The examples given above may serve to describe the one-third of the ninety-six officials characterized by extreme immorality. Of the other one-third, whose services to their country are rendered available only for evil on account of their weakness, the following examples afford a sufficiently accurate description: (1) “Foreign Minister repeatedly; very deficient in intelligence, but says little and looks wise; too feeble to be dishonest, but an easy tool for one who cares to use him.” (2) “Governor of ⸺; a weak, abominable man, who has done well at ⸺, because kept in check by the Japanese; would be a scoundrel if the opportunity offered; a tool of Yi Yong-ik” (a man notorious for his corruption and oppression, on account of which some of the highest officials knelt before the Palace gate during the entire day and night of November 28, 1902, praying for his trial and punishment; but he was saved by the Emperor, who feared him; he was even subsequently brought back from banishment and restored to his post as “Director of the Imperial Estates”). (3) “An old man of remarkable history; has been on all sides of the political fence; is good at times, and apparently a patriot, and then he will turn up on quite the opposite side.” It cannot be supposed that an official class, so constituted and so thoroughly imbued with such unwholesome characteristics, would easily form within itself a party loyal to reform, and brave and strong enough to carry its loyalty out into practical effect. As a matter of fact no such political party has ever been formed and maintained to any successful issue, in the history of Korea. For this we may take the word of Mr. Homer B. Hulbert, who says,[45] regarding the formation of parties in 1575: “These parties have never represented any principle whatever. They have never had any platforms, but have been, and are, simply political clans bent upon securing the royal favor and the offices and emoluments that go therewith.” In another work of the same author we are told: “From that day onward (middle of the sixteenth century) politics has been a war of factions, struggling for wealth and power, with no scruples against murder or other crime.” The Koreans are, indeed, given to the formation of societies and parties of various descriptions; the more improper or nearly impossible are the ends to be reached, and the more clandestine and illicit the means employed, the greater the temporary enthusiasm which they are likely to excite. All these parties have therefore one plank and one plan of action: to get the ear of the king, to seize upon and control the office-making power, and so to put in every lucrative or honorable position their own partisans. It is “the spoils system sublimated”; for there is “absolutely no admixture of any other element.”[46]