KOREA: Temporary Roof

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Skulk, Ribs, Eardrums. Legislators feel that the one sure way to stabilize the country is to fire officials who use Japanese methods. The National Assembly claims that the administration never really enforced the national traitors' law against Koreans who collaborated with the Japanese. An Assembly committee established its own jails, courts, investigators and armed police and hauled in collaborators, including high officials of the regular police. Last week's police raid disrupted this Assembly "law enforcement" system.

Next day at the Capitol, assemblymen charged police with torturing men arrested during the raid. Police set free 22 prisoners, of whom 16 had skull injuries or broken ribs or punctured eardrums.

Old (74) President Syngman Rhee tried to calm the storm by replacing the Minister of Justice with pistol-toting Prosecutor Kwon, who had got his gun back from the police with an abject apology. But Rhee said that the Assembly committee could only question suspected collaborators and not arrest them. At week's end there was an uneasy truce.

The very vigor with which the Assembly opposes the administration when it feels its prerogatives threatened is evidence that a base for democracy exists in South Korea. Along with their colorful squabbles, legislative and executive branches are also capable of cooperating to strengthen that base. This week's dispute did not halt work on the new land reform law which by a shrewd double play may give South Korea a large, stable class of small farm owners, plus a business class that it now lacks. During Japan's rule almost all Korean industry and large areas of choice farmland became Japanese-owned. Farm families are 70% of the population, and three-fourths of them were landless tenants. Under the proposed law on which the Assembly is now working, no person may own more than 7½ acres.

The state will buy out big landowners and, in turn, be paid for the land by small farmers with a fraction of their crop for several years. The state will pay landlords in certificates which they can use to buy shares in former Japanese industries from the government.

The Garden of Faith. Long before this reform can be completed, South Korea faces immediate dangers. Farm production is not rising rapidly enough to feed 2,000,000 refugees from the north. Korea formerly had a closely knit economy, and both areas now suffer from the fact that the Communists do not permit trade across the border. The $150 million requested by Truman will be used mainly for raw materials and industrial products which formerly came from North Korea.

Meanwhile, the Communists are increasing the military pressure with raids across the border. Brigadier General William L. Roberts, who will head the U.S. military advisory group in Seoul, estimates that 100,000 Korean veterans of the Chinese Communist army have recently returned to North Korea. They will add their strength to 200,000 Soviet-trained Korean veterans.

Nevertheless, South Korean troops show determination to defend their country. Americans here (including some with long experience in China) insist that the Koreans are a much better bet politically and militarily than the Chinese were.