Japan was not strong enough to hold the Liao-tung Peninsula nor bold enough to seize Korea. Nevertheless, driven out of the Liao-tung by the action of Russia, France and Germany, Japan might still have secured for herself complete material and political ascendency over Korea. In time, if such had been her policy, she could have made manifest, too, her occupation of the kingdom and equipped herself with an argument, the parallel of that possessed by Great Britain in Egypt, and by Russia in Manchuria. Unhappily, while Russia with masterly deliberation was moving steadily forward in her subjugation of Manchuria, Japan, whole-hearted but ignorant of the pitfalls of colonial expansion, was creating endless difficulties for herself in Korea, besides serious complications with the Powers outside the scenes of her activities. Before she had realised the potentialities of her position, she had committed herself to a design by which she hoped to secure the King and Queen and to direct herself the reins of government. But her coup d'état was to recoil disastrously, and at once, upon her own head. The Queen fell a victim to the plot, and although the King was imprisoned, he, together with the Crown Prince, contrived in a little time to find refuge in the Russian Legation. The escape of the King only emphasised the failure of Japan, and despite her subsequent treaties with Russia, in respect of Korea, the balance of power in the Far East as between Russia and Japan has never quite recovered from the blow which Japan administered herself to her own prestige upon this occasion.
Japan still wields material influence of a high order in Korea. But, within the paramount position which she fills, there is the rift caused by the spread of the antagonistic and insidious influence of her great opponent. Curiously
