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Service in Korea was to be a mark of distinction, reserved for the best and most highly paid. National pride and national interest were pledged to make good. Money was spent freely and some of the greatest statesmen and soldiers of Japan were placed at the head of affairs. Ito, by becoming Resident-General, had set an example for the best of the nation to follow.

Through another gate and more walls we came to an arch in the inner line of defense. Beyond that, the motor paused before a green door, where a Cadi in a silken caftan received us. Across squares of orange-trees divided by running water we were led to an arcaded apartment hung with Moroccan embroideries and lined with wide divans; the hall of reception of the Resident-General.

It was towards Kharbin that the Russians slowly retired after their defeat, and on this very platform Prince Ito, the first Japanese Resident-General of Korea, was murdered barely a year later. At Kharbin we have to wait two hours for the international express, which runs twice a week from Vladivostock to Moscow.

We beg of you to bring to bear upon this question the same breadth of mind and the same calmness of judgment that have characterized your course hitherto, and, having weighed the matter, to render us what aid you can consistently in this our time of national danger." Marquis Ito was made the first Japanese Resident-General in Korea.

The various departments of affairs, agricultural, commercial, and industrial, were given Japanese directors and advisers, and the power of appointing all officials, save those of the highest rank, was finally in the hands of the Resident-General. This limitation, again, was soon put on one side.

Prince Ito he was made Prince after the abdication of Yi Hyeung was Resident-General of Korea from 1906 to 1908, and was followed by Viscount Sone, who carried on his policies until 1910. Ito is still remembered as the best of the Japanese administrators. He had an exceedingly difficult task. He had to tear up an ancient administration by the roots, and substitute a new.

Thus, the Resident-General became dictator of Korea a dictator, however, who still conducted certain branches of local affairs there through native officials and who had to reckon with the intrigues of a Court party which he could not as yet sweep on one side.

At that moment the home government cabled the Resident-General to send all his available troops to France, abandoning the whole of conquered territory except the coast towns. General Lyautey took forty-eight hours to consider. He then decided to "empty the egg without breaking the shell", and the reply he sent was that of a great patriot and a great general.

All this has been accomplished by the Resident-General during five years of unexampled and incessant difficulty; and probably the true explanation of the miracle is that which he himself gives when he says, with the quiet smile that typifies his Moroccan war-policy: "It was easy to do because I loved the people."

The music now was no longer the ancient Korean, but modern airs from the very fine European-trained band attached to the palace. The Korean players had gone, with the old dress and the old life, into limbo. The Japanese Acting Resident-General and military commander, General Baron Hasegawa, strong and masterful-looking, stepped to the front with a message of welcome from his Emperor.