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We will not cite our own experiences, for aside from the fact that, we do not know which to select, critical persons may reproach us with partiality; neither will we cite those of other Filipinos who write in the newspapers; but we shall confine ourselves to translating the words of a modern French traveler who was in the Philippines for a long time: "The good curate," he says with reference to the rosy picture a friar had given him of the Philippines, "had not told me about the governor, the foremost official of the district, who was too much taken up with the ideal of getting rich to have time to tyrannize over his docile subjects; the governor, charged with ruling the country and collecting the various taxes in the government's name, devoted himself almost wholly to trade; in his hands the high and noble functions he performs are nothing more than instruments of gain.
Or, to take quite different examples, in any question of law where judges of the court disagree, as in the Income Tax Case, or in the Insular cases which decided the status of Porto Rico and the Philippines, both the majority opinion and the dissenting opinions of the judges are argumentative in form; though the majority opinion, at any rate, is in theory an exposition of the law.
Reservation public schools should be provided wherever there are navy-yards. Within the last three years the United States has set an example in disarmament where disarmament was proper. By law our Army is fixed at a maximum of one hundred thousand and a minimum of sixty thousand men. When there was insurrection in the Philippines we kept the Army at the maximum.
There is still hard fighting ahead costly fighting. But the liberation of the Philippines will mean that Japan has been largely cut off from her conquests in the East Indies. The landing of our troops on Leyte was the largest amphibious operation thus far conducted in the Pacific.
They would find it a most convenient station, for the Philippines, as we have already mentioned, are particularly favorably placed for the west coast of America.
In my last annual message I dwelt at some length upon the condition of affairs in the Philippines.
The Spanish authorities in the Philippines encourage them, it is said, to frequent their islands, as without them they would derive little benefit from the banks in the neighboring seas, where quantities of pearl-oysters are known to exist, which produce pearls of the finest kind. The Bajows are inoffensive and very industrious, and in faith Mahomedans.
Nations, no less than individuals, must take an interest in their property, and society demands as a right that any property of whatever nature shall be adjusted in respect of relations to all other property. We have followed this course as regards Cuba and Porto Rico; but, apart from taking the Philippines and continuing to own them, we have made no adjustment of their case.
Of the $10,000,000 in value of imports into the Philippines from all countries, we supplied less than $200,000, while we took from them nearly $5,000,000. "The interests of the people who gain their living and manual labor are among the first to be considered and jealously guarded.
Heinrich Friedjung, referring to this incident, says: "Quite superfluously it occurred to the German Government to make our East-Asiatic Squadron, under Admiral Diederichs, appear before Manila precisely at the moment when, in 1898, the decision was made regarding the Philippines. This was done simply out of a pointless consciousness of power, without any intention to cause offence."
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