altogether, and Korea was annexed absolutely to Japan, whilo its namo was changed to Chosen.