est France. The Germans were busy teaching their natives to labor. The Americans are serving as schoolmasters training the natives in state-building, agriculture, sanitation, road-making, and how to live like self-respecting members of a self-governing community.

Previous to the war with Spain the United States had taken no part in the work of colonizing and developing the tropics. Her territorial growth had been rapid but, with one exception, her acquisitions had been of contiguous territory. Her entry into the field of modern colonization was perhaps fortuitous. What Sir John Seeley said of England may, in one sense, be said of the United States-she seems to have acquired an empire "in a fit of absence of mind."

The first decade of the twentieth century found her definitely committed to a policy of colonization according to the modern understanding of that word. Under forms of governments, adapted to the special conditions of each, she was governing Alaska, Hawaii, the Philippines, Porto Rico, Guam and the Panama Canal Zone, all distant non-contiguous territory. Cuba was an American protectorate; San Domingo a sort of protégé. Her control over the petty states of Central America, although less tangible was no less real. It was already apparent that for political purposes the Panama Canal should be considered as the southern boundary of the United States.

With the exception of Alaska, which was almost uninhabited, all these possessions were situated in the tropics and inhabited by alien peoples with a lower order of civilization. The matter of contiguousness, which had seemed so important to earlier generations, was important only in so far as it involved difficulties of communication. But distances had so shrunk that a few thousand miles of intervening ocean had become less formidable than the weary miles our forefathers traveled in crossing New England. The steamship, the cable and the wireless telegraph had annihilated distances.

94 Reinsch, Colonial Government, p. 190; Lewis, Government of Dependencies, Chap. X.

The acquisition of territory in the Orient was neither an unnatural nor an abnormal fact in the history of the United States. It did not even, to use the language of the geologists, constitute a fault in the structural development of the nation. It is a curious fact that more than fifty years before Dewey sailed into Manila Bay the German scientist and traveler, Jagor, predicted that: "In proportion as the navigation of the west coast of America extends the influence of the American element over the South Sea, the captivating, magic power which the great Republic exercises over the Spanish Colonies, will not fail to make itself felt also in the Philippines. The Americans are evidently destined to bring to a full development the germs originated by the Spaniards.95

The entry of the United States into the field of tropical colonization came as a surprise to a world which had assumed that her policy of isolation was necessarily a permanent policy and that it would forever limit her activities to the Western Hemisphere. Nor did the manner in which she proposed to manage her new dependencies meet with the enthusiastic approval of European experts in colonization. It was to be expected that she would accept the generally approved theory that the welfare of the people under her control should be her first consideration. A republic with her traditions might be excused even for overstating the formula, but it was felt that there could be no excuse except ignorance for statesmen who deliberately and seriously announced to the world and to the natives that the country would be managed solely in the interest of the natives with the deliberate purpose of preparing them for the management of their own affairs. To British colonial statesmen of even the modern liberal school the announcement of such a policy seemed like flying in the face of nature which had intended certain races to remain in a perpetual condition of subordination.

It was conceded that the welfare of the natives should be the

95 Jagor, Travels in the Philippines (London, 1875), p. 369. In an article published in La Solidaridad, September 30, 1891, Rizal discussed the possibility that the United States would acquire the Philippines.

96

primary object of the government, but back of all such statements was the implication that what was for the welfare of the natives should always be determined by the Europeans. Now came the impracticable and theoretical Americans and announced that the natives themselves should not only have a large share of the offices but a constantly increasing influence in determining their own affairs, and ultimately, when they had been educated and trained, if they so desired the entire government should be turned over to them.

It involves the assumption that an Oriental people of Malayan origin with three centuries of Spanish training are capable of being educated and trained to govern themselves on modern lines.

Much of the criticism of this policy was captious and founded on complete ignorance not only of the policy but also of the tendencies of modern colonization. Thus it was alleged somewhat superciliously that the Americans were disregarding all precedents and assuming inherent capacity for solving problems which the Dutch, English and French experts had not been able to solve to their entire satisfaction by the most scientific meth ods. In fact the United States in adopting a policy and organizing a government for the Philippines followed the most approved British theories and precedents. Every principle which she applied had been approved by British statesmen or was the

97

96 The same conservative doctrine is thus stated by Lord Cromer: "In dealing with Indians, Egyptians, Shilluks, or Zulus, the first question is to consider what course is most conducive to Indian, Egyptian, Shilluk or Zulu interests. We need not always inquire too closely what these people, who are all, nationally speaking, more or less in statu pupillari, themselves think is best in their own interests, although this is a point which deserves serious consideration. But it is essential that each special issue should be decided mainly with reference to what, by the light of Western knowledge and experience tempered by local considerations, we conscientiously think is best for the subject race, without reference to any real or supposed advantage which may accrue to England as a nation." Political and Literary Essays (1913), p. 12.

It may be doubted whether in the administration of her colonies England always subordinates her interests to that of her native subjects. Her leading statesmen, however, certainly recognize her obligation to do so. It needs hardly be said that in practise America reserves the power to determine what is best for the natives of her dependencies.

97 We have seen to what extent scientific methods had been applied to British colonization.

logical conclusion of British practises. She followed the way the Zeitgeist pointed. There was nothing novel in her methods. of procedure unless it was in the stress laid on education as a means of elevating and developing the native people.

The instructions of President McKinley to the Philippine Commission followed the lines laid down in the Queen's Proclamation of 1858. Compare the following with the language which I have already quoted from that proclamation. The commissioners were directed to:

"devote their attention in the first instance to the establishment of municipal governments, in which the natives of the islands, both in the cities and in the rural communities, shall be afforded the opportunity to manage their own local affairs to the fullest extent of which they are capable, and subject to the least degree of supervision and control which a careful study of their capacities, and observation of the workings of native control show to be consistent with the maintenance of law, order and loyalty."

As different degrees of civilization and varieties of customs. and capacity among the people precluded specific instructions as to the part which the people should take in the selection of their officers, the following general rules were to be observed:

"In all cases the municipal officers who administer the local affairs of the people are to be selected by the people, and that wherever officers of more extended jurisdiction are to be selected in any way, natives of the islands are to be preferred, and if they can be found competent and willing to perform the duties, they are to receive the offices in preference to any others. It will be necessary to fill some offices for the present with Americans which after a time may well be filled by natives of the islands."

In all the forms of government and administrative provisions, the Commission should bear in mind that:

"The government which they are establishing is designed not

for our satisfaction, or for the expression of our theoretical views, but for the happiness, peace and prosperity of the people of the Philippine Islands, and the measures adopted should be made to conform to their customs, their habits and even their prejudices, to the fullest extent consistent with the accomplishment of the indispensable requisites of just and effective government."

But the Commission was instructed that the people of the islands should be made plainly to understand that:

"there are certain great principles of government which have been made the basis of our governmental system, which we deem essential to the rule of law and the maintenance of individual freedom, and of which they have, unfortunately, been denied the experience possessed by us; that there are also certain practical rules of government which we have found to be essential to the preservation of these great principles of liberty and law, and that these principles and these rules of government must be established and maintained in their Islands for the sake of their liberty and happiness, however much they may conflict with the customs or laws of procedure with which they are familiar."

Then follows an enumeration of all the provisions of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States, except those relating to trial by jury and the right to bear arms.

Quoting the pledge contained in the capitulation of the City of Manila, the president closed the instructions with the following words:

"As high and sacred an obligation rests upon the Government of the United States to give protection for property and life, civil and religious freedom, and firm, wise, and unselfish guidance in the paths of peace and prosperity to all the people of the Philippine Islands."

There was, after all, nothing very radical in this statement of controlling principles. The government was to be for the benefit primarily of the people of the islands; in their local affairs they were to have every opportunity, subject to proper supervision, to