Feeling the great and obvious importance of having this public improvement made, the Resident called a meeting of the adjoining property-owners to discuss the terms which would be satisfactory to them. The Japanese owners agreed to contribute the land necessary for the purpose and to move back the buildings at their own expense; the Korean owners agreed to cede the land if the expense of moving the buildings was borne by the Government. The Resident went for a few weeks to Japan, expecting that the agreement would stand, and that by his return the improvement would be well begun. Immediately after his departure, however, two Korean Christians, who had remained away from the meeting for discussing terms, induced the other Koreans to break their compact and refuse to surrender the land for less than 200 _yen_ per _tsubo_ (6 × 6 ft.)—an absurdly extravagant price. The attempt at doing this much-needed work came, therefore, to a complete standstill. The whole transaction was reported by the _Korean Daily News_ of Seoul with its customary felicitous (?) misrepresentation, as follows: “People in Pyeng-yang are greatly stirred up over the demand of the Japanese that the Korean houses on each side of the road outside the South Gate be torn down to widen the road. The people gathered at the office of the prefect and protested against such seizure without proper compensation, and they said they would die sooner than give in to such an imposition.” I can assure the reader that much of the fraud and oppression charged against the Japanese by the Koreans and by their so-called “foreign friends” (even including some of the missionaries) is of the same order. [A letter from Pyeng-yang to the _Seoul Press_, published not long after our return, announced that the “widening of the approach between the Japanese city and the old town of Pyeng-yang is now under way, and soon a fine wide road will lead from the railway station to the Gate”—all of which means that when the Korean property-owners found their attempts at lying and swindling were not going to succeed, they saw the advantage of renewing the original contract.]