The Unhappy Conditions in the Philippine Islands An account of the disorganization of the government and a description of the misrule of the Filipino people through the policy of "Spoils for the Desenring" enforced by President Woodrow Wilson and Govemnor-General Francis Burton Harrison. Compliments of /Aessrs. Alfred Holman and Frai B. Loomis The Oakland Tribune Oakland, California by 0. Garfield Jones Former Member of the Philippine Department of Education with an Introduction by Ex-President William Howard Taft Former Governor-General of the Philippine Published by the Oakland Tribune Ultimately the sorrowful story of 'Philippine misrule will reveal elf to the American people, and they will lay it alongside the oody chaos which has come after our intervention in Mexico —and onder. Will they act - William Howard Taft. i Some of the Americans who helped develop this school system are ow walking the streets of Manila, looking for a job and getting ieir meals through charity.-O. Garfield Jones. '1 A INTRODUCTION By William Howard Taft Ex-President and Former Governor-General of the Philippines I have read with much interest Mr. O. Garfield Jones' article on present conditions in the Philippines published recently in the Oakland Tribune. It is not news to me. What he says of the demoralization in the present government, due to the blind and foolish policy of President Wilson and Governor-General Harrison, is confirmed by every report that I receive from the islands. The work of the United States in the last three Republican administrations reflected great credit on the country before the world. The chief reason for the success was in the policy adopted of governing the islands for the benefit of the Filipinos and the gradual organization of a civil service of trained Americans, instituted with a sincere and earnest desire to' conform to and promote that policy. The result was that in fifteen years we had gathered together to make up the controlling part of the government as fine a body of colonial public servants as there was anywhere in the world. They had an esprit de corps not excelled anywhere. They knew their task, they were enthusiastic in its discharge and they found their rewardnot in high salaries, for they did not receive them-but in the pleasure of increasing the efficiency of the government and its real usefulness to the Filipino people. The United States government and the Philippine government did not treat them justly. They should have been granted a system of pensions after long service. But, in spite of this defect, they continued in service, hoping for more generous treatment and happy in the thought of their opportunity for usefulness. It rouses my deepest indignation to hear these single-minded, self-sacrificing public servants called "carpet baggers," as they have been by the New York World in its blindly partisan support of this indefensible policy of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Harrison. Why is it necessary to do such gross injustice to deserving Americans merely to bolster up a party cause? I have noted the statement as to the modification of the immediate independence propaganda among the Filipinos with especial interest. I have no doubt that it is true. The independence campaign was only political. What the Filipino politicians want is the offices.. Now that they are dividing these with some Democratic politicians, equally inefficient, they are not so eager for independence. They are quite content if they can use the governor-general as they are using him and appoint all their friends to office, to have the United States stand back of an inefficient and demoralized government and protect it from absorption ' by Japan or some European power. It is a confession that they are not fitted for self-government. What the people of the United States, however, will have to decide, is whether they wish to become responsible for a government which is running down hill, which is sure to fail in doing the good for the Filipino people which we promised and which is the only justification for our being there. The policy of the present administration will drive every self-respecting American from service in the government of the islands if continued for any great length of time. Indeed, most of the leading ones who were not removed, or asked to resign, have already left, disheartened and disgusted. For this Mr. Wilson and Mr. Harrison are directly responsible. What is going to happen? If a Republican administration succeeds Mr. Wilson's, a decent respect for the Republican policy which had so vindicated itself will require a retracing of the steps and a slow rebuilding of the old American civil service. This will, of course, cause anger among Filipino officials, many of whom must be removed if the government is to be restored to its former usefulness. It may lead to disturbance and threatened insurrection; but there can be no faltering in the remedy which is absolutely necessary if we are to do any good in the islands. The Filipino politicians must be disenthroned if we are to justify remaining in the islands. The course of the Democratic administration has rendered such a change and reform as difficult as possible. They went into it as lightly and with as little sense of responsibility as if they were changing the local personnel of federal office holders in a state. They consulted no one who knew the situation except the very Filipino politicians into whose arms they were throwing themselves. Mr. Wilson had criticised such a policy in the Philippines before he came into office when he was writing his Constitutional Government. Yet he has permitted and authorized Mr. Harrison to bring discredit on the United States in dealing with the Philippine Islands by the very policy he condemned. The evil effects of what has been done it will take years to remedy. Indeed the evil effects have not shown, and will not show themselves fully for some time. The inertia of a government under efficient and proper guidance carries it on in a fashion some time after the incompetent and lazy and self-seeking politicians have been substituted for high-minded, trained civil servants. Ultimately, however, the sorrowful story of Philippine misrule will reveal itself to the American people, and they will lay it alongside the bloody chaos which has come after our intervention in Mexico-and ponder. Will they act? September 23, 1915 - - _0 * p * The Unhappy Conditions in the Philippine Islands The Story of the Filipinization of Government-of the Ruthless Dismissal of Competent American Officials to Make Room for Incompetent Native Politicians and Incompetent Democratsof the Betrayal of a Great National Trust and the Bringing of Discredit Upon the United States Through the Policies of President Wilson and Governor-General Parrison. By O. GARFIELD JONES. Former Member of Philippine Department of Education. "SPOILS FOR THE DESERVING." INDEPENDENCE The keynote of the Democratic policy CAMPAIGN for the Philippines was the furthering FAILS of the independence campaign. In spite of the best of intentions, this is exactly what two years of Democratic rule in the Philippines has failed to do. These two years have been marked by a very scurvy treatment of Americans and by the Filipinizing of the government service to the limit. Both of these facts have contributed to the destruction of the independence campaign rather than to its furthering as was intended. The Democratic administration in the Philippines has gone a long way toward convincing the Filipinos as to the desirability of United States sovereignty; it has also gone a long way toward convincing the Americans there as to the present and future undesirability of their services in our Oriental colony. In order to help along the independence campaign and also show up the "inefficiency and carpetbagging of the former administrations," President Wilson in the fall of 1913 appointed four Americans to the highest offices in the Philippine service who had never had a day's experience in Philippine or any other colonial government and who had never given any particular attention to the Phil. ippine system of government until they received their appointments and were ready to sail. MR. HARRISON'S The new governor-general, Mr. Francis TACTICS Burton Harrison, started his regime ominously by firing one of the higher government officials of long service the day after he landed at Manila. For the first six months the daily item of interest was the removal of some American employes of long service in the government in order to put in some Filipino or some "deserving Democrat" fresh from the United States. This was a clean-cut departure from the former administrations, because for a number of years the rule had been followed of filling the higher positions by promoting men of long experience and tried ability in the lower ranks of the Philippine government service. Every governor-general since Taft had had a number of years of experience in the Philippine service before his incumbency. It is perfectly fair to judge the Democratic policy by the acts of Governor General Harrison because he is undoubtedly the strongest of the four Americans appointed by President Wilson. OFFICIALS One can scarcely imagine Mr. Harrison INCOMPETENT recommending Vice Gov. Gen. Martin as his successor for chief executive of the Philippine government. "Hen" Martin is the most likable member of the entire commission, but likableness, is not a sufficient qualification for a governor-general. High executive ability and a real grasp of the Philippine situation are necessary and no one accuses the present vice-governor of having an illegitimate amount of either of these articles upon his person. Mr. Clinton L. Riggs, the secretary of commerce and police, like Mr. Elliot, his predecessor under the Forbes regime, does not seem to be very popular with either the American or Filipino members of the administration. Mr. Winfred T. Denison, the secretary of interior, would probably make the strongest bid for the governor-generalship if Mr. Harrison decided that he had had enough, but Mr. Denison is decidedly a better lawyer than executiv It is in his department that the most conspicuous example of disorganization and inefficiency is to be found, namely, in the Philippine general hospital. If President Wilson contemplates continuing in office for another four years, it is high time he appointed an American to the Philippine commission of sufficient executive ability and purpose to train himself in one of the executive departments, say that of Commerce and Police, so as to make a satisfactory chief executive of the Philip pine Islands by 1917, because it is general opinion in the Philippines today that Harrison has had the greatest of plenty and will not consider another four years on the throne. INGRATITUDE Mr. Harrison has come to realize all too THE vividly the truth of the old adage, "UnREWAF easy lies the head that wears the crown." After treating fellow Americans in a ruthless fashion that he personally did not relish but felt compelled to do for political reasons, it was not pleasant to hear Filipino leaders whom he had treated well, talk about the Republicans being pretty decent people after all, as is often heard now when these Filipinos are beginning to fear that the next election may usher in another Republican administration. For a time it looked as though the policy of firing experienced American officials to put in Filipinos and "deserving Democrats" would completely wreck the government service, but several things occurred to-save the situation. In the first place it was soon found that the stronger Filipinos were not so anxious to see the government ser'ice filled up with political appointees. The Bryan-Tammany methods began to be criticised by the Filipino press. Secondly, the cold facts of the situation finally succeeded in convincing Messrs. Harrison, Denison, etc., that they had been absolutely misinformed as to the character of the Americans in the Philippine service. They had been told that these Philippine-Americans were dyed-in-the-wool carpet-baggers, but instead of this the new governor-general found them making many personal sacrifices to build up the best colonial government possible for their fatherland, the United States. It may be said to Mr. Harrison's credit that after two years' experience in the Philippine Islands he has come to resent any implication that the Americans in the Philippine service are anything less than efficient public servants of much ability, who are doing a missionary work for the Filipino people. FILIPINOS Unfortunately, the policy of displacing PLAY THE trained American officials with Filipinos and GAME, TOO "deserving Democrats" could not be stopped when the Democratic leaders wanted to stop | it. Many of the most efficient engineers, sanitation experts and administrators whom Governor-General Harrison wished to retain in the government service were so disgusted with the ruthless treatment meted out to so many deserving Americans that they resigned and left the islands or went into private business there. Having promised to Filipinize the service wherever possible, Mr. Harrison now found self-seeking Filipinos insisting that all these vacancies be filled with Filipinos, and when he refused in certain instances he found himself enjoying the same public criticism from the Filipino press that the Republicans had grown so accustomed to. GOVERNMENT The beautiful Philippine General Hospital HOSPITAL offers the best example of the evil effects A DISGRACE of the present regime. It is the finest equipped hospital in the Orient and was formerly one of the most efficient. Today its medical service is a disgrace. According to law Government employes are guaranteed medical care here free of charge, but within the last year a certain American official in need of medical treatment is known to have made three successive trips to this hospital on three successive days within. office hours and found no physician there to look after him. Within the last few months the Secretary of Interior Mr. Denison, has taken commendable steps to put the affairs of this institution upon a better basis. THE WRECKED As usual, the Democratic regime soon REVENUE found itself in a financial hole. A Mr. SYSTEM James J. Rafferty, who had been none too successful as collector of customs at Cebn^ was made director of the Bureau of Internal Revenue because his father was the friend of Judge somebody high up in the Democratic administration in the United States. About half of the American internal revenue agents were fired at this time also, and their places filled with young Filipinos. Internal revenue collections fell off immediately. The Chinese merchants, the liquor dealers, the distillers and others simply bluffed these youthful revenue agents out of making the collections for the time being. But the American press in Manila got after Mr. Rafferty and his bureau so persistently and effectively, printing the amounts of the collections month after month and comparing them with those of the years before, that this one bureau was made the symbol of Democratic inefficiency. In order to save the situation politically, the governorgeneral had to step in and see to it that the workings of this one bureau were improved. It is a great pity that every branch of the government service can not be flooded with the light of public criti cism as was the bureau of internal revenue, because such criticism when kept up day after day certainly secures results even from political appointees like Mr. Rafferty. WHERE Perhaps the best of the Filipino officials ABILITY was appointed executive secretary. The IS REQUIRED mistake was not in the person appointed, but in putting a Filipino in this position. The executive secretary has the very trying duty of keeping the Philippine government in running order. If the municipal officials in northern Luzon get into a fight it is the duty of the executive secretary to straighten out the difficulty in some way so that the work of government will go on. If the governor of Cebu or Iloilo uses his official position to ruin his enemies, it is the duty of the executive secretary to investigate and suspend, reprimand or exonerate the governor in question. Governor-Genex Harrison discovered, after a year and a half, that this ofice should never have been Filipinized, but he found it much harder to de-Filipinize than to Filipinize a position. He made this Filipino executive secretary president of the University of the Philippines, and then as a temporary measure put in his own private secretary, an American, as acting executive secretary. The only permanent solution of this difficulty will be to abolish the position of executive secretary altogether and then transfer the essential functions of that position to the private secretaryship of the governor-general, which position will naturally not be Filipinized for some years to come. ROAD Road construction and indirectly the CONSTRUCTION Bureau of Public Works, were the specHALTS ial hobby of Governor Forbes. The new administration did not Filipinize this branch of the service any more than the other branches, but it did cut off the appropriations for this kind of work so that the officials of the highly organized Bureau of Public Works spent most of their time during 1914 trying to look busy when they had nothing to do. Quite a few of their most efficient engineers refused to waste their time in this fashion and therefore resigned. In the process of repudiating the. - original policy, the heads of the Democratic regime, in the Philippines are now taking up the Forbes road policy and planning a road campaign for next year that is larger than the prospective revenues will warrant if consideration is had for the money that will be needed to educate the Filipino children who were turned away from school this year for lack of funds to hire teachers and buy school equipment. MAN'S In most of the other bureaus a fair standINHUMANITY ard of efficiency has been maintained beTO MAN cause the old directors have continued in office and have worked overtime supervising their new Filipino subordinates in order to keep the standard of efficiency of their respective bureaus intact. It is a shame to see these efficient veterans of*e Philippine service working the best years of their life away when the Democratic masters of the government have denied them the respite from the deadening heat and humidity of the low lands, which was always granted them by former administrations by moving all the insular government offices to the cool, pine-clad hills of Baguio during the three hottest months of the year. This situation is all the more unfortunate in view of the fact that these men know they are likely to be discarded at any time, not because they are inefficient, but because a Filipino wants their job. PITIFUL If these Americans of long service in the NEGLECT OF government get sick or worn out there is AMERICANS no pension for them and they are eight thousand miles from home under a government that has passed a law prohibiting the payment of their passage home. The United States can spend forty million dollars a year on pensions for soldiers, many of whom never spent six months in the government service and never got a scratch during that time, but this same rich, benevolent country does not provide a cent of pension for the American who spends ten or twenty of the best years of his life in the government service in the deadening heat and humidity of the tropics building up good government and saving life instead of killing men. The situation was none too creditable under the Republican regime, but the Republicans did offer employment to all deserving Americans in the Philippines. Under the present regime the American of long service in the government is not even guaranteed an equal opportunity for office. He may be ousted at any time to give place to a Filipino whose chief qualification is that he is a Filipino citizen and not an American citizen. / -T The purpose of the American occupation of the Philippine Islands was not to give Americans employment, but no business corporation is so mean as to send its employee int, a foreign country with a tropical climate and then, aft years of faithful service, refuse them equal opportunity for employment and abandon them eight thousand miles from home because the climate has destroyed their health or because there is no more need for their service. It is not surprising that some Americans sneer when they hear anyone speak of the United States rewarding patriotism and public service. Common decency requires that the administration that practices the policy of displacing American officials in Philippine service with Filipinos, see that the United States government provide or compel the Philippine government to provide for their pension and passage home, or passage home and a decent position in this country when they have served faithfully for a certain minimum number of years in the Philippine service. The present administration had facilitated the method of transfer from the Philippine to the United States civil service, but very few of the displaced Americans ever succeeded in profiting by this theoretical opportunity. DEPENDING During the last two years there have been a ON PRIVATE large number of Americans thrown out of CHARITY work by the Filipinization policy and some of the most deserving ones have been saved from starvation only by the private charity of other Americans. Unemployment is bad enough when each man knows that he has not been discriminated against because of his race, and when he is in his native climate among those of his own race and nationality. During the present year this beneficent Democratic government offered a group of several hundred unemployed Americans a chance to do road work at Filipino wages, which were not sufficient to pay board at meal-ticket rates in the cheaper American boarding places of Manila. The government did extend itself a year and a half ago to the extent of establishing an agricultural settlement in Mindanao, in which those displaced Americans who have Filipino wives can strive for a living by working in the fields under the tropical sun. POLITICS Under the guise of increasing the facilities AND THE for the dispatch of the work of the courts, a JUDICIARY new judiciary law was passed last year which increased considerably the number of judges for the courts of first instance. Instead of increasing the number of special judges for the court of land registration, it was decided to give these judges of the court of first instance jurisdiction over land registration. The intent may have been good, but the result has been that some of these judges who have had no land cases to handle loafed on the job half of the time, while the judges who have had a cadastral survey within their jurisdiction are now four years behind in their work. It has been asserted that the main reason for the passage of the law was that it provided judgeships for a number of Filipino and American lawyers who had political influence and could not otherwise be provided for. Still another instance-of disorganization is the removal of the provincial treasurer from the provincial board. One of the chief functions of the provincial board is to serve as an administrative court for the municipalities and the province. It is natural to suppose that such a board would have use for at least one member who had had administrative experience, but the Democratic administration has decided that three elective Filipino officials without administrative experience will be satisfactory administrative judges; consequently the provincial treasurer, the last trained administrator, was removed from the provincial board last December. As most of the provincial treasurers are already Filipinos, this act did not even have the excuse of Filipinization. FILIPINOS The situation in the Philippines is improvCHANGE ing at present because the Democratic THEIR MIND administration has abandoned or failed in its policy. Instead of furthering the cause of independence, it has, with the aid of the European war and the Japan-China trouble, almost killed that campaign. In the past the great mental obsession of the Filipino political leader was that "Every people have a right to govern themselves." The Republicans always denied this statement, on the ground that it depended on whether the people in question were able to govern themselves or not, But this objection to the principle only made the Filipino argue the more excitedly, "We have, we have, we have a right to govern ourselves." When the Democrats came in 1913 they said, "You are right. Every people have a right to govern themselves." Furthermore, many of these Democrats made it plain that they were anxious to see the Phil. ippines dropped by the United States. Finally the Republicans in the islands became so disgusted with the apparent lack of appreciation of the Filipinos that they, too, said:... "Cut them loose! Let themr go to the devil! Why should the United States do anyting for these people?" t When these Filipinos found no one opposing their right to independence they paused long enough for the inext question to pop up in their minds voluntarily, "Independence, and then what?" That little "Then what" had a very chilling effect, and, as the Filipino is no fool, once he stops being excited about political arguments, he soon decided that he did not want independence so bad as he thought he did. DISAPPOINTED The Nationalista (immediate independNATIVE ence) party has had an overwhelming OFFICE SEEKERS majority in the Philippines since its organization in 1908, when the first Philippine assembly was elected. Although it started as the radical party, it has now become the conservative party and has largely swallowed up the original conservatives who called themselves Progressistas. Now that this majority party has control of the government and seemingly can have independence if it so desires, it is not so sure that it wants independence at all. What its leaders now want is self-styled government like Canada has. The immediate independence party has dwindled down to a mere handful of revolutionary veterans who were trained under the Spanish regime, fought for independence against both Spain and the United States, and are now irreconcilable to any other policy. The hanging of one of their leaders, General Noriel, has done much to break their spirit. They have almost no following outside of Manila and Cavite province; consequently the majority party ignores them almost entirely in the distribution of political plums. It is because they are so completely ignored that they are so bitter at present against Mr. Osmena, the astute leader of the majority party and speaker of the Philippine assembly. The only representative of this revolutionary party in High office is Commissioner Vicente Illustre, and it is a disrace that he has been allowed to remain in office since he penly espoused the cause of the murderer Noriel and led to cause trouble for Governor-General Harrison by tding the ignorant Filipinos to think that Noriel was a X rtyr to American injustice instead of a cold-blooded x 'derer who tried to have two innocent men hung for his o\ crime. A number of capable American officials have be dismissed from the government service for disloyalty to the Democratic administration, and yet this treasonably disloyal Filipino is allowed to continue in the highest position open to men of his race. It is interesting to speculate on what the anti-imperialists will say when they find that the Democratic regime in the Philippines has only made it more certain that we will keep these islands. Now that the Filipinos are realizing that independence is not for their good, the anti-imperialists will be forced to come out in the open and admit that they do not care a continental about the welfare of the Filipino people. Regardless of the anti-imperialists, it is pretty certain that the people of the United States will not kick the Filipinos out in the cold if they desire to stay in where it is warm and secure. ONE HUNDRED There is one policy in which the THOUSAND SCHOOL Democratic administration has failed CHILDREN BARRED to make good in a surprising manner. The former administrations made large appropriations for education even when the Filipinos were opposed to the public schools. Today the Filipinos are most enthusiastic supporters of the public schools, doubling the school revenues in some places by private contributions. In the face of this support, the appropriations granted to the public schools by the pres. ent administration are not any larger than formerly, and the legislature failed last year to pass the law enabling the local governments to increase their own taxes for school purposes. This June the Filipinos saw the surprising situation of a Democratic governor-general, a Democratic secretary of public instruction and a Democratic director of education turning away almost 100,000 Filipino children from the public schools because there was no money with which to hire the necessary teachers or purchase the needed equipment. This is all the more surprising in view of the fact that nowhere else in the world does the school system give such good returns for the money invested in public instruction. GOOD EFFECT While the Philippine government as a OF EARLY whole has been far more efficient for the POLICIES last six or eight years than any state government in the United States, and has had a system of accounts and audit superior to that of any other government in the world to insure honesty and efficiency in the handling of government finances, the Philippine system of public finance has been very poor. For fear * A{- -. that a reasonable indebtedness would hamper the independence movement in the Philippines, the Philippine government has been compelled by the United States Congress to pay for its permanent improvements out of current expenses. For example, the city of Manila has probably borrowed more per capita than any other branch of the government service, and yet Manila is paying only a few per cent of its current income as interest on its debts and about 30 per cent of its current income on permanent improvements, while New York City is spending its current income on these two items in inverse ratio to that of Manila. The result is that New York City is ready and able to grasp every opportunity for progress that comes along, while Manila builds bridges to relieve the blockade of traffic due to congestion only when some private individual comes along to help out with a donation. The key to the downtown traffic in Manila is the historic old Bridge of Spain. It has been overcrowded for many years and progressive citizens have long been urging the construction of another bridge further down to relieve the congestion and also afford a direct passage from the wholesale business section of Manila to the big government docks, but last fall a flood washed out the center pier of the Bridge of Spain, so that there was no direct route from the walled city to the main business section on the other side of the river. A narrow pine structure was finally built across the gap to relieve the situation temporarily, so that now you can cross the 400-foot stretch of bridge in ten minutes, provided some carabao does not fall dov n in front of you and block the way for ten minutes longer. Instead of appropriating money for a new etu' tre, the city fathers have to content themselves with.ng dreamily at the beautiful new plans the architects nave presented for the future Bridge of Spain, while the city budget committee wrangles for hours over the problem of whether $10 of the meager permanent improvement fund shall be spent on repairing a bridge in Tondo, or on new hose for the fire department. FAIL. As mentioned above, the citizens of certain TO KEEP Philippine municipalities double the school i'PROMISES appropriations by private contributions. Ordinary intelligence in such matters should see the evils in this extra-legal method of collecting money for the public schools and should empower the municipalities to increase their local tax rates, so that the money! needed can be collected under government supervision and f I\ v>.. the expense of public education be more fairly distributed. This would be in accordance with the avowed Democratic policy of increasing local autonomy in the Philippines, but two legislative sessions have passed under the present regime with the school situation growing more serious every day, and yet no action has been taken. The administration insists with more fervor than ever that such a tax law is to be passed this year, but after several years of similar insistence, without results, one does not bank much on intentions; it is easier to wait patiently until the law actually appears on the statute book. It would be amusing, if it were not so pathetic, to see these poor Philippine municipalities trying to save up current revenues sufficient to build reinforced concrete schoolhouses, when at the same time the local authorities are turning children away from the schools by the hundreds because there is no money to hire more teachers or buy more school equipment. The reinforced concrete school buildings are not an extravagance so far as schoolhouse construction is concerned, because the bi-annual typhoon blows down all other types of construction almost as fast as they can be put up. The foolishness consists in turning thousands of children away from school to build a few permanent school buildings from current revenues when these school buildings should be built with borrowed money, that puts little strain on i present current revenues. THE WAR How much economic depression in the PhilipNOT TO pines is due to the war and how much to the BLAME administration no one can say definitely. The Democrats are willing to let the war have all the blame. The Republicans say it was lucky for the Democrats that the war came when it did to serve as an excuse. Not even the Americans in the Philippines realize how fortunate this colony has been as regards the effects of the war. Nearly every one of the other countries descendant from colonial Spain, Chile, Argentine, Brazil, Peru, and the rest, were completely staggered, both financially and commercially, by the outbreak of hostilities, while the Philippines, thanks to a sound currency system instituted and backed by the United States, scarcely felt the financial shock, and were only temporarily held up commercially, aside from the continued scarcity of shipping facilities. Chile and Brazil have not yet recovered financially, whereas the Philippine bankers have almost forgotten that there was a disturbance a year ago. In the Philippines the scar city of shipping due to the war is hardly as serious as that being caused by the seaman's bill, which is driving the largest line of ships, the Pacific Mail, from Philippine. waters. The complete slump in the hemp and copra markets caused by the outbreak of the war was almost completely recovered from within a few months. AGRICULTURE The Bureau of Agriculture has put the NEEDS grading of hemp on such a thorough basis ATTENTION now that the price of Philippine hemp should improve as soon as the market completely recovers from the war depression. The cocoanut industry (for the production of cocoanut oil) is a good investment, as it is a sure producer, yields regularly every day of the year, thus simplifying the labor problem, and there is every indication that the price will not be lowered greatly by large increases in production, because not only are the uses to which cocoanut oil is put increasing every day, but also these uses are such that a slight decrease in the price will greatly increase the consumption. Cocoanut oil is used mainly in making toilet soaps and artificial butter. The great need for the copra industry is capital, because it takes a young cocoanut tree from five to eight years to begin bearing, but once started it bears at full speed for half a century or more. Typhoons damage the trees sometimes, but they have no typhoons in southern Negros or Mindanao. If the new civil government instituted by the Democrats in Mindanao serves to complete the pacification of the Moros, as the Democrats boast that it will, capitalists seeking a field for investment will do well to look into the copra, hemp, rubber and lumber industries that are ready for development on this island of 36,000 square miles of area, that is free from typhoons and has a soil and climate that rival, if they do not excel, that of Java or Cuba. The only drawback is labor supply, and the Democratic administration is trying an experiment there that will either improve the situation or make it much worse. Two more years should determine whether the island of Mindanao is going to be a wonderful economic opportunity or a wasted one. SEAMAN'S The sugar industry has received more attenBILL tion from outside capital than any other. INJURIOUS Although the price has been good since the better grade of sugar has been produced, and the labor supply has been satisfactory, the profits have been scanty either because shipping facilities were not sufficient to get the sugar to market, or because the war insurance and the high shipping rates, brought about by the scarcity of ships, ate up the increase in selling price. The departure of the Pacific Mail boats from Philippine waters, due to the seaman's bill, will not tend to improve this situation. With normal shipping conditions, more certain political conditions to encourage foreign capital, and the satisfactory labor supply that is already available in the sugar country, the sugar industry in the Philippines would have a promising future. The lumber industry of the Philippines has suffered from the constant political agitation that has tended to keep out foreign capital. If shipping facilities improve, and the Filipinos make up their minds to talk business instead of politics, capitalists interested in lumber would find no better place to invest their money than in the great forests of the Philippines, most of which are easily accessible from tidewater. The tobacco industry in the Philippines is improving slowly but surely. The damage done in 1910 by exporting cheap cigars has already been repaired by a consistent system of grading. W~HEN The first duty of an agricultural country FAMINE is to feed itself. This the Philippine IsTHREATENED lands are not doing. On the average the biggest single item in Philippine imports is rice, which comes from France's oriental tropical colony through the port of Saigon, just across the China Sea. One of the effects of the outbreak of the war last year was to give the Filipinos a food scare, because of the embargo on foodstuffs that France laid temporarily on her colonies. The shortage of rice in the Philippines is not due to any scarcity of suitable land, for the Philippine Islands could produce rice sufficient for four times its present population or more. The scarcity of this staple cereal is due to ignorance and to an all too prevalent disinclination to work. This is why the Philippine public school system, instituted and developed by American educators, has for three of its aims the development of habits of industry, the development of respect for manual labor, and the increase of the food supply by practical instruction in seed selection and the growing of the food crops-rice, corn, sweet potatoes and legumes. EDUCATION The public schools cannot be expected to PROMISED teach the older Filipinos new tricks, at least MUCH not while money for education is so scarce that not more than a third of the children of school age are being educated and thousands of those who want an education are being turned away from the schoolhouses by the school authorities. But those who do attend the public schools are really being taught habits of industry, respect for manual labor, how to grow good veg. etables and how to improve their field of crops by seed selection and better methods of cultivation. In Spanish times no school teacher would have dared or even thought of dirtying his hands by manual labor. roday it is not uncommon for a Filipino public school teacher to work on the road or in the fields during vacation to earn additional money with which to satisfy the new wants his democratic education has aroused within him. The effect of this public school training on the rice crop cannot as yet be ascertained, because that crop is so greatly affected by drought and typhoons every year. But. the public school corn campaign, which included seed se-. lection, improved methods of planting, cultivating and It harvesting, and for girls the preparation of simple corn j foods, has more than doubled the corn crop in the Philippine Islands within the last three years. In addition to -teaching every Filipino schoolboy how to grow food crops, ' the four-year primary course also teaches him simple carpntry and some hat, basket, mat or slipper weaving, with wEich he can profitably occupy his time when not working irthe fields. The Filipino schoolgirl is not only taught p ain sewing and the preparation of simple foods, but also lce making, embroidery, and hat, basket, mat or slipper eaving, so that she can make these things for her own amily or for sale, and thus materially increase the ecoomic independence and welfare of her home. {NO CREDIT The Democratic administration can claim no TO PRESENT credit for this splendid school system so REGIME long as children are being turned away from the schools by the thousands, because the former administrations provided just as much money for public instruction when the attendance was much smaller and the Filipinos antagonistic to the public schools instead of very enthusiastic for them, as at present. The Philippine public school system is due to the high ideals, intelligence, energy and self-sacrifice of almost 2000 American teachers and the 10,000 Filipino teachers whom they developed. This corps of educators is and has been nonpartisan, but it has been dominated by the high purpose of executing the noble instructions of our martyred President, William McKinley, to train the Filipino people for self-government. These educators have believed that citizenship requires literary, a certain minimum of general knowledge, individual economic independence and a knowledge of the rights and duties of a citizen. It will make any patriotic American feel proud to study the Philippine educational exhibit at the Panama-Pacific Exposition, keeping in mind the four purposes enumerated above. No place else in the world is there a four-year course of public instruction that comes so near to meeting the needs of the people to whom it is given as does the Philippine primary course. TURNED Some of the Americans who helped develop this ADRIFT school system are now walking the streets of z Manila, looking for a job and getting their. meals through charity; others are toiling in the full blazer of the tropical sun in the fields of Mindanao. Filipiniza —"! tion is a legitimate policy for the Philippine government i') to pursue, and if the Philippine Islands were enjoying a ' great wave of material prosperity the displaced Americans ( might find satisfactory work outside of the government service. But this wave of prosperity has not arrived. The > Democratic administration is responsible for the displac-, ing of so many deserving Americans; it may also have \ had something to do with the non-arrival of this long- % looked-for prosperity. * I