Edward Price Bell unbosoms to England

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Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Title: Edward Price Bell unbosoms to England
Language: English
Source: The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume 6 (Issue No.10) October 1926
Year: 1926
Rights
Fulltext: October, 192G THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 11 PROGRESS IN THE HOMESTEADING (Continued from page 9) with interest, cannot be collected from the stepfather and the mother’s estate, must, upon determination of this fact to the satisfaction of the court of first instance of the province, be paid by the treasurer from the assurance fund upon the court’s order. Edward Price Bell Unbosoms To England ******* Dean of London Correspondents Talks of Pacific Problems Editor’s Note.—Ordinarily, as all readers have observed, the Journal publishes no thing but original matter; and when it di gresses from this rule there is a paramount reason, for its main objective is to print in formatively and intelligently respecting the Philippines. In this instance, the reprint ing from the London Observer of that paper’s interview with Mr. Edward Price Bell, London man for more than twenty yeais of the Chicago Daily News, the paramount reason is obvious in the text: Mr. Bell has returned to London after his trip to Manila and other points in the Far East with ideas upon oriental and world problems bound to have the utmost weight tvhen he ex presses them, as he does fearlessly and fre quently. His oriental trip was in behalf of world peace; and in Manila his interviews were with Wood, Quezon and Osmcna, in Japan with Kato, Shidehara and Bancroft. The same problem still engrosses his atten tion. He writes “I’m enroute to France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany... world eco nomics’’. Through his pen and his public speaking, Mr. Bell is a national and interna tional power whose leadership guides many editors and widely influences American opinion. “I am very fond of the Japanese, and have every confidence that politically, so cially, economically, and ethically they are moving ■ in the right direction, I cannot escape the conclusion that if the Occident loses the friendship of those volcanically cradled islanders it will be the Occident’s fault. China, to my mind, is the most mov ing and appealing potentiality on this earth—a great country and a great people staggering towards the path of a great destiny. There, too, the Occident can build friendship or enmity as it likes. “The paramount interests of the Filipi nos, as well as those of the Americans:— those of the Orientals as well as those of the Occidentals—seem to me to require that the Stars and Stripes shall fly in the Phil ippines for a long time yet—how long, only the evolution of history can determine. The greatest word in the Pacific — indeed, in civilization—is the word equilibrium. In any form of listing there is danger. There is safety only in equilibrium; and America in the Philippines is a force for the equili brium of the Pacific and of the world”. Mr. Bell then went on to discuss domes tic concerns. He said:— “To say the least of prohibition, its suctl. cess is unproven. Our ‘Drys’ a j and ‘Wets’ are continually at And Drys each otheri and their «statis. tics’ are fearful and wonderful. When they come together with their alleged facts and figures, one is reminded of two heavy freight trains meeting head-on at top speed. There is debris all over the adjacent coun tryside. My opinion is that prohibition, if not eternally repugnant to normal, self-re liant, freedom-loving humanity, is hopeless ly premature. The point may not have direct bearing upon the Nueva Ecija case, and yet it may; for, the high court tampers in no way with the certificate of title issued, which, if the year of grace has elapsed, is the point the Director of Lands wishes fixed in respect to title by homestead patent. The case is R. G. No. 24597. The court sat in banc. “That some of the effects of alcohol are hideous no one will deny. But in America to-day it is not a question of alcohol or no alcohol; it is a question of abortive prohi bition or temperance. Although prohibi tion doubtless has done great good in some ways, it also has worked disastrously in the spheres of morals, health and politics. “As to war-debts, as I never have been able to believe that inter-allied war debts should be paid, so I never have been able to War believe they could be paid. They n kf strike me as a deplorable if not Debts dangerous world nuisance. I think they coHld be wiped out with nothing but advantage to all concerned, and it is an abiding faith with me that advancing economic intelligence finally will liquidate them. Who can imagine that in perhaps five or ten years from now anyone in a po sition of authority still will be so much in the dark as not to see that profitable international markets are to be preferred to the continuous passing of heavy credjts across frontiers? “As to Europe’s cry of Shylock at America, I think it were better hushed. “It has been said we got rich out of the Great War. We did not. Like most other countries, we had the wild night of inflation —despite the rigorous taxation policy of our Treasury—and the bad morning of defla tion. Our entire national machinery of production was thrown out of gear, and our industries passed through difficulties un precedented in their history. Our farm ers—50 per cent, of our people—are shaken to this day. “Referring to American prosperity, it is true, if we except the agriculturists, whose condition is only beginning to respond to the industrial boom, America is at the moment extraordinarily prosperous. But this is not war prosperity. It is not history-born. It is science-born. It is prosperity achieved by energy and intellect, advantaged by readily accessible raw materials and a wide, protected, high-consumption home market. “Up-to-date American business directors will not look at the idea of low wages, for low wages spell business decline and threaten social instability. Capitalism in America is justifying itself by the only way possible—by universalising itself. So cialism fails. Why? Because it will not produce wealth. Of what avail is it to preach wealth diffusion while producing no wealth to diffuse?” Discussing Senator Borah and British opinion, Mr. Bell said: “This favorite son of Idaho, a north-western State with a poSenator Potion about one-seventh that Borah’s t’le c’ty Chicago, appears p. to get more for his money when rlace he steps on a foreign weighing machine than when he steps on one at home. Whatever his merits in American politics—and he is supposed to have some— Senator Borah is not addicted to felicitous international manners. If I might do so, with full respect, I should call him-a rug ged, alert, ambitious patriotic, obstinate, parochial, who always goes down with his colours nailed to the mast, but who always goes down. “He may have in him the raw stuff of greatness. His compatriots are sympathe tically expectant, if not excessively op timistic. Borah is a considerable figure, but scarcely United States, and I should venture to counsel Britons and .other distant observers not to magnify him, even when he knows just what he is driving at, as he does not seem to have known in his recent initiative relative to certain supposed claims of America against Britain arising out of the war. “From old British friends I have had many letters revealing painful emotions due to Borah. These letters are not surpris ing, but really nothing has happened to show that Borah is unfriendly to Britain, and if he were he would have small promise of getting far with his animosity”. “He is Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate?”. “Yes, by seniority”. “He is much in the news.” “Decidedly. But neither power nor wis dom is invariably conspicuous in the news”. “He is out for the Presidency?” “I believe so. Most Americans are. But Borah as President, to entertain a more or less remote possibility, doubtless would be a very different man from Borah as vote hunting politician. “In one of my .recent letters from Eng land occurs this question: ‘What is wrong with England from the American point of view to-day?’ I would reply, having re Love Of eard to t*ie sense of the writer, ‘Nothing.’ Three years’ ex perience over the length and breadth of the land on and off the platform convinces me that the American people never before admired and loved England as they admire and love her to-day. To speak on any representative American platform since the General Strike of that magnifi cent fight of that magnificent people for sanity in Government has been to bring the audience cheering to its feet. “Some of us have grown grey fighting for British-American solidarity—and we have not fought in vain. Great Britain has her enemies in the United States, and she doubtless long will have them, for na tionalistic resentments die hard, but the great body of American citizens is for the British peoples and their institutions up to the hilt. We want British-American solidarity in the Atlantic and in the Pacific and we want this solidarity to mean friend ship and a square deal to every other people. “There is one thing in the world greater than British-American solidarity, and just one, what the late Viscount Kato, of Japan, described in a talk with myself as a single human sodality. We want no so-called Nordic bloc nor a Latin bloc, nor opposing and potentially warlike blocs of colour. We want justice for all humanity, and the set tled peace which can come only through such justice. “That the Americans are against en tanglements which entangle, there is no shadow of doubt. They are against any form of super-State. They are against all tut inevitable encroachment upon the rights of the American States by their own Fede ral Government. What does this mean? It means that the American people intend to preserve their Home Rule, to preserve it not only against international centrali sation, but just as far as practicable against domestic centralisation. “International co-operation, so far as America is to have a part in it, must hold Solidarity For 12 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL October, 1926 inviolate the principle of national so vereignty and voluntarism. Am I sug gesting, then, the irreconciliables of organ isation and no organisation? I am suggest ing free spiritual and intellectual co-opera tion. I am suggesting systematised cor porate study of world problems. I am sug gesting the specific disposition of specific matters by international agreement. Inter* Observations on Filipino Customary Laws First Paper: Laws the Tagalog Peasantry of Luzon By Walter Robb The extent to which customary law still prevails among the peasantry of the Phil ippines is interesting and valuable to note. Dr. H. Otley Beyer, the well known ethno logist, estimates that among Ilocanos nine disputes out of ten are settled out of court, by precedents established in customary law and decreed by the elders of the communi ties where the disputes arise. Many of the native customary laws, by which the people are really governing themselves, are su perior to the statutes enacted as the law of the islands. The Dutch, farther south in Malaysia, long ago saw fit to establish courts of customary law, never thinking of imposing upon the peasantry any other. They have recently been compiling these laws, with a view to their codification for more convenient administration. In this task they asked the Philippines to assist by compiling the customary laws of this archipelago. A committee was appointed, only to do nothing, as is the easy habit here; so the Dutch stepped into this field too and actually compiled two volumes of our ancient native laws, many of which are still in force among the people by simple and voluntary practice. Toward the printing of one of these vo lumes, the generosity of the senate pre sident caused him to allot a small sum from a fund then at his personal disposal. That seems to have been the extent of official interest in ascertaining anything at all respecting the laws by which the large majority of Philippine people live. If however the native culture were no longer to be despised, if the customary laws that are wholesome were embodied into a code of legal procedure—such laws, for instance, as preserve the respect of youth for age. and the community authori ty of venerable persons, and especially such laws as tend to sustain the native con cept of the family— nothing at least would be lost. The gain, one is tempted to be lieve, would be incalculable. For it is more and more apparent, as our mere statutes are working, that every substan tial tradition and custom of the people is set at naught—to the detriment of public welfare. Men of maturity, to say nothing of really venerable men, have practically retired from the field of public affairs. Callow youths, cultured in nothing less than in their racial history, have supplanted these elders to no public advantage what ever. The violence of the change amounts al most to a revolution. The auestion is, and it is serious: Is the native character of the people sturdy enough to survive this violence without precipitating social chaos; and would the native character of any peo ple be sufficiently sturdy to survive such violent and wholly exotic pressure? It may at least be doubted. The customary laws often shine beside the statutes in comparison. Divorce laws are an example. The statute is barbaric; the customary law benevolent, considerate and enlightened. Under the statute, a nationally, we must crawl before we walk, and walk before we run. “I say the American people are heart and soul for seeking permanent world peace through steady, methodical, co-operative, non-constricted moral and mental pressure. Any machinery destructive of freedom of decision and action will spoil everything.” spouse to obtain divorce must put their* mate in prison, by the public testimony of witnesses to the act of adultery, or by the accused’s own shameful confession; and on ly from this disgraced and imprisoned Deft hands of skilled workers — help to make your La Minerva cigar a smoke su premely satisfying. Choicest of selected tobacco,— carefully cured and inspected leaf by leaf—insures quality first of all. Then expert cigar makers, working under the most sanitary and healthful conditions of a modern, well ventilated factory, turn out the raw material as beautifully shaped, divinely blended, aro ma-filled La Minerva Cigars. Ask for your favorite La Minerva Monte Carlo Excelentes e>Monarcas Cigars that Delight the Taste and Fill Your Heart with Joyl LA MINERVA CIGAR FACTORY, INC. Makers of the Choicest Cigars since 1883 2219 Azcarraga Tel. 12-69 spouse may divorce be obtained. The mid dle ages presented nothing more revolting. But by customary law divorce may be quietly agreed upon between the families concerned. Incompatibility is recognized as a sufficient cause for legal separation. Property settlements are arranged, but im prisonment never thought of. vThe probability of divorce is also mini mized by native custom respecting marri age. Ninety years ago, Paul de la Gironiere, a French physician who lived twen ty years in the islands and developed Jalajala plantation (now degenerating to wild erness once more), described the Tagalog peasant marriage custom which _is still quite common: **When once a young man has informed his father and mother that he has a predi lection for a young Indian girl, his parents pay a visit to the young girl’s parents upon some fine evening, and after some very IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL
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