Changing American policy in the orient: its manifestations in the Philippines

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Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Title: Changing American policy in the orient: its manifestations in the Philippines
Language: English
Source: The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume 9 (No. 6) June 1929
Year: 1929
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Fulltext: J <■*' xiTE aiviek. l . tv v ? y • : ,/v. OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 5 GRe*" ~ American Policy in the Orient— Í - 3 mies rations in the Philippines Inc püMÍiviij gi\ ___ he fact that there is objection on the part of Japan to trans ferring Minister MacMurray, diplomat by career, from Peking to Tokio, where he would be America’s ambassador, has rather more than casual significance. It is reasonable to assume that an international understanding lies behind it, and that Japan’s foreign office has not vio lated America’s confidence. The objections specify that MacMurray seems often to act in dependently in China, when concurrent action by the several powers would be more desirable. Concerning tax matters and exterritoriality, and willingness for treaty revisions, America so acted—taking the lead in letting a bad si tuation grow worse, before applying drastic remedies, perhaps. Aggravation of the situation has continued until millions are reported starving, the tuchuns are once more at each other’s throats and the authority of Nanking is challenged in the field. Has it come time to tighten up? At least it is reasonable to conjecture that the time for firm ness is approaching, and that America prepares herself—America who never enters alliances, but does frequently undertake concurrent action with other powers. That Japan and England have an understanding hardly admits of doubt; and that America under Hoover will veer toward a policy inducing peace among the Chinese is a reasonable assumption. Modification, toward more consistent co operation, a policy holding China to her re sponsibilities, may be anticipated from the Hoover administration. The Chinese number a fourth of the world’s population, and China, not Russia, is the key to world peace. This was the dictum of John Hay, who, as secretary of state, got America to acquire the Philippines in furtherance of his China policy, which was that of opening the doors of the empire and letting America in where she had once stepped out. He wanted to do this because of trade; it was the first time since the Civil War that the necessity for overseas trade had pressed upon America, and China was found closed up. That necessity is once more acute, and the residual legatees of the Hay tradition are at the helm of the ship of state. No matter that Hoover had to be in troduced to Colonel Stimson—“for God, for country and for Yale.” Root, Taft, Hughes, Forbes and the rest wanted Stimson in Kellogg’s place, and they put him there—a man who in Manila had chafed because his own publicity was crowded out of the overseas news by the Kellogg world-peace pacts, at which he sneered. There is much cold calculation in the state department now, and more outside of it to draw from. There will be changes whenever ma terial interests dictate them, and specious rea sons, for the consumption of the public, will be abundant. Possibly there is honesty coupled with this, but it is that type of honesty which relies upon the other fellow to go over the hoss he is trading for. Eleven months’ experience of it in Manila should teach this much. What has prevailed in foreign policy during eight years is now no longer handicapped by amateur states men and those outside the inner circle. Let the light thus gathered be turned upon the Philippines. What may be in store for these islands is of most interest. Here, too, the policy of letting the pot boil until it pops over may be discerned; but such abeyances, to those who have some conception of what they entail, are disquieting. For the past several years a perceptible weak ening of the insular executive has been in prog ress. Wood, as governor, endeavored in vain to reinvest the office with the powers which had been dispersed from it. He wanted tho rough-going support in Washington; he never got it, and what support did come from there seemed to derive from the president personally (not Harding, but Coolidge after him) and not from the war department. He doggedly held on until fatally ill, and his vice governor may be said to have deprived himself of the opportunity to become governor (as things are presently going) by adhering to Wood’s views as to the propriety and public advantageousness of an independent executive. It was said that he too favored using the federal internal revenue from Philippine products sold in America, mainly from cigars, which accrues to the Philip pine treasury, for adequate executive adminis tration; so that if disagreement with the execu tive led the legislature to curtail appropriations, funds would be adequate anyway. It was also said that his veto of the bill from the Philippine legislature which was the forerunner of the Belo bill which Colonel Stimson approved—a bill drafted to substitute the Kiess bill in con gress, just referred to—made him persona non grata w’ith the insular dictatorship and barred his promotion to the governorship of the islands, despite his widely acknowledged qualifications for that office. About the time of General Wood’s death, indeed, there was quite a movement in Wash ington toward rehabilitating the office of the insular governor. But it came to nothing, it has now’ waned altogether. Colonel Stimson was made governor; the precedent of appointing a man without insular experience has now been followed by appointment of Colonel Dwight F. Davis to the post. Colonel Stimson showed his inclination to rely upon the insular dictatorship (a term used in an analytical, not a disparaging, sense) by rees tablishing a state council such as had functioned in lieu of an earlier governor. In this council the dictatorship is incorporated; even such fundamental executive obligations as the choice of cabinet members, who are members of the council too, and the selection of judges devolve upon the council. The voluntary surrender of executive powers, otherwise independent and unhampered, may be conjectured from this. There is ample justification of the belief on the part of the public that the dictatorship mani pulates the reins of government, and, on the part of government officials, that their tenure of office depends upon pleasing the dictator ship, in which is combined a dominating in fluence upon the nominal executive and the legislature alike. Nor does this influence stop short of the courts. Another degradation of the governor’s office has been effected, which entails a consequent further weakening of the position. This con sists in ascertaining beforehand that the dicta torship will be pleased with the president’s choice for governor. Thus exercising at least nugatory power, if the dictatorship is not always able to get precisely the man it prefers for gov ernor, it is able to prevent the appointment of a man it doesn’t want. It had its understanding with Colonel Stimson prior to his appointment; it was queried, and it replied favorably, prior to Colonel Davis’s appointment. So sure is it of its ground that it now believes the United States will never appoint a governor who do^s not have its approval, and one of its chief spokes men has so intimated. Incidentally, the approval given Colonel Davis is conditioned upon his adherence to Colonel Stimson’s policy; such has already been his declaration, published in Manila newspapers May 27. Governors inexperienced in the islands are preferred. Ground has been given also in the case of the vice governor’s post. Sagacious maneuvering through one means and another tends to estrange the vice governor from the governor’s fullest confidence, and so to deprive the latter, to a degree, of the counsel an experienced insular administrator should be able to give him. De grading the vice governor’s office makes it easier to convert the governorship into what it has actually become, strictly a political office and not one that follows, as formerly, upon due apprenticeship to it in the vice governorship. Until January of this year, official social pre cedence placed the vice governor next the gov ernor as the second man in the land. But subsequently, Colonel Stimson having obtained an opinion upon the point from Colonel Davis’s department (of war), the vice governor stands third in the line and the commanding general is interposed between the two executives. Does this look toward turning the vice gov ernor’s office over to the dictatorship? Whether it does or not, it is one with the policy, of major importance in this discussion, of weakening the executiveship—giving ground there in order to gain it elsewhere. Let no one suppose this to be a criticism of what is transpiring. It is an effort, rather, at exposition, for the guidance of those the actual situation may affect. Names are avoided as much as possible; personal feeling is suppressed. What is observed as happening to the governor’s office, is repeated as to the insular auditor’s, through the medium of the courts. The islands’ supreme court repeatedly assumes jurisdiction in cases the auditor is endeavoring to handle in accordance with his view of the powers of his office. Rightly or wrongly, the auditor is thus made far less a responsible officer of accounts than his predecessors were; the succeeding opinions of the court, with their obiter dicta voluminously appended, are diminishing the The result of over half a century of refining experience SDCONY MOTOR OILS AND MOTOR GASOLINE Remember that SOCONY is Standard IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMPEE : RCE JOURNAL 6 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER UECOMMtítUJt. J uu kin AL. june, authority hitherto pertaining to the auditor’s office. Seemingly it is considered a matter of little importance that this is done; but, in such a situation as that prevailing in the Philippines, too much is seeming that appears on the surface, and too little is hard actuality. A deliberate policy of laissez faire, such as is only too evident ly being pursued, will make no furore over anyone’s depriving an auditor of his blue pencil. For when confusion becomes worse confounded, special agents will arrive in Manila with the bond money from the United States; they Will control expendi tures. That gesture may well be the first intimation that the trap has been sprung, the quarry seized upon. Now there is op posed to all this loose ness of administra tion, an objective; for it is elemental that men do not voluntar ily forfeit power, rather they seek its aggrandizement. Giving ground in one quarter, where is ground being taken in another? It is being taken in the field of organized capital mobilized to exploit both the industries and the lands of these islands, which languish for the impetus of such an agency—the agency of big money. For the California Packers Association’s ambition to grow pineapples, there has been made a reservation of more than 14,000 hectares of land in Bukidnon in accordance with the Alunan plan (as set forth in this review last month). Rubber desires to pass the ex perimental and small-capital stage; it could absorb its hundreds of millions of dollars. It is presently discouraged by the restrictive land laws and the amendments to which Colonel Stimson was belatedly converted, but the nat ural conditions invite it. (The land-law amend ments, by the way, are one of the acts of the Stimson administration which received no local publicity and were, perhaps inadvertently, omitted from at least some of the published lists of acts of the legislature approved by the gov ernor general. Usually, in an agricultural country, land legislation is considered important). Ma chinery has been successfully introduced, and it is more than probable that the modern ex ploitation of the islands’ fiber resources will claim its millions of agricultural capital and its kingdoms of public domain. A few intimate lines from the war department’s bureau of in sular affairs (where administration of the Philip pines is centered) under Colonel Davis may be appropriate here: “The talk everywhere is of the Philippines. They point to the four hundred millions in China across the way who could be made available by a very slight modification of our immigration laws.” What is affecting government here is this new influence, that of the concessionist, who is es sentially indifferent to the quality of local gov ernment, be it good or bad. He, with his large interests, producing staples and necessities for the homeland, will always have quick re course to ample protection; and his primary interest in the country will be its soil. He will sell overseas, buy overseas; his local outlay will be only to labor, and his influence will naturally be exerted toward securing immigration. He is destined, it goes without saying, to have his From Review of Reviews Kellogg in a double-breasted, President Hoover in a plain sack coat, and Stimson in formal cut-away But he is no altruist, his business is to turn a profit with the enormous sums entrusted to his management. In his behalf the government has traded away so much, for him there is so much seeming autonomy, ^ut he is largely a law unto himself. For his rubber, his pineap ples, his fiber, navies move. Things are let go, until it is time to better them. Then there is peremptory reformation. Have the Philip pines unwittingly undergone caribbeanization? Possibly, or one may say partly, perhaps. This article is prompted by the frequent criticisms of governmental irregularities, the demeanor of the executive, the alleged preva’ence of squeeze. As if such conditions were strange, or subject to improvement. It is all, essentially, quite the other way. A new norm prevails in Philip pine public affairs. Government, especially its impeccability, is not the primary objective of administration now adays: pride in the oldtime civil service goes out with the past. Colonel Stimson proclaimed himself the harbinger of a new era. So, truly, he was—the era of the concessionist, of him whose crops crown a thousand hills. But Colonel Stimson was but the messenger of the luscious gods. Ceres had ordered that crops be sown, and the era was as sure to dawn as common knowledge of the fertility of the islands’ idle acres was to spread throughout the world. Now it is to deal with. (Concluded on page 18) Historical Spots in Manila Philip II in 1565, and the copy bears Philip’s rubrica or signet mark. With the rise of aca demic interest in orientalia of every sort, among the progressive universities of America, these records will be valuable source material; but it is a fact that they are carelessly handled, and, piled helterskelter in the passageways of the courts, of which there are two spacious ones, at the time of the American occupation they were subject to unwitting vandalism—the soldiers using them as old paper, apparently worthless, for one purpose and another. The kitchen police resorted to them for fuel! The old records, however, are parchment bound, on handmade paper known as Catalan, and inscribed in the faultless script which the friars taught the native scriveners employed by the Spanish government. Types of this escribiente, or scrivener, are still found in some of the government offices, including the archives bureau. They are like characters out of Dick ens. One charm of Manila is its blending of the new and the old. This writing of which we have just been speaking is, for example, plainly in fluenced by the chirography of the Chinese— hence, in part, its preciseness. Room after room in the archives, by the way, is wholly devoted to records of the Chinese, who always formed a special community under Spain— were limited in privileges, but specially taxed. La Fuerza Santiago—Fort Santiago: Citadel of Manila. Here, of course, has been American army headquarters from the outset, and an American contribution to the old fort is its ex cellent reference library—accessible by special permission. Fort Santiago dates from the founding of Manila, May 19, 1571, and work upon it and upon the city’s walls and bulwarks continued almost throughout the entire Spanish period. The dungeons, the black hole of Manila, a windowless strongroom where prisoners round ed up in one of the disturbances incident to the Bonifacio revolt (of 1896' were suffocated, the little guardroom where Rizal, martyr and pam phleteer of reform, spent his last night on earth— these and many other details are points of in terest. There should be a guidebook to the fort, and encouragement to the tourist to visit it. It was not in later Spanish times, as it was made under America, general military headquarters. It was a school for cadets, and headquarters were at the Estado Mayor on calle Arroceros, as the name indicates. The superstructure of the fort, for offices, is an American addition. The name of Governor Dasmariñas, of the 16th century, is troubles. He is no less destined to be a factor in the game, and not very much concerned with what happens to the local resident and the inhabitants—except as his interests are directly involved. He is only one force, but a powerful well organized one which, very properly, for its own good, means to wield influence where influence really counts. He is an expert fellow who can, with his millions, make fallow lands flourish and the marts of the islands hum with industry. The Ayuntamiento.—In Spanish times this building was the city hall. * In this building, over the front veranda, General Wesley Mer ritt’s flag was flung to the breezes August 13, 1898, a confirmation of the American oc cupation of the city. On a rostrom built for the ceremony, facing the Ayuntamien to and the old Plaza de Armas, renam ed Plaza de McKinley, Taft took the oath of office as Civil Governor of the Islands July 1, 1901. He was the first and only civil gov ernor, succeeding the last of the military gov ernors, Major General Arthur MacArthur. Taft’s audience, down in the plaza, were the regulars and volunteers of the army who were throwing in their lot with the country they were helping, or had helped, in pacifying, who were ready to assume the responsibilities of peace by entering the insular civil service, provided for in the first act of the Taft commission, sitting in the Ayuntamiento September 19, 1900. *It is still a municipal property, and one which should be converted into a museum and art gallery and pre served carefully for its historical interest in Spanish and American times. Taft was followed in the Ayuntamiento by Luke E. Wright (the first chief executive of the islands bearing the title governor general, which Taft arranged for as secretary of war), Henry C. Ide, James F. Smith, W. Cameron Forbes and Francis B. Harrison; and under General Wood, after Harrison, the executive offices were re moved to the new executive building at Malacañang. Taft had been preceded by military governors from Merritt and Otis to MacArthur, father of our present distinguished department commander, and this military interim between war and the beginning of peace—that Pax Romana which America seems so deft in es tablishing—has never received the critical at tention it deserves. It remains a thrilling chapter, unwritten, in the national annals and those of the nation’s land forces. cently, two major laws promulgated in this interim, the marriage act and the code of crim inal procedure, remained on the insular sta tutes as written; the first was modified, not with entire success, two years ago, and the other still remains the law of the land. The first act of the Americansoldiers who took quarters in the Ayuntamiento, was to distribute rations from their knapsacks to the caretakers and their families, who were terrified by the un wonted proceedings and, fearful of going out to market, half starved. The bureau of archives, housed in the Ayun tamiento, has unbroken records dating back to Legaspi’s commission as an adelantado from Until re 18 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL, june, American Universities Grow China-Minded Bulletin No. 10, the current number, of the American Council of Learned Societies, is en tirely devoted to the plans now well along toward fruition for including and encouraging in American universities studies and research on China and the Chinese. To this end Manila can assist, and may become, as a consequence, one center to which American students in the new cult (that is, new in America) will gravitate. The subject may engage the attention of our own university, some coordination of effort may be established—which would be an advantage to the cause of learning here. A study of the Chinese as a foreign trader, colonizer, and father of the Sino-Malayan. dominant element in the Philippines, would naturally lead to research in the general records of the government and, more particularly, in the orientalia and Philippiniana in the reference division of the public library. This collection is reputed unsurpassed. Then, too, the Beyer collection of porcelains, though mainly of fragments, but sufficient for study, is unexcelled even in the London mu seums, which it actually surpasses. The Council, quite rightly, feels that American interest in China has been too long delayed. Preliminary meetings under the auspices of the Council, an effective agency for the advance ment of learning, seem to have brought the movement to the stage where funds will be sought for the founding of the work; and that there will responses in behalf of such institu tions as Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia in the east, and Stanford in the west, there can be no doubt. Remarks by Mortimer Graves, secretary of the Council, throw a sufficient light on the subject: Changing American Policy in the Orient— Its Manifestations in the Philippines (Continued from page 6) Then let us examine into it a little. Nothing is either wholly good or wholly evil. For digressive illustration, of this philosophic truth, let it be recalled that much of this growing city of Manila occupies areas once the site of majestic primeval forests. It was a grievous wound to nature to cut them down, yet it served mankind. A century ago the sturdy walnut, hewn down and burned, gave place to corn fields along the great Ohio; and in the place where the pioneer ruthlessly bruised the forests and dug the fallow wilderness, farms, towns and cities are feeding, employing and sheltering millions of people today—an important and significant fact for us in the Philippines, since these millions of Ohio-valley folk have constant need of our prod ucts. If the valley were still an awesome but magnificent wilderness, copra would not sell even for three pesos per picul. The esthetic and the material are often opposed one to the other; both are essential to modern life; the esthetic is healing to man’s inclination to despair, but it is the material utilization of the earth’s wealth by which man really lives. Conditions often appear in a more precise light when their alternatives are reflected upon. If the activities of the concessionist in the Philippines seem objectionable, what is the alternative? We have that at present, and it is not satisfactory; no, nor even very tolerable. It is not very tolerable to behold the fertile regions of Mindanao (and even many fertile areas of Luzon itself) given over to roaming barbarians who set wild fire to denude the hills, spreading from little patches where they make meager plantings; who thus destroy the protec tive forest without putting in its stead farms, towns and cities; rather, they abandon the sites of their annual ravages, take despoiling toll of the forest somewhere else; flood pours down the naked hills they leave behind them, and carries havoc to the civilized settlements. Thus the millions of uncultivated acres in the Philippines cannot be saved to posterity by keeping the scientific husbandman off of them; if he would expend his millions of dollars and convert these fallow lands into empires of productive fields, his would “That the next decade will see a striking in crease in American interest in Chinese studies is no very faring prediction. In the domain of politics an4 economics, the large number of works daily coming from the press on current Far Eastern affairs and the activities of such organizations as the Institute of Pacific Rela tions demonstrate the growing realization of the truth of John Hay’s dictum that the world’s peace rests with China.” He then says that the Chinese have important contributions to make to humanistic and social sciences. “It has been estimated that prior to 1750 more books had been published in Chinesethan in all other languages combined. As late in 1850, Chinese books outnumbered those in any other language. Even in 1928 the largest publishing house in the world (this is the Commercial Press.—Ed.) is located not in New York, or London, or Paris, or Berlin, but in Shanghai. And little of the literature thus produced is ephemeral, for the Chinese penchant has been towards history, topography, philosophy, poetry and commentary on the classics, all saturated with a serenity and a height of tone that might well be emulated by the more sophisticated literatures. “It is evident, therefore, that if we are to hope for the final solution of our linguistic and phil ological problems, the satisfaction of our anti quarian or archeological curiosity, and the construction of an adequate philosophy or a complete historical synthesis, we cannot dis regard the lessons learned by a vigorous and intelligent people, numbering one fourth of the population of the globe, through 3,000 years of continued and varied culture.” Remarking that America is surpassed by be the risks of experimentation and the country’s and his the gains from his probable eventual success. This magazine has published descrip tions by foresters of what goes on now, the barba rians’ spoliation of the unoccupied lands. This information has been supplemented with other authentic data to the effect that a capital of 5,000 pesos ($2,500) is insufficient for the plant ing up, in Manila hemp and coconuts, of a single homestead of 16 hectares, 40 acres. To subdue tropical jungle and substitute it with hemp for which you will wait near two years after planting for the first crop, and with coco nuts or rubber for which you will wait eight and ten years for the first worthwhile returns, is a task recommending itself more to the able corporation than to the individual. But the two may thrive together, the corporation being bank and primary market for the settler. How did Negros and Pampanga become great sugar-producing provinces? Practically in this way; namely, upon the credit of corporations interested in buying the product on the one hand, and in supplying the machinery for its milling on the other. Similarly the Batangas coffee industry once thrived, and why does it now languish? The direct interest of exporting corporations has waned, credit has been withdrawn. The same group of planters who were once apparently so capable in the industry, seem now to have lost their cunning; it is, however, rather their credit which is the wanting factor. Were a great corporation to go about restoring this industry with a capital sufficient to see it through the initial experiments, the fortunes of the plant ers would be rehabilitated because they would all vicariously profit by what the corporation did in its own selfish behalf. (Incidentally, a new social class, aligned with the corporation, and more concerned with bourse quotations than with the petty affairs of local government, would develop. This may now be observed of the sugar industry; it is a concomitant of all planta tion prosperity). The major benefits the islands are to derive from the concessionists remain to be stated. They are two. (Concluded on page 23) France, England, Russia and Germany in re vealing Chinese culture to the western world by the media of translations, Mr. Graves adds that in American universities at present it is easier “to become an initiate in .the mysteries of an ancient language whose whole record com prises a number of sculptured stones or clay tablets, than it is to obtain the key to an im mense and living literature (the Chinese) which can boast a single encyclopedia of over 11,000 volumes. “This is a condition that ought not to exist, and the signs of the times portend that it will Jefferson McChailler draws him! He has read the new Einstein theory all through and it’s the bunk—it does not tell why gentlemen prefer blondes! Junior’s own preference is for GORDON GIN It’s best! 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They were led by their deposed chieftains and priests, to whom they had turned for aid and advice in their extremity, like unruly children seeking the protection of parents when in trouble. To save their people from the wrath of the followers of Bathala, the leaders of the sun worshippers now publicly tabooed human sacrifices, and modified their religious rites considerably, sub stituting animals. and fowls for youths and children; but tales of cannibalistic orgies in the hills back of the tiny settlement, probably much exaggerated, were still bruited about among the good people, and the ostracized tribe remained practically social outcasts for centuries. The Spanish priests induced the tribe to accept, nominally at least, the Catholic faith, and baptisms were frequent; but some, notably older folk, continued to practice strange rites in secret, and were branded as witches. Fear of their suspicious neighbors made those accused of witchcraft and cannibalism ever more se cretive in their habits of life, avoiding social intercourse, confining themselves to their huts by day, ant'd only venturing forth at night, on furtive excursions in search of food. This very secretiveness increased the suspicion of the community and fanned the fires of hatred. They were credited with supernatural powers and termed asuangs', persons possessed of devils and given superhuman power to harm normal beings, and to transform themselves at will into birds, animals, or reptiles, with the exception of the sheep and the pigeon. The asuang, according to lingering supersti tions, is a human being, not actually a spectre, Changing American Policy in the Orient— Its Manifestations in the Philippines (Concluded from page 18) Periodically, at times when farm products are depressed in America, henceforth these islands will face the danger of forfeiture of free trade with the mother country. Their protests will avail them little, but an investment of a billion dollars of American money in their plantations might always be a preponderant influence; at least it would always be on their side, even though it were concerned with rubber and the threat was immediately against sugar; for it would sense the danger in such precedents. It is American investments in Cuba which Arts obtained for her, and now secure to her, a tariff differential, or drawback. This money is inim ical to Philippine interests, but a billion put into these islands would offset it and probably always checkmate it. The islands will be pretty safe in the free trade controversy so long as the industrial element in America is not pitted against them and the farmers have to contend alone; for prices will never remain depressed, perhaps, long enough to gain the farmers their point, and as soon as prices rise the gorge of the farmers against tropical competition will subside. The major benefit of all, to be derived from concessionist interests in the Philippines on a large scale—such as the changing American policy toward the islands contemplates—-is the neutralizing influence it would have upon industrial agitation against Filipino migration to the mother country. Back of this movement is an urbanite, no farmer—a man organized with but one who is possessed; who has been given supernatural power to harm other human beings, by the evil one; a monomaniac whose obsession is an abnormal appetite. The asuang is said to devour young children and even adults. It steals the dead, putting in their places banana stalks transformed into exact, life-size replicas. There are two varieties: the prowling asuang, who hunts on the ground, and the flying asuang, or mananangal, which severs its body in the his fellow men, easily brought into meetings for the expression and reiteration of opinion. When such men mean business, they are a force to reckon with. When, however, they should cry the alarm of cheap labor, if great American plan tation and industrial interests existed here, employing Filipinos in the production of products selling wholly or mainly in the United States, these interests would exert their influence against the propaganda and might be the deciding factor: certainly alone Filipinos could do nothing. On such occasions, too, American capital in Cuba and that in the Philippines would not be natural enemies, but natural friends. So there is something decidedly to say for the concessionists. Only, these are the questions they care about—tariffs and trade, egress to market—-not questions of local government, be it good, bad or merely indifferent. For it does not much concern them. And since they and their welfare qualify materially the present American policy toward the Philippines, jt is easy to see why the primary objective of govern ment, the administration of wholesome laws applicable to all alike, is neglected. Better ments now can’t be expected. Concessionists are often victimized, sometimes by their own anticipations—too grandiose. They are wary, it is really a game to land them. It is reminiscent of someone’s recipe for dealing with fleas, beginning—first catch your flea! That’s what the government is doing now. ________________ —W. R. middle, hiding the lower half, while the upper portion flies about in search of food, like some great night bird. The asuang is believed to transform itself into bird, animal, or reptile, instantaneously, at will. 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