The police tyranny does not end with flogging.  When a person is arrested, he is at once shut off from communication with his friends.  He is not, necessarily, informed of the charge against him; his friends are not informed.  He is not in the early stages allowed counsel.  All that his friends know is that he has disappeared in the grip of the police, and he may remain out of sight or sound for months before being brought to trial or released.

During this period of confinement the prisoner is first in the hands of the police who are getting up the case against him.  It is their work to extract a confession.  To obtain this they practice torture, often of the most elaborate type.  This is particularly true where the prisoners are charged with political offences.  I deal with this aspect of affairs more in detail in later chapters, so that there is no need of me to bring proof at this point.

After the police have completed their case, the prisoner is brought before the procurator, whose office would, if rightly used, be a check on the police.  But in many cases the police act as procurators in Korea, and in others the procurators and police work hand in hand.

When the prisoner is brought before the court he has little of the usual protection afforded in a British or American Court.  It is for him to prove his innocence of the charge.  His judge is the nominee of the Government-General and is its tool, who practically does what the Government-General tells him.  The complaint of the most sober and experienced friends of the Koreans is that they cannot obtain justice unless it is deemed expedient by the authorities to give them justice.

Under this system crime has enormously increased.  The police create it.  The best evidence of this is contained in the official figures.  In the autumn of 1912 Count Terauchi stated, in answer to the report that thousands of Korean Christians had been confined in jail, that he had caused enquiry to be made and there were only 287 Koreans confined in the various jails of the country (New York Sun, October 3, 1912).  The Count’s figures were almost certainly incorrect, or else the police released all the prisoners on the day the reckoning was taken, except the necessary few kept for effect.  The actual number of convicts in Korea in 1912 was close on twelve thousand, according to the official details published later.  If they were true they make the contrast with later years the more amazing.

The increase of arrests and convictions is shown in the following official return.

NUMBER OF KOREANS IMPRISONED

Convicts Awaiting trial Total

1911 7,342 9,465 16,807 1912 9,652 9,842 19,494 1913 11,652 10,194 21,846 1914 12,962 11,472 24,434 1915 14,411 12,844 27,255 1916 17,577 15,259 32,836

Individual liberty is non-existent.  The life of the Korean is regulated down to the smallest detail.  If he is rich, he is generally required to have a Japanese steward who will supervise his expenditure.  If he has money in the bank, he can only draw a small sum out at a time, unless he gives explanation why he needs it.