he utmost confusion. Extreme corruption
and extortion were practised in connexion with taxation. Finally,
while nothing showed that the average Korean lacked the elementary
virtue of patriotism, there had been repeated proofs that the safety
and independence of the empire counted for little with political
intriguers. Japan must step out of Korea altogether or effect drastic
reforms there.

She necessarily chose the latter alternative, and the things which
she accomplished between the beginning of 1906 and the close of 1908
may be briefly described as the elaboration of a proper system of
taxation; the organization of a staff to administer annual budgets;
the re-assessment of taxable property; the floating of public loans
for productive enterprises; the reform of the currency; the
establishment of banks of various kinds, including agricultural and
commercial; the creation of associations for putting bank-notes into
circulation; the introduction of a warehousing system to supply
capital to farmers; the lighting and buoying of the coasts; the
provision of posts, telegraphs, roads, and railways; the erection of
public buildings; the starting of various industrial enterprises
(such as printing, brick making, forestry and coal mining); the
laying out of model farms; the beginning of cotton cultivation; the
building and equipping of an industrial training school; the
inauguration of sanitary works; the opening of hospitals and medical
schools; the organization of an excellent educational system; the
construction of waterworks in several towns; the complete
remodelling of the Central Government; the differentiation of the
Court and the executive, as well as of the administrative and the
judiciary; the formation of an efficient body of police; the
organization of law-courts with a majority of Japanese jurists on the
bench; the enactment of a new penal code, and drastic reforms in the
taxation system.

In the summer of 1907, the resident-general advised the Throne to
disband the standing army as an unserviceable and expensive force.
The measure was, doubtless desirable, but the docility of the troops
had been overrated. Some of them resisted vehemently, and many became
the nucleus of an insurrection which lasted in a desultory manner for
nearly two years; cost the lives of 21,000 insurgents and 1300
Japanese, and entailed upon Japan an outlay of nearly a million
sterling. Altogether, what with building 642 miles of railway, ma