III

THE MURDER OF THE QUEEN


"We are not ready to fight China yet," said the Japanese Foreign Minister
to the impetuous young Korean. It was ten years later before Japan was
ready, ten years of steady preparation, and during that time the real focus
of the Far Eastern drama was not Tokyo nor Peking, but Seoul. Here the
Chinese and Japanese outposts were in contact. Here Japan when she was
ready created her cause of war.

China despised Japan, and did not think it necessary to make any real
preparations to meet her. The great majority of European experts and of
European and American residents in the Far East were convinced that if it
came to an actual contest, Japan would stand no chance. She might score
some initial victories, but in the end the greater weight, numbers and
staying power of her monster opponent must overwhelm her.

The development of Korea proceeded slowly. It seemed as though there were
some powerful force behind all the efforts of more enlightened Koreans to
prevent effective reforms from being carried out The Japanese were, as was
natural the most numerous settlers in the land, and their conduct did not
win them the popular affection. Takezoi's disastrous venture inflicted for
a time a heavy blow on Japanese prestige. The Japanese dead lay unburied in
the streets for the dogs to eat. China was momentarily supreme. "The whole
mass of the people are violently pro-Chinese in their sentiments," the
American representative stated in a private despatch to his Government,
"and so violently anti-Japanese that it is impossible to obtain other than
a volume of execrations and vituperations against them when questioned," A