The more detailed features of the reforms proposed are uninteresting and difficult to understand for one not making a special study of Korean local administration from the expert’s point of view. In general, the reforms are intended to separate the appointment and control of the local magistracy from Court and other corrupt official influences; to put a stop to the evil practice “of selling offices by holding examinations for official candidates”; to reduce the temptation to increase the squeezes, by increasing the legitimate salary and by providing properly for office, travelling, and other expenses; and to adopt and install “a new official organization for the provincial governors and their subordinates, classifying the nature of the business to be managed by them and defining their powers of issuing administrative orders, of levying local taxes and of conducting other affairs.” These reforms require a considerable increase in the number of officials in both the _Do_ (or Province) and _Pu_ (or Prefecture); but they leave the _Kuns_ (or smaller districts) substantially unchanged in this regard. Besides the above changes, the Residency-General has already established a Residency or a Branch Residency in each of the provincial capitals. Further, the Local Administration Investigation Commission is now making enquiries into village constitutions, village assembly regulations, and other village association systems, handed down from olden times. From the data thus obtained, a plan will be drawn up for the ultimate introduction of the system of local autonomy. As to the reorganization of the Law Court system, the independence of the Department of Justice, the separation of tax collection from routine executive business as the result of the establishment of a new Taxation Bureau with a chief of its own, etc., these form, no doubt, a part of local administration reform. Only the result can tell how far, and how soon, these plans for the reform of the public justice in Korea can so change its present deplorable condition in this regard as to satisfy the reasonable wishes of the Marquis Ito, and the Japanese Government, so far as it is supporting him in his peaceful and benevolent plans. The events which have occurred since this Report on Administrative Reforms was composed, have, on the one side, given to the Resident-General and his helpers a freer hand in a more open field, but on the other they have augmented the responsibilities and in some respects increased the difficulties of their task. CHAPTER XV FOREIGNERS AND FOREIGN RELATIONS