and St. Petersburg under such adverse circumstances could not but become more and more bitter, and by January, 1904, when battalion after battalion of Russian infantry was breaking camp at Port Arthur and marching for the Yalu, the situation was hopeless. When war broke out with the violence of a thunderclap it was really the occurrence of the inevitable. On the 9th of February the Varyag and the Corieetz were sunk at Chemulpo; on the 10th war was declared; on the 12th Monsieur Pavlow was escorted by the Japanese from Seoul, and embarked at Chemulpo; and by the 15th the main body of the first Japanese army was rapidly landing in Korea.

Such is a brief résumé of events of world-wide interest. The reader, it is true, may well ask what all this has to do with the specific heading given to this chapter; but the answer is that the recital of events leading up to the war will have supplied the information and the background necessary to grasp the extraordinary and complicated nature of the heritage which the Japanese success, afloat and ashore, against Russia has placed in the hands of the Island Empire. For, ever since the ChinoJapanese war, the silent battle against Russianpromoted intrigues has entirely engrossed the attention of Japanese Ministers and Consuls in Korea to the exclusion of everything else. Thus the Seoul-Fusan Railway, for which a Japanese syndicate received the concession as far back as September, 1898, was scarcely more than begun

when war came, although five years had elapsed. Minor Japanese concessions had been pigeon-holed and almost forgotten, with so many weighty matters to attend to. Constantly opposed by a skilful diplomacy which was always breaking out in unexpected places, Japan had her hands full in keeping a childish and terror-stricken country from signing away its nominal independence; whilst at the treaty ports Japanese Consuls were forced to devote the major part of their time to intelligence work. Under such circumstances what follows may astonish, but is perfectly explicable in the light of events which have been already dealt with.

The first act of the Japanese Government, after the declaration of war against Russia had been launched, was to place matters in Korea on a definite and firm basis, consistent with the spirit of the repeated Russo-Japanese declarations and the preamble of the Anglo-Japanese alliance. Thus on the 23rd February, 1904, Mr. Hayashi, the able Japanese Minister to Korea, signed with Ye-TchiYong, Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs, a Protocol consisting of six short articles-the full text of which may be found in the appendix. Dealing briefly with this important and honourable instrument important because its terms cannot be violated without discredit to Japan; honourable because it re-affirms the sound policy inaugurated by Baron Komura in May, 1896, in the face of most distressing circumstances-it will be seen at a glance that it has the refreshing terseness

of the Anglo-Japanese Agreement, and is not encumbered with wordy clauses which obscure exact meanings and lead to mutual recriminations later on. The first article states that the Government of Korea shall place full confidence in the Government of Japan and adopt the advice of the latter in regard to improvements in the administration. The second, a significant one for Korean eyes, states that Japan ensures the safety and repose of the Imperial House of Korea. In the third the Government of Japan definitely guarantees the independence and territorial integrity of the Korean Empire. In the fourth article (which merits being tersely called "the third Power clause" on account of its frequent appearance in diplomatic instruments) Japan undertakes to protect Korea from the aggression of others, and to repress internal disturbances, Korea on her part giving full facilities to promote the necessary actions of the Imperial Japanese Government. The fifth article lays down the principle that no additional arrangements may be entered into with other Powers which impair the value of the present agreement. And, finally, article six, which is the most important from the purely internal point of view, provides that "details in connection with the present Protocol shall be arranged as circumstances may require between the Representative of Japan and the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of Korea."

Here, therefore, is the mandate in full which gives Japan practically a free hand to set a much

upset house in order; and this instrument, whose terms are of the highest importance in view of the systematic anti-Japanese campaign still continued in many quarters, must always be kept in

view.

All February in Korea was taken up with the landing of large numbers of Japanese troops, who moved off as rapidly as possible in the direction of the Yalu. It was not until the 21st March that the headquarters of General Baron Kuroki reached Pingyang and that Chinampo, one hundred and fifty miles to the north of Chemulpo, was substituted as the point of disembarkation of the expeditionary corps massing for the Yalu attack. As soon as the military had freed the environs of the capital of their presence, Marquis Ito as Special Ambassador of the Mikado to the Emperor of Korea appeared on the scenes, the exact date of his arrival being the 17th March. The greatest expectations were raised in Seoul and, indeed, all over the country by the visit of this great man; for, being admittedly the Mikado's right hand (if such an expression is permissible in Japan), the champion of progress and sound development in the Far East, and the leading representative of purely civil power in Japan, Marquis Ito had it within his grasp to inaugurate a complete change in a much-distressed country. The violence of Russian intrigues had so disgusted Koreans and Europeans alike that they would have welcomed with open arms the immediate substitution of a clean and progressive régime.

Unfortunately the high hopes raised were doomed to disappointment. Marquis Ito's mission would appear to have been a purely personal one from Mikado to Emperor, conveying, from the most powerful of Eastern monarchs to the most feeble, sincere expressions of esteem and-nothing else.

March passed into April, April into May, and whilst the whole world was echoing with peals of praise for Kuroki's masterly passage of the Yalu, poor Korea appeared to be entirely forgotten. No change, indeed, had come over the honourable Japanese attitude; but that terrible thing, the certain precursor of reaction in public sentiment, stagnation, had appeared in undeniable form, and the visions of reform, progress, and sound development, conjured up by the orderly massing of the Japanese legions and the swift onslaught of Togo's squadrons, were rapidly fading into the thin air of Korea. As may be hinted at later on, the conduct and progress of military and naval campaigns made the Tokyo Departments of War encroach on what should have been from the very commencement a purely diplomatic and administrative field; and, indeed, so much did they overshadow the one object which should have been clearly kept in view -the immediate reform of the Korean bureaucracy -that a Spanish procrastination became the order of the day at Seoul.

The suspicion of a reaction, noticeable in April and May, deepened in June, became undeniable in July, and then like a thunderclap came the an