At the beginning of the war every foreigner—­except a small group of pro-Russians, sympathized with Japan.  We had all been alienated by the follies and mistakes of the Russian Far Eastern policy.  We saw Japan at her best, and we all believed that her people would act well by this weaker race.  Our favourable impressions were strengthened by the first doings of the Japanese soldiers, and when scandals were whispered, and oppression began to appear, we all looked upon them as momentary disturbances due to a condition of war.  We were unwilling to believe anything but the best, and it took some time to destroy our favourable prepossessions.  I speak here not only for myself, but for many another white man in Korea at the time.

I might support this by many quotations.  I take, for instance, Professor Hulbert, the editor of the Korea Review, to-day one of the most persistent and active critics of Japanese policy.  At the opening of the war Professor Hulbert used all his influence in favour of Japan.

“What Korea wants,” he wrote, “is education, and until steps are taken in that line there is no use in hoping for a genuinely independent Korea.  Now, we believe that a large majority of the best-informed Koreans realize that Japan and Japanese influence stand for education and enlightenment, and that while the paramount influence of any one outside Power is in some sense a humiliation, the paramount influence of Japan will give far less genuine cause for humiliation than has the paramount influence of Russia.  Russia secured her predominance by pandering to the worst elements in Korean officialdom.  Japan holds it by strength of arm, but she holds it in such a way that it gives promise of something better.  The word reform never passed the Russians’ lips.  It is the insistent cry of Japan.  The welfare of the Korean people never showed its head above the Russian horizon, but it fills the whole vision of Japan; not from altruistic motives mainly but because the prosperity of Korea and that of Japan rise and fall with the same tide."[1]

     [Footnote 1:  Korea Review, February, 1904.]

Month after month, when stories of trouble came from the interior, the Korea Review endeavoured to give the best explanation possible for them, and to reassure the public.  It was not until the editor was forced thereto by consistent and sustained Japanese misgovernment that he reversed his attitude.

Foreign visitors of influence were naturally drawn to the Japanese rather than to the Koreans.  They found in the officials of the Residency-General a body of capable and delightful men, who knew the Courts of Europe, and were familiar with world affairs.  On the other hand, the Korean spokesmen had no power or skill in putting their case so as to attract European sympathy.  One distinguished foreigner, who returned home and wrote a book largely given up to laudation of the Japanese and contemptuous abuse of the Koreans, admitted that he had never, during his journey, had any contact with Koreans save those his Japanese guides brought to him.  Some foreign journalists were also at first blinded in the same way.