REFORM AND PROSPERITY 15
efforts elicit, make the labour of keeping the nation in the right direction very difficult. The people can scarcely relapse into the conservatism of ancient days, but they may collapse altogether, owing to the unfortunate circumstances which are now making Korea an object of ironical and interested observation among the Western Powers. She may be absorbed, annexed, or divided; in endeavouring to remain independent, she may wreck herself in the general anarchy that may overtake her. She has given much promise. She has constituted a Customs service, joined in the Postal Union and opened her ports. She has admitted railways and telegraphs, and shown kindness, consideration and hospitality to every condition of foreigner within her gates. Her confidence has been that of a child and her faults are those of the nursery. She is so old and yet so infinitely young ; and, by a curious fatality, she is now face to face with a situation which again and again has occurred in her past history.
The introduction of Western inventions to Korea has gradually eliminated from contemporary Korean life many customs which, associated with the people and their traditions from time immemorial, imparted much of the repose and picturesqueness which have so far distinguished the little kingdom. Korea, in the twentieth century, bears ample evidence of the forward movement which is stimulating its people. Once the least progressive of the countries of the Far East, she now affords an exception almost as noticeable as that shown by the prompt assimilation of Western ideas and methods by Japan. Chemulpo, however, the centre in which an important foreign settlement and open port have sprung up, does not suggest in itself the completeness of the transformation which in a few years has
