with have been largely due to the want of experience by military and civil officers alike. But in fact, for some generations-if we should not say, for three centuries-the military officers of the States have had plenty of experience in dealing with savage enemies; and during the last three years we ourselves have been painfully learning that war in a wild country may have a physiognomy of its own, differing in many respects not only from war in a different type of country, but still more from the teaching of the schools; while as to the civil administration, we may take Mr. Colquhoun's word for it that

'No such problem has ever presented itself to Great Britain or any other colonising power as that which confronts the United States in the Philippines, for there conditions are complicated by the presence of a mixed race who can neither be treated as "natives nor as Americans. The evil traditions of some three centuries of corrupt government hang over the islands, and the task is rendered twofold harder by the necessity of pulling down the edifice before building it up again.'

When, however, he goes on to say that with characteristic self-confidence the Americans are practically setting on one 'side the accumulated experience of other colonising nations and are determined to meet the new problems by a great ' and entirely novel experiment,' he seems to contradict himself; for, according to his own showing, no other colonising nations have met the same or even similar conditions, and their experience is, therefore, not necessarily to the point.

6

Of the corrupt government referred to, whose evil traditions remain to give trouble, Mr. Colquhoun has much to say, but it is unnecessary here to repeat it except in summary: that the power was virtually in the hands of the priests, and that though many of the men sent out by the Church were 'earnest and devoted,' and though many saintly men ' volunteered for the arduous mission,' others were not always worthy of their order' and 'a great many were 'merely the sweepings of the Spanish monasteries.' It has been abundantly proved in all ages, in all countries, thatquite independent of the particular religion-the hierocratic form of government is radically bad; it was at its worst when administered by priests who used their sacred character but as a cloak to immorality, greed, and oppression. As against these the last more especially-came the revolt, which a decadent Spain was unable to suppress; and war, interspersed with massacres, went on, till-in following out another quarrel-the United States intervened, quelled the

Spaniards without much difficulty, and now finds itself face to face with the native problem. In solving this, the first and perhaps the greatest difficulty in the way of the Americans will be to convince the Filipinos of their good faith, of their intention and determination to rule them as men, not as brute beasts nor as slaves. That eventually submission will be enforced and peace established we cannot doubt; but the economy of civil life will bring its own questions, the foremost of which will be that of labour.

The population scattered through the thousand or more islands which we know collectively as the Philippines consists of many different types, but the predominant-in number, character, and civilisation-is Malay, mixed, most commonly, with the blood of other races, and largely with Spanish. But Malay and Mestizo agree in their dislike to work, partly, it may be, from physical disability to work 'laboriously for any long stretch,' but principally-according to Mr. Colquhoun-because laziness has its roots deep in 'the Malay character, and the Spaniards-who despised 'labour themselves-did nothing to instil an idea of its 'nobility into their imitative pupils.' He tells of four 'Filipinos dragging at a weight which one Chinaman would 'shoulder and trot off with;' a difference certainly not to be explained by vastly superior muscular power. Feast-days and fiestas, too, interfere with regularity of work-a lesson learnt from the Spaniards; and feast-days or not, the Filipinos will not work if the wants of the moment are satisfied. Mr. Colquhoun

'heard of a case in which a contractor, having increased the wages to twice the usual amount in order to get plenty of men, discovered that they would only work half the week, since by so doing they earned the same sum which they had originally got in a whole week.'

This explains and illustrates the preference given to the Chinese. Having once been engaged and given to under'stand that the work must be finished in a certain time, the 'contractor could be sure that they would work every hour, 'and could safely calculate the time they would take.' Industrious as labourers, keen, intelligent, and pushing as tradesmen, economical and saving, they would quickly, if freely admitted, crush the life out of the Filipinos. And yet, as citizens, they are objectionable by reason of their hatred of sanitation, their addiction to opium, and their 'system of clubs and secret societies which make them 'undesirably powerful.' They find, however, favour with

the native women, marry, and give rise to a numerous mixed population. But the absorption of one race into the other is not likely to lead to a favourable solution of the problem. Mongrels of men, as of dogs, are apt to reproduce and emphasise the worst points of the parent races; and in the Philippines the Chinese half-breed is a dangerous person'bright, restless, intriguing, and untrustworthy; the 'Chinese half-breeds have the reputation of being amongst 'the most brainy and also the most difficile of the natives, 'and a very large proportion of the insurgents belonged to 'this class. It may well be that the Chinese problem will become here, as in other places, the great economic puzzle of the future.

Though in a different way, the Spanish half-breeds are almost as difficult to deal with as the Chinese; and the long duration of the Spanish rule and the Spanish civilisation has made its own peculiar mark.

'The faults and peculiarities of the Latin races are exaggerated and burlesqued, and a thin veneer of Western culture is spread over the passions and emotions of these Orientals. . . . The intellectual subtlety of the Latin has also been curiously grafted on the simplicity--which is not stupidity-of the Malay. The result is a peculiar leaning towards abstract ideas, a love of the purely theoretical side of learning, with a corresponding inability to apply those theories, which are to them things apart from real life-things they have learned or read and not evolved from life itself. They begin with the abstract and fail to work down to the concrete. A witty American who, being a fluent Spanish scholar, had conversed with hundreds of the better educated Filipinos, said of them: "They will write you essays on Individual Rights until you are tired, but if they met Individual Rights in the street they wouldn't know him from Adam."'

The United States' remedy for all this-the universal nostrum-is education exhibited vigorously, rigorously, and at once- or sooner.' The consequence, Mr. Colquhoun thinks, will be that the first few years of enlightened teaching will let loose on the islands a large number of halfeducated, conceited natives, who cannot be given posts to keep them quiet, and will therefore turn their attention to promulgating sedition, or to other practices equally undesirable. Many of these will go to the States, will learn to feel themselves citizens of the great Republic, and will be necessarily discontented when they return to their own country and to a position of inferiority. It will be necessary to open certain posts to Filipinos, but this should only be done with great care, with great caution. Mr. Colquhoun

would impress on the Government and reiterate the warning, 'Go slow! Don't hurry! Let things work out gradually! It is the best advice that can be given, for there is no short 'cut to success."

And it is not only in respect of education and its immediate concomitants that this advice seems called for. The Constitution of the United States declares every subject free and self-governing; and to the great bulk of its people, what is good enough for them at home seems good enough for their fellow-subjects abroad. It is as impossible for the average American as for the average Englishman to believe that to every native of every country under the sun a free electorate and free parliamentary representation are not the ideal form of government. There are among us many who would fain establish such in and for India, and hold that the not doing so is contrary to the eternal right which ought to be done even if it were to bring down the heaven itself. Fortunately, common sense and some knowledge of Indian nature and Indian history have hitherto prevailed over such aspirations, and the native Indian is all the happier for being told what he has to do and being made to do it. We may be permitted to have grave doubts whether the opposite policy, more immediately in agreement with the Constitution of the United States, will produce satisfactory results among the Filipinos.

'Those who know them best,' says Mr. Colquhoun, 'those who have had experience of Orientals and how to deal with them, have considerable misgivings as to the result of this great experiment of selfgovernment, unless kept under due guidance and check. If we were to judge the Filipinos merely by professions, by phrases, by words, much might be expected from them, but our anticipations of the future must be based on their essential character and the performances of the past. Jealousies, intrigues, corruption, the ingrained conviction that every office-holder is justified in squeezing all he can-these are not promising features in the experiment. . . . The needful thing is a firm consistent policy to be framed and carried through by the men on the spot, who are at all events aware of the difficulties in the path. would have been far better to have from the outset a definite system of control. . . . It would have been better to say frankly, once for all, "We have come to give you the government we think best for you, a government that will be just and liberal, but a government that must be obeyed."'

...

It

Mr. Colquhoun expresses a very decided opinion that the best, the ideal treatment of the Philippines would have 'been a temporary military government, gradually merging into purely civil administration.' As the sentimental

objections of the electorate in the States render that impossible, the next best thing is to support the GovernorGeneral, Judge Taft, who is 'peculiarly the stamp of man wanted. If given anything like a free hand, and not 'bothered and harassed by Congressmen or reports from politicians who have taken a run out to Manila and found 'mares'-nests, he will do very well.'

It may perhaps be thought that as, at any possible rate, some considerable time must elapse before the Philippine Islands are reduced to order and a settled government, there must also be some considerable time before the change of ownership can produce any marked influence on the course of Eastern trade. This idea may perhaps be a mistaken one. Trade may be, and very often has been, the product of the port rather than of the country. Venice and Genoa in bygone days illustrated this in Europe, as in later times Hong-Kong and, in a more marked degree, Singapore have done in the far East. They have been depôts or centres of distribution, owing everything to their situation and to their local administration. It is thus not only possible but probable that, in American hands, Manila-or some other port of the Philippines--may become a centre of distribution and collection, as indeed it was in Spanish hands in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, before Hong-Kong or Singapore was known except to pirates, tigers, or wildfowl. And just as, in Spanish hands, the first link in the chain between Manila and European civilisation was Acapulco, so, in American, will it be, in the first place, San Francisco; later on, when the much-discussed canal has been made as surely it will be made-a new depôt will probably come into existence, still nearer to the Acapulco of old.

It is conceivable that the trade across the Pacificwhether for the United States, British Columbia and Canada, or the Canal and Europe-may find a more convenient centre at Manila than at Hong-Kong, which, though a pestilent hole, both in its sanitary and moral aspects, during the forties and fifties of last century became at once, in English hands, an important commercial settlement, as well as the usual rendezvous of our ships of war. Gradually a better class of Chinese were attracted to it, and the freedom from all import or export duties drew towards it the main current of Oriental trade. During the last forty years much has been done in the interests of sanitation and morality; malaria has decreased, and at the present