THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7956, 3 February 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1906.

The special correspondent, Mr George Kennan, of the New York Outlook, writes in regard to his studies of the Korean problem: "When one reviews, fairly and dispassionately, the methods and achievements of the Japanese in Korea, since they acquired paramount influence there in February, 1904, one can hardly help feeling a little disappointment. Their aims and intentions have been good, and they have made some progress in the right direction; but they have not displayed ii that field anything like the intelligent prevision, the conspiouous ability, and the remarkable capacity for prearrangement that they have shown in the arena of war. The first mistake, perhaps, that the Japanese Government made in its dealings with Korea was in attempting to roconoile Korean independence with effeotive Japanese control." The second mistake was the result, so it seems to the correspondent, of bad judgment with regard to the measures and reforms that were most urgently needed. They were acquainted or ought to have been acquainted, with the cruelty and corruption of

Korean administration. Instead, however, of weeding out corrupt Ministers, punishing official robbers, and making a vigorous effort to improve Korean administration, the Japanese turned their attention first to the development of the material resources of the country, und brought forward a scheme for reclamation and utilisation of unoccupied and uncultivated laud. This schome proposad to give to a Japanese subject named Nagamori a fifty-year right to reclaim waste and fallow lands in all parts of the Empire, and to cultivato and use them for his own exclusive benefit. He was to pay nothing for the concesison, and during a period of five years was to be exempt even from ordinary taxation. The land to be turned over to him was thought to comprise at least onefifth, and possibly one-third of the Elmpire. What the Korean people want aud needed most was not an opportunity to make more money by cultivating more laud, but a guarantee that they should enjoy in peace and security the mouoy thoy were making already. The Nagamori scheme led them to believe that iu the future they were noc only to be robbed by their own officials, but exploited by the Japanese, and they immediately united in a storm of protest. Surprised and disconcerted, apparently, by the popular excitement and indignation which the Nagamori proposition aroused, the Japanese Government finally ceased to urge it, and it was eventually dropped. The Japanese authorities made a third mistake in allowing their own countrymen to swarm into Kprea by tens of thousands before they had provided any legal rflaohineryjfor the adjudication and settlement of disputes between the inimigrauts and the natives. The Koreans are mostly exaggerators or bare-faced liars, by heredity and by training, and it is therefore impossible to aocept, without careful verification, the statements which they make with regard to Japanese misbehaviour. Ihe Japanese immigrants are not subject to the jurisdiction of the Korean courtt), and the Koreans cannot get justice in the Japanese courts, for the reason, principally, that the latter are swamped with business. It ia utterly impossible for half a dozen Consuls to investigate the enormous number of cases, or even to listen to the complaints of the injured parties. It is Mr Keonan's that it the Japanese Government would give the Korean people justice, protect their rights, and thus win their confidence, they might safely permit the establishment of a Russian politioal agency in every town.

The late King of Denmark had a -omantio career. When he wa9 born there seemed no . probability that he would even occupy a Throne, tie was not in the direct succession to the Crowu of Denmark, and there were three brothers older than himself. His mother was the bister of a Danish King, and bis father was a German Duke. When he married in 1842 he had settled down to a soldier's life and the household was managed on very simple lines. When the children grew up they recognised that they would probably have to earn their own livings. ,The daughters helped with the housework, and made their own dresses. The late King reached the Throne, however, through no battle. He was selected deliberately by the Powers as a fitting successor to the last King of the Oldenburg line, and he was already 30 years of age befone the possibility of his succession was considered. He was poor among Prinoes and poor among Kings. His reign opened with a calamitous war against the German Powers, ending in the loss to Deumark of the Duohies of Schles wig-Hostein and Lauenburg. In the first year of his rule King Christian thus lost a third of his Dominions. 'Vith diminished territory and an exhausted treasury, he set himself the arduous task of healing his country's wounds, developing her internal resources and foreign trade, and reforming her politioal and administrative in stitutions. At his initiative a new Constitution was framed and inaugurated iu 1866, when the King in person opened the new Rigsdag. Since Denmark has been steadily moving forward. The King, remembered the days when he had given drawing lessons to inarease his little income, and the life of the Danish Court remained simple.