He has not the right of free meeting, free speech or a free press.  Before a paper or book can be published it has to pass the censor.  This censorship is carried to an absurd degree.  It starts with school books; it goes on to every word a man may write or speak.  It applies to the foreigners as well as Koreans.  The very commencement day speeches of school children are censored.  The Japanese journalist in Korea who dares to criticize the administration is sent to prison almost as quickly as the Korean.  Japanese newspaper men have found it intolerable and have gone back to Japan, refusing to work under it.  There is only one newspaper now published in Korea in the Korean language, and it is edited by a Japanese.  An American missionary published a magazine, and attempted to include in it a few mild comments on current events.  He was sternly bidden not to attempt it again.  Old books published before the Japanese acquired control have been freely destroyed.  Thus a large number of school books—­not in the least partizan—­prepared by Professor Hulbert were destroyed.

The most ludicrous example of censorship gone mad was experienced by Dr. Gale, one of the oldest, most learned and most esteemed of the missionaries in Korea.  Dr. Gale is a British subject.  For a long time he championed the Japanese cause, until the Japanese destroyed his confidence by their brutalities in 1919.  But the fact that Dr. Gale was their most influential friend did not check the Japanese censors.  On one occasion Dr. Gale learned that some Korean “Readers” prepared by him for use in schools had been condemned.  He enquired the reason.  The Censor replied that the book “contained dangerous thoughts.”  Still more puzzled, the doctor politely enquired if the Censor would show the passages containing “dangerous thoughts.”  The Censor thereupon pointed out a translation of Kipling’s famous story of the elephant, which had been included in the book.  “In that story,” said he ominously, “the elephant refused to serve his second master.”  What could be more obvious that Dr. Gale was attempting to teach Korean children, in this subtle fashion, to refuse to serve their second master, the Japanese Emperor!

For a Korean to be a journalist has been for him to be a marked man liable to constant arrest, not for what he did or does, but for what the police suppose he may do or might have done.  The natural result of this has been to drive Koreans out of regular journalism, and to lead to the creation of a secret press.

The next great group of grievances of Koreans come under the head of Exploitation.  From the beginning the Japanese plan has been to take as much land as possible from the Koreans and hand it over to Japanese.  Every possible trick has been used to accomplish this.  In the early days of the Japanese occupation, the favourite plan was to seize large tracts of land on the plea that they were needed for the Army or Navy; to pay a pittance for them; and then to pass considerable portions of them on to Japanese.  “There can be no question,” admitted Mr. W.D.  Stevens, the American member and supporter of Prince Ito’s administration, “that at the outset the military authorities in Korea did intimate an intention of taking more land for their uses than seemed reasonable.”