S17
othor rations. It Is pro1>ably impoeaible to take auch-^aaasua^s as will
absolutely eliminate them, just as no oountryoan put a stop alj^olutely
to other forms of crime. The difference between ooiintries fit to gor^iarn
subject peoples and those unfit lies here; that in the former.these crljajaa—
arouse stem and fierce indignation, while in the latter they are regard-
edjwith uneoncem. Prom the days when Warren Hastings was impeached in
Parliament for his offenses against the people of India, to the most re¬
cent atrocities alleged against the American troops in the Philippines,
the people of England and America have felt and discharged their responsi¬
bility to hold their representatives to a strict accountability for what
they did to the helpless people of districts under military occupation.
If the Japanese did likewise there would be hope for permanent improvement
in Korea, but as it is, the question arises whence any improvement is to
cisme.

A Japanese friend of mine, of high ideals and noble activities, said
to me the other day in despair: "What shocks you in this affair in Korea
is but one little symptom of a disease that pervades the entire nation,"
Was he right?

There is, however, one thing to be said in defense of the Japanese
people at large, and that is ihat the press does not give them full in¬
formation. Not long ago a friend of mine overheard a local newspaper
man say: "Things are pretty had over there in Korea, We have information
that our troops are killing even women and children, but of course we
are not going to put that into the papers. "Of course not J" I wonder¬
ed at the time why not, but I learned later that the Government had sent
out an instruction— not an order, but an urgent request— to the papers
to publish as little as possible about the Korean affair. So the Govern¬
ment thinks that one of its functions is to keep the people ignorant, and
takes the ostrich as a model of political wisdom.
THE WORLD KNOWS

The result is that the world at large knows that is going on in Japan
and Korea but the Japanese people do not. Years ago, Dr, Guido B. Verback,
at one time adviser to the Japanese government, said to me: "You will
often hear it said by the Japanoae that we foreigners oannot understand
them. The fact is, in many respects, we undearstand them \retter thein ■aioy
understand themselves." Surely it must be so until the press learns to
do its duty. Unfounded accusations against the American missionaries in
Korea and the Americans in the Par East in general are given constant
publicity as undoubted facts, while well authenticated reports of the
Suigen massaigre suppressed; as if for the Japanese people to be ignorant
of such things means that the rest of the world does not know them either!
TJien, after this folly has borne its legitimate fruit in th© estrangement
of the Chinese and in growing anti-Japanese feeling all over the world,
the Japanese news-papers naively wonder why the whole world is so luareason-
able.

Allow me earnestly to commend this whole situation to the friends of
Japan the world over and especially to ■that large and growing class of
intelligent and patriotic Japanese who read The Japan Advertiser, It is
not a time for silence, or for soft speeches in praise of what has been
accomplished along the line of afforestation, road-building, and other
material interests of the Korean peninsula. How long shall these things
te held to atone for the denial of elementary justice and for unnumbered
acts of oppression? The Koreans are men, and must be accorded the elemen¬
tary ri^ts of manhood first, but there is small prospect that they will
get them from the Japanese government unless an aroused public opinion in
Japan demsuads it. I hold it the duty of every intelligent and patriotic
Japanese to assist in arousing and giving eatpression to such an enlighten¬
ed public opinion by speaking out.

"SAY NOT: 'THE DAYS ARE EVIL, WHO'S TO BLAME?'
AND POLD THE HANDS AND ACQUIESCE, OH SHAME?
STAND UP, SPEAK OUT, AHD BRAVELY, IN GOD'S NAME,"