ABSTRACT
So much bitterness of feeling had grown up in Korea that it was not to be cured by kindness. The military men, Terauchi and Hasegawa, who had been in charge, had no other idea than to enforce obedience and to prevent open expressions of discontent. No newspapers, of course, were permitted to exist unless they were either in the direct pay of the GovernmentGeneral or completely subservient to it. The Tokyo Government was anxious that Koreans should be loyal and contented, but had very little idea how such an aim was to be achieved. Besides appointing Admiral Viscount Saito as a milder type of Governor-General, they issued an imperial proclamation that henceforth there should be no distinction between Koreans and Japanese-a promise that was for many reasons possible to fulfil only to a very limited degree, and which, under the policy adopted, could not be entirely fulfilled until the Koreans had become entirely indistinguishable from the Japanese. The process of assimilation, however, showed no signs of becoming popular, though the younger folk were ready enough to learn Japanese because of the advantages accruing from such knowledge, and some of the more mature were gratified at the abolition of the former iniquitous law which compelled all Korean business companies to have a Japanese director whose privileged position gave him practical control. No item in the administration had encountered so much criticism as the control of the people in the country districts by gendarmes, and charges were made in the Diet that these men were not only petty tyrants of the worst kind, but habitually ravished Korean
women. Their abolition was promised, but as they were merely labelled policemen instead of gendarmes, the difference was not commensurate with the need, General Akaike, who was in command of this force, was of the school of Terauchi and Hasegawa, but lacking in such liberality as these greater men possessed. In spite of the fact that more than half the trouble in Korea had been caused by Japanese policemen and gendarmes continually interfering with the people, nagging at them and telling them what they must and must not do-all for their own good, no doubt-General Akaike made plans for an ideal policing of the peninsula, with three policemen in every village. He took occasion in December 1919 to denounce Christians as disloyal and rebellious, which also showed a lack of understanding of the best methods of pacification. When there was so much alarm in Japan itself about “dangerous thought,” it was natural that there should not be less in Korea, and on March 1, 1920, lest there should be a recrudescence of the Mansei disturbances by way of celebrating their anniversary, three thousand precautionary arrests were made.
