Korea was divided into eight Provinces, each under the control of a Governor, aided by a Civil and Military Secretary. Magistrates of different grades according to the size of the magistracies were appointed under him, five fortress cities, however, being independent of provincial jurisdiction. The principal tax, the land-tax, was paid in kind, and the local governments had very considerable control over the local revenues. There were provincial military and naval forces with large staffs of officers, and Boards, Offices, and Departments innumeral under Government, each with its legion of supernumeraries. The country was eaten up by officialism. It is not only that abuses without number prevailed, but the whole system of Government was an abuse, a sea of corruption without a bottom or a shore, an engine of robbery, crushing the life out of all industry. Offices and justice were bought and sold like other commodities, and Government was fast decaying, the one principle which survived being its right to prey on the governed. The new order of things, called by the Japanese the “Reformation,” dates from the forcible occupation of the Kyeng-pok Palace by Japanese troops on the 23rd of July, 1894. The constitutional changes which have subsequently been promulgated (though not always carried out) were initiated by the Japanese Minister in Seoul, and reduced to detail by the Japanese “advisers” who shortly arrived; and Japan is entitled to the credit of having attempted to cope with and remedy the manifold abuses of the Korean system, and of having bequeathed to the country the lines on which reforms are now being carried out. It was natural, and is certainly not blameworthy, that the Japanese had in view the assimilation of Korean polity to that of Japan. To bring about the desired reorganization, Mr. Otori, at that time the Japanese Minister, induced the King to create an Assembly, which, whatever its ultimate destiny, was to form meanwhile a Department for “the discussion of all matters grave and trivial within the realm.” The Prime Minister was its President, and the number of its members was limited to twenty Councillors. A noteworthy feature in connection with it was that it invited suggestions from outsiders in the form of written memoranda. It met for the first time on the 30th of July, 1894, and for the last on the 29th of October of the same year. It was found impossible, either by payment or Royal orders, to secure a quorum; and after the Vice-Minister of Justice, one of the few Councillors who took an active part in the proceedings, was murdered two days after the last meeting, as was believed, by an agent of the reactionary party, it practically expired, and was dissolved by Royal Decree on the 17th of December, 1894, and a reconstituted Privy Council took its place. Those of its Resolutions, however, which had received the Royal assent became law, and unless repealed or superseded are still binding.