AMERICA AND THE PHILIPPINES. A LL who wish well to the
new oversew Empire of the United States, and that means all Englishmen but a minute minority, should feel a sense of sincere satis- faction at the proclamation just issued by General Otis. In that proclamation are laid the foundations of America's Empire in the Far East, and they are well and truly laid. As we have again and again insisted in these columns, and shall continue to insist, there is one, and only one, solid basis for empire, and that is the moral basis. It is as useless as it is unworthy to make the earning of dividends the foundation of empire. Any and every edifice of government built on the quicksands of mere moneymaking is doomed to perish. It was the holding and administering of her colonies on the principle that they were to be held and administered, not for the benefit of their own inhabitants, but in order to pour money into Spain, that ruined Spain. It is the notion that colonies exist solely for the benefit of the mother-country, and must buy her goods and supply her sons with posts, that will ruin the colonies of France. The exploitation of colonies for the benefit of the sovereign Power,—that is the death-knell of empire. We can see it in our own history as well as in the history of our neighbours. As long as the East India Company ruled India in order to produce dividends for its shareholders our Indian Empire was a failure. When the Company became in fact, if not in name, a Department of State, when all ideas of trade by the Company were abandoned, and when the government of India in the interests of India became the ruling principle, our Indian Empire began and has continued to flourish. Look at the Empire at this moment. The one place which has given real anxiety and trouble during the past few years, the one place in which deeds have been done that have made Englishmen blush with shame, the one place which is from every point of view in an unsatisfactory con- dition, is the one place, or at any rate the one important place, in the Empire which is held on the old bad basis of exploitation and dividend-producing for investors at home. The primary and essential object of the owners and rulers of Rhodesia is not the good government and the improvement of Rhodesia and its inhabitants, but its development as a paying estate for the Chartered Company. The fact is, of course, not so crudely advertised as we have expressed it, but it is the bottom fact, for all that, of the Chartered Com- pany's rule.
The Americans when they took over the Philippines had bdfore them the two systems of colonial government which we have indicated,—the system of exploitation, that is the system of colonies for the benefit of America, and of colonies for the benefit of the inhabitants. Happily they have chosen the true English rather than the Continental model. They have proclaimed in the clearest words that the Philippines will be governed by them for the good of the inhabitants, and that the interests of the islands will be the basis and foundation of government. It is good that Americans should have so explicitly adopted this principle of rule, and should have avoided the dangers that ruined their predecessors in the sovereignty. They have also, if they maintain, as we believe they will, the principles set forth in the proclamation, avoided another danger of empire, and one to which they were peculiarly liable,—the danger of governing tropical communities, and communities inhabited by a population of inferior social development, on a basis of sentiment, sophistry, and paradox. There was a danger, that is, that the Americans might have recklessly promised to the Filipinos political rights and privileges which in fact, though not in appearance, would have involved a negation of sound government. Happily they have given no pledges that the Filipinos are to be endowed with representative institutions and the other phenomena of free government which, though indispensable to the Teutonic races, can prove nothing but a curse when applied to such races as the Tagals and the half-breeds of Spain's tropical possessions. It is true that the proclamation states that self-government will some day be applied, but this pledge is most wiselyand carefully guarded. Self-government is only to be granted when it is "reconcilable with the maintenance of a wise, just, stable, effective, and economical administration, and compatible with the sovereign and international rights and obligations of the United States.', This and the declaration that "the suprem- acy of the United States must and will be enforced throughout every part of the archipelago" show that it is the American Government, and not the Filipinos, who will be masters. The American Government, again, will not merely advise or help the Filipinos to form a government, but will themselves "guarantee an honest and effective civil service, in which, to the fullest extent practicable, natives shall be employed." In a word, the whole proclamation shows that the govern- ment to be established will be on the lines we have adopted in India and in Egypt. Absolute equality before the law will be given to all the inhabitants, and wherever possible they will be the instruments of government ; but there will be no acknowledgment of the inherent right of the people of the Philippines to govern themselves as badly as they choose. In a word, the one object will be good government, and the improvement and development of the islands, and from this object the Administration will not be deflected, on the one hand, by any desire to further the selfish interests of the United States, or, on the other, by any regard for the abstract right of the Filipinos to play at representative government. The one question in internal administration will be, " What arc .the true interests of the Philippines, and how can they best be carried out ? " If only the Philippine Civil Service, when it is formed, can keep this principle always before it, and will remember that personal freedom can be perfectly well maintained without representative in- stitutions, and that a government need not be arbitrary or oppressive because it is not based upon the expressed consent of the governed, the administration of the islands may yet put to shame that of certain of the States of the Union.
One thing we would impress upon the Americans with passion- ate earnestness. Let them have only a moderate number of white men, but let all of those picked men hold important posts, and have large salaries, and not merely a living wage. Let them adopt, that is, Lord Cromer's admirable principle, and have American heads and Filipino hands. In each central department and each provincial district an American brain must control, must enforce responsibility, and, most important of all, must see that equal justice is done, but the executant hands may well, nay, had better, be inhabitants of the islands. The principle of employing only a few English-speaking men in high posts carries a double advantage. In the first place, it leaves a large field for native administration, and secondly, it forbids the use of the small white man of inferior education and position on a small salary. The poorly paid white man in the tropics soon sinks below the white standard, and becomes a great danger to the State. He despises and bullies the natives, and yet he cannot hold himself above them and proclaim a higher standard. The Americans will, no doubt, find it very tempting to use such non-commis- sioned officers in the work of administration, but they must not yield to the temptation. If a white man is worth using at all he is worth pay and position which will place him in a position of high responsibility, and enable him to feel to the full that esprit de corps which white men who rule in the tropics ought to feel,—the esprit de corps which makes even those who are naturally selfish, cynical, and materially minded men ready to undergo any sacrifice rather than miss a duty that ought to be accomplished. And here it is worth noting that this esprit de corps cannot be too soon established. Why should not the American Government at once establish a College like our old Haileybury, which shall be for the Philippine, Cuban, and Porto Rican Civil Services what West Point is for the Army ?
We cannot leave the subject of the foundation of the American Empire without a word as to those honest and sincere men who deprecate the possession of dependencies, and hate the very thought of empire. Like our old; fashioned Radicals, they look upon dependencies as pure evil, and, like them also, they are in the wrong. In both cases the underlying feeling is, we believe, something of this kind. What is the use of going to and holding these places unless we use them for our own benefit. But to do that is mere highway robbery. Therefore we had better have nothing to do with colonies.' That sounds very logical, but is very absurd. It is based upon three erroneous notions. One is that nothing is worth doing unless it can benefit us materially ; the second, that benefiting the inhabitants of places against their will, or apparent will, but for their real good, is a thing which it is wrong and foolish to undertake ; and thirdly, that benefiting another place is quixotic nonsense, and confers no benefits on us. All these propositions are untrue. The moral and intellectual gains of a nation are quite as important as the material gains, and, indeed, create the material gains. A nation lives on its moral energies, and these are fostered by a wisely conducted Empire. Next, it is worth while to govern people well against their will. It gives a double blessing. It helps them, and it helps you. It educates the governed, and raises the standard of duty and moral power in those who rule,—provided their object is good government, not money. Lastly, the socalled quixotic nonsense of developing and improving tropical and derelict places is not quixotry, but develops and improves the nation which does the work as much as the people who form the material which is to be developed and improved. The spirit of the old Radicals was a good one, and they meant well, but they did not see far enough. They said : What business have we in India and Africa ? ' What they ought to have said was : What business have we in India and Africa unless we govern those places for the benefit of the inhabitants ? ' But to such a question they would have said We have no business to waste our people's blood and treasure in doing miscellaneous knight-errantry.' We know, however, that such miscellaneous knight-errantry' is by no means wasted, but that upon it rests a great deal of what is best in the nation. It is in such sacrifices to the spiritual and non-material impulses of man that we may learn—
"What makes a nation great and keeps it so."
Therefore, in spite of the opinion of many good men in America, we desire to see the United States take up and carry their portion of " the white man's burden."
Previous page
