18 FEBRUARY 1905, Page 2

In the Times on Tuesday Mr. Alleyne Ireland concluded his

studies of tropical administration with a criticism of American rule in the Philippines. He is not very cheerful. He complains that his countrymen have not learned the lesson of colonial ex- perience elsewhere, and have invented an unsatisfactory hybrid government. In a territory smaller than Burmah there are forty provincial governments and six hundred and twenty-three municipal governments, and in the municipal governments there are three thousand six hundred paid officials popularly elected and more than eight thousand elected Councillors. And all the time, Mr. Ireland holds, the Filipino is no more fit for self-government than the Malay or the negro. The total annual cost of administration is greater than the total gross value of the produce exported. Mr. Ireland pays a high tribute to the honest work of the officials, but considers that they are the victims of a hopelessly wrong colonial policy.