Sir H.S. Parkes to Earl Granville.—(Received July 7)

(No. 91 Confidential)
Tôkiô, May 31, 1883

My Lord,

I HAVE the honour to inclose a copy of a very interesting Memorandum by Mr. Aston, in which he has noted the political information he collected during his last visit to Corea.
I shall have occasion to refer to some of the points reported by Mr. Aston in this Memorandum at a later date.

I have, &c.
(Signed)　　HARRY S. PARKES

Memorandum of Information collected during Mr. Aston’s visit to Söul, May 1883.

(Confidential)
I FOUND that no material alteration had taken place in the state of affairs since my last visit.
When the “Daring” touched at Port Hamilton I was on two occasions eagerly questioned by several intelligent-looking village Elders about the Tai-wön-kun. They knew of his removal to China, and evidently looked forward eagerly to his return. They said he was a great and good man, and that everybody knew it. Port Hamilton is in the Province of Chöllado, which contains a large number of the Tai-wön-kun's adherents. I found that there was to some extent among the lower classes in the capital a similar feeling.
Having asked what the people said of my coming over again, I was told that the common saying was that they would much prefer to have seen the Tai-wön-kun back from China. I observed to Mr. Kim Ok Kiun and Min Yong-ik when at Söul that this state of things did not promise well for the future tranquillity of the country, but both were eager in their assurances that there was no danger to be apprehended. It was only the ignorant lower classes, they said, who talked in this way. This topic is not an agreeable one to them. To admit that there is any danger of internal disturbance is to admit the necessity of a continuance of the Chinese occupation, which it is the chief object of their party to put an end to as soon as possible.
M. von Möllendorff is by no means a through going partizan of China, but he is strongly opposed to the withdrawal of the Chinese troops. He says that the soldiers who last year attacked the Japanese Legation and plundered the houses of twenty or thirty Corean high officials were still in the capital, and it was reasonable to suppose that, having once tasted blood, they would attempt something similar on the first favourable opportunity. Such a chance would be afforded them by the withdrawal of the Chinese force. A Corean army would be ineffective, and he also objected to it on the score of expense. Some of the Chinese Generals thought the troops might be withdrawn, but he had opposed this measure.
The antagonism between M. von Möllendorff and Mr. Kim Ok Kiun has become much more pronounced of late. M. von Möllendorff accuses him of wasteful expenditure on his visits to Japan, of furnishing dishonest accounts, of being a dangerous schemer who had unfortunately got the ear of the King, and for his own ends encouraged in him foolish ideas of national independence. If he did not take care, M. von Möllendorff said, Mr. Kim Ok Kiun would be sent after the Tai-wön-kun to China, a threat which I know has been made use of by the pro-Chinese party to intimidate Mr. Kim Ok Kiun, who is much hated by them. M. von Möllendorff thinks Mr. Kim Ok Kiun very ignorant, and by no means clever. He ridiculed a scheme he had started for establishing a whale fishery by native boats and nets, not knowing that this mode of catching whales is successfully practised on the coast of Japan, where Mr. Kim Ok Kiun no doubt got the idea. He thinks he will soon be driven out of the Foreign Office.
Mr. Kim Ok Kiun is much more guarded in his language regarding M. von Möllendorff, and praises his abilities and talents. It was a pity, he said, he did not speak Corean, so that it was difficult to communicate with him. Some of the members of the Foreign Board speak a little Chinese, and one, Mr. I Cho-yön, speaks it well; but Mr. Kim Ok Kiun, though well acquainted with the written language, cannot speak Chinese. The only way in which his jealousy of M. von Möllendorff showed itself was in a warning to me not to try to transact business through the latter. He did not know Corea, he said. I replied that, as M. von Möllendorff was an official of the Corean Government, we should certainly transact business with him if we found it convenient. If the Corean Government did not like that, they had the remedy in their own hands. I reminded him that neither I nor any other British official could be expected to take any share in their disputes among themselves.
Mr. Kim Ok Kiun is about to start in the Japanese gun-boat “Moshunkan” on a visit to Quelpart and several other islands in the south and east coasts, with a view of seeing whether anything can be done to develop their industries. This scheme is in imitation of the Japanese Kaitakushi, or Colonization Department, and it is probable that, in taking this step, they are influenced by similar political motives, viz., the fear of the annexation by foreign Powers of some of the outlying islands. It is in the last degree improbable that it will prove an economical success. M. von Möllendorff is not friendly to this expedition.
I learned from M. von Möllendorff that Corea and Russia are in and attitude of mutual expectation in regard to the negotiation of a Treaty. Each is waiting for the other to make the first advances. M. von Möllendorff had seen the instructions to the Russian Minister at Peking on this subject, which were to conclude a Treaty similar to those made with other European Powers, with the addition of a clause providing for a frontier trade on the conditions stipulated in the regulations for the frontier trade between Corea and China. There was, however, M. von Möllendorff said, another question with Russia which Corea wished to take advantage of any Treaty negotiations to settle. Russia now possesses a strip of territory (formerly belonging to China) lying along the sea-coast north of the Jumen River, and bounded on the west by a line drawn from a point on that river 30 miles from its mouth, and one north to meet the River Usuri. The southern portion of this strip has been peopled by immigrants from Corea, who have also settled in the Chinese territory for some distance to the west of it, occupying a belt of ground extending 100 miles from the sea, and forming a homogeneous Corean population of about 13,000 souls, all of whom are practically under Russian control. Corea is very anxious to get back her subjects, and Russia offers no obstacle to their returning to their country; but the previous treatment of these Coreans by their own Government has not been of a nature to encourage them to do so, and the Corean Government now wishes to obtain from Russia the promise of active co-operation to this end. From a remark of M. von Möllendorff, I gathered that the Corean Government are thinking of endeavouring to induce foreign Powers to guarantee their national independence, which is exposed to danger, M. von Möllendorff said, on three sides. I understood him to refer to China, Japan, and Russia.
Nothing has been done recently in regard to a Treaty with France. Corea, M. von Möllendorff says, will make no concession in the direction of admitting missionaries, but they have no objection to the erection of places of worship in the Settlements, and he thinks would even make grants of land for the purpose of building churches.
The English school, to which I referred in a previous Memorandum, was opened during my stay in Söul. About seventy pupils attended on the first days. Their ages were from 13 to 28, and they belonged to the upper and middle of the three classes into which the Corea population is divided. These are the nobility, the literati, and the industrial and mercantile classes. One of the teachers, a young Chinese who had been educated in America, declared to me that these distinctions would not be recognized in the school, but that all should be treated on a footing of perfect equality. He is probably unconscious of all the results which the inculcation of such principles may lead to.
I visited the school, which is in the Foreign Office itself. The room is well lighted, sufficiently large, and is supplied with suitable furniture. I found about sixty pupils all engaged in learning the alphabet from one of Messrs. Chambers and Co.’s educational series. Several members of the Corean Government came in while I was there, and a strong interest was evidently taken in it. Mr. Kim Man-sik, recently Second Minister of the Special Mission to Japan, is Director. Fourteen young men have lately proceeded to Japan also to study English. This is an idea of Mr. Kim Ok Kiun’s, and is objected to by M. von Möllendorff as needlessly expensive.
M. von Möllendorff told me that the Foreign Office is rapidly taking to itself all the functions of the other Departments of the Government. He made this remark apropos of the currency, which is properly the business of the Home and Finance Department. This Department lately issued a series of coins of 1, 2, and 3 mace (a mace is the tenth of the Chinese tael or ounce). They are of pure silver, and are current merely at the value of the silver they contain, thus leaving, M. von Möllendorff says, nothing to pay for the expense of coinage and no profit to the Government. They are very badly made, and are by no means uniform in size or weight. Fortunately no great number has been coined. A scheme for a paper currency, which is fostered by Mr. Kim Ok Kiun, is very strongly opposed by M. von Möllendorff, who seemed ignorant of the projected loan, by the help of which it is intended to place the notes in circulation.
The Coreans have no proper system of banking. There are Government stores of grain from which advances are made on easy terms, repayable at the harvest, but the plan is surrounded with many abuses, and M. von Möllendorff says he will endeavour to get it abolished, notwithstanding that the King looks on it with favour. It is no longer necessary, he says, now that Corea can draw supplies from foreign countries in years of scarcity.
He also informed me that he had arranged with Messrs. Jardine, Matheson, and Co. to establish a line of steamers between China and the open ports in Corea under conditions to be afterwards settled for sharing the profits between that firm and the Coreans by a partnership or otherwise, and for disposing of the steamers at a later period to the Corean Government, should the latter desire to purchase them. The chief partner of the firm at Shanghae was expected in Corea a few days after my departure. Messrs. Jardine, Matheson, and Co. would also be allowed to trade on condition to paying the tariff duties, but this formed no part of the agreement with them. M. von Möllendorff said that the private sanction of the British Government had been obtained to this arrangement. Similar overtures had previously been made to Messrs. Russell and Co., and American firm at Shanghae, but they had refused to entertain them.
I found that M. von Möllendorff had got possession of a copy of the Memorial of the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce respecting Admiral Willes’ Treaty, no doubt through some member of Messrs. Jardine Matheson and Co.’s firm.
M. von Möllendorff’s silk culture scheme has proved a failure, as the provincial authorities had refused to assist in carrying it out. The two Chinese engaged to teach the Coreans had been sent back to their country. One reason why it fell through was the dislike of the Coreans to allow foreigners to reside in the interior. Chinese are regarded by the Coreans as foreigners just as much as Europeans or Japanese, and, indeed, one of the commonest appellations for them is “Ora[n]kai,” or barbarian, a term which is not applied to ourselves.
Mr. Ma Kien-tchang is about to return to China, and no successor to him will be appointed. M. von Möllendorff informed me that Mr. Ma had been originally appointed simply as a spy on himself, and that he had really no other duty except to make private reports to Li Hung Chang about him. During M. Möllendorff’s absence in China he had managed to get a seat on the Foreign Board, but this he had since been obliged to vacate.
Pak Yöng-hyo, lately Envoy to Japan, whose dismissal, by the influence of the Chinese party, I reported in a previous Memorandum, was recalled to office after a short interval, and he now holds a still higher official position than before.
Sunday has been made a holiday at the Corean Foreign Office.
I was told that a house had been prepared for the American Minister to Corea, somewhat similar to that which I occupied, and certainly not any better. A vice-Minister of the Foreign Office, Mr. Hong Yong-sik, went on board the “Monocacy,” at Chemulpho, to welcome him. The Corean flag was saluted with twenty-one guns. Horses from the King’s stables, and chairs, were sent down for General Foote and his party, which was to consist of seventeen persons, nine of whom were officers of the “Monocacy.” I was told by Coreans that General Foote had said that he was instructed not to avail himself of the assistance of Chinese or Japanese in making his arrangements.
M. von Möllendorff informed me that as soon as the ratifications of the American Treaty were exchanged the Corean Government would proceed to negotiate with General Foote a further Agreement, having for its object to remedy and supplement the defects of the commercial clauses of the present Treaty. He regretted that I was obliged to leave so soon, as the Corean Foreign Office would have been glad to consult me respecting these matters. He also mentioned that the jurisdiction Article required material alteration.

(Signed)　　W.G. Aston