Editorials

Media

Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Title: Editorials
Language: English
Source: The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume 8 (Issue No. 6) June 1928
Year: 1928
Rights
Fulltext: 10 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1928 EDITORIAL OFFICES American Chamber of Commerce 180 CALLE DAVID P. O. Box 1638 Telephone 2-11-56 SCATTERED FIRE The Philippine government is not choke-bored, it fires often enough perhaps, and certainly often valiantly, but it has no bead sights on its cumbersome blunderbuss, and it scatters its fire; so that, though it has been converted quite effectively into an eleemosynary institution, what with 20,000 salaries in the civil service roster and a jump of 6000 during the past six years, we suspect that the taxpayer never got less for his money than he gets today, and we know it would be a good thing to check up and ascer tain just how much the tax peso is buying compared to the general-pur chasing peso. Here is work for some conscientious legislator, or a group of them. Or work for someone in the executive branch. Is the unit cost of roads more—of teaching, of sanitation, of animal quarantine control? If so, is there compensating efficiency? Are the roads much better than the old, and sure to last longer and require less repairing? Are teachers’ qualifications correspondingly higher with the higher schedules of pay, and pupils better taught? With P70,000,000 and more annually we are blazing away for dear life, but to what purpose? Who really knows? The record isn’t all black, surely, and we are no pessimists; but neither is it all white, or even rosy, like bureau chiefs’ reports. Let us refer specifically to the present situation on the Angat water project for Manila. A new section of the conduit from the river dam to the reservoir is to be built, through a region reeking with malaria. Now the government knows, at the taxpayers’ cost for the information, that until this region is cleared of malaria that conduit cannot be built without the sacrifice of hundreds of workmen, if at all; and as the government knows how to clear such regions of malaria, and under Major Hitchens’s initiative it has done one such job well, it ought now to do this one too. Perhaps it will, but our suggestion is that it do so before lives are sacrificed. Now is the time to fire, with good aim and consequent effect. Now let us turn our gaze toward the city and scan the situation here, involving Mayor Earnshaw’s administration. In his inaugural address, a good one, Mayor Earnshaw promised beautification of Manila. Excel lent, but has he too begun scattering his fire? His own ideas were recently excellently supplemented with suggestions from Dr. H. Eugene Stafford; but suggestions are not enough to border a single avenue with fire trees, or clean the city’s walls of the jungle which is rapidly destroying them, and the time may come when the historian may record that it was during Mayor Earnshaw’s administration that the walls were given their coup de grace. LEAD KINDLY LIGHT The Manila Electric Company has recently acquired eight electric light and power franchises in the provinces, where local companies had small plants in operation, and negotiations are on for more, a string of which are to be supplied from Manila. At other strategical points, plants will be enlarged; at last it seems the provinces are to have what they have long needed, good lighting systems. The company’s experience in this venture is thus far very satisfactory; its new properties are at Dagupan, Baliuag, Mecauayan, Lipa, Cavite, and Lopez, Lucena and Atimonan, in Tayabas. A similar amalgamation in the Visayas is linking that thriving region by telephone, which may soon extend to Manila and perhaps over seas. Rapid and dependable means of communication are even more serviceable than the electric light, and their general accessibility will prove a boon beyond price. Winging its way toward the Antipodes, the South ern Cross kept tapping out wireless messages, and the RCP here caught them plainly, this side of Honolulu, and broadcast them to the islands. That anachronizes isolation. Only good—good, popular good—can come of all this. STATISTICS SAY— Exports during the first four months of the year were Pl 13,336,972, and last year they were P123,639,901—more than P10,000,000 above this year. Hemp and sugar were off a million each this year, compared to last, in the four months covered, copra three and coconut oil six. Better sales of other items made up some of this. It is an election year, but sales have kept up remarkably well, and imports of P89,957,407 January-April are 20 million over last year’s, P69.726.932. Imports from the United States remain about the same, 50% of the total; though they were really two million over that last year, and this year they are two million under it. Statistics are eloquent about the sales tax, and H. B. Pond, the town’s best master of them, has lucidly explained that situation to Governor Stimson. We wish the University would tackle this question: other coun tries are so served by their universities, and ours ought to be. It is really not fact, with which the University would be less familiar than the world of commerce, but theory which is at fault; and here the University ought to be at home and able to entertain the legislature to some purpose. A sales tax, especially a high one workirfg like ours, is utterly wrong in theory, and economic theories are just as tangible as door nails or sodden copra. A tax wrong in theory is wrong in practice, it should be substituted by another; and if the other will not produce as much as the queer tax, then stick to it anyway, because it is sound, and economize until increasing prosperity makes up the difference. One of the least defensible arguments for the sales tax is that proposed substitutes would fall short of the 18 million it wrings from business; for surely tax reform is expected to stimulate business, and is advocated because the tax complained against is hampering business. When, under the reform tax, business has picked up, then you have your old revenue and more besides. It is just as exigent for govern ments to economize when necessity advises it as it is for individuals; and the government here, to the extent of at least four or five millions, could easily do so. A. M. DE CASTRO: A WORTHY PUBLIC SERVANT Here and there, even yet, one meets an old wheelhorse in a govern ment bureau. One of the worthiest of these oldtimers is A. M. de Castro, former provincial treasurer of Cagayan, who, as the agent of the agricul ture secretary, has been in the bureau of agriculture during the past nine years administering the rice and corn fund, a million pesos loaned to rural credit associations at 6% a year. Castro gets P5.000 a year; he has nine years’ accrued leave piled up, but only three years count. He is bonded. He stays on the job. Aside from him, there is a clerk in his office getting P75 a month and a bookkeeper getting P80 a month. Naturally, he can’t keep bookkeepers: in seven years’ operations he has had six, and the sixth one has just left him for a job in a bank at P125 to start with, an im mediate increase of P600 a year. Castro objects to his office being a “training camp for minor employes” and wants a salary of Pl25 for a book keeper, so he can keep a man of some experience. We have Castro’s report at hand. It is very interesting. In eight years, 1920 to 1927, there having been no operations in 1919, he has loaned 352 associations Pl,876,140, an average of P5.330 to the association; and 120 of these borrowing associations have paid back their loans in full, P419.000, and altogether the 352 have paid back Pl,541,429.28, while the total interest collected has been P423.961.45. Not a centavo has been lost, and Castro believes no losses will occur. Suit or threat of suit faced six associations, but then they quickly came to terms; and one association has paid nothing back on principal, P5.000, but has paid P2.503.ll in interest, and another has paid back none of the principal, P3.000, but has paid P699 in interest. Among loans receivable, P758.672.17, these are the worst: they are both in Camarines, and probably both eventually good. The loans have returned Pl,541,429.28, as stated, Pl,117,467.83 in prin cipal and P423.961.45 in interest; and cash in the insular treasury, avail able for loans, is P592,071.34. Expenses since 1919 have been P75,848.85, net gain P348.112.62, gross gain P423.691.45. Association directors are jointly and severally liable for the loans, and, this being an election year, practically no loans have been made. Association directors are usually prominent in their communities, and sometimes in politics; many are averse to getting loans on election years, until after the elections are over, and at such periods the fund remains static. Also, 303 associations have not borrowed from the fund, “the agents of the rural credit division of the bureau of agriculture. . . . have no time to induce other associations to apply for loans.” Castro asks, we think with reason, for two agents aj. P100 a month to promote the use of the rice and corn fund by the associations. This recommendation is important, deserving approval. BAKER MEMORIAL FUND Under the chairmanship of Miss Emma Sarepta Yule, an agricultural college committee is raising a memorial fund in honor of the late Charles Fuller Baker, dean of the college for so many years, the fund to be put into a safe investment and the interest used to aid self-supporting senior students to complete their courses. This is at once a noble and a worthy enterprise, exactly what Dean Baker would wish by way of being remembered; for his thought was for others, never for himself, and out of his own funds he often aided students, “he never failed to come forward in their defense and in their aid.” It will probably take a long time to raise an adequate fund, but let us not forget that the opportunity is always open; something from time to time from planters, from agricultural corporations, from sugar mills which are prospering, and the fund will wax substantial and helpful. June, 1928 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 11 Four Best Manila Newspaper May Editorials University Selection: Also the Best Among the Four ONLY ONE LAW FOR MORO AND CHRISTIAN! Governor Carl Moore of Sulu, who is consider ed an authority on the question of Moro problems by virtue of his long connection with the adminis tration of Moro affairs, in a memorandum sub mitted to the Governor-General, urges a more strict enforcement of all existing laws in the Phil ippines. Governor Moore is not the first person to notice such looseness of administration, especially on questions affecting the enforce ment of laws among the Moros. That the Mohammedan Filipinos have been pampered and humored like spoiled children who can get away with any whim that they may have a liking to is of common knowledge. And what evokes surprise now is that Governor Moore, who has known all the time the anomalous condition existing in the Moro provinces, of their defiance of the laws of the Philippines, and of looseness of law-enforcement does give such a belated memorandum on the general conditions among his wards. It may be recalled that in the recent past, the Moros were especially active in creating trouble by withdrawing from towns and in trenching themselves in their cottas for the most insignificant excuse. It looked as though some agents of reaction were provoking them to take to the warpath and thus kindle a general conflagration in Moroland so that such wholesale trouble might serve a definite purpose in the general scheme of an administration that seemed to depend on local “instability” or insecurity for its perpetuation here. But all of a sudden Governor Moore becomes apprehensive of the long-tolerated practice of pampering the Moros and calls the attention of the Governor-General to such a situation. He told the Chief Executive that the Moros might get so used to Government looseness that the time might come when it would be impossible to control them. It might, indeed, be quite possible that some Moros, who are now used to having their own way and could flout the laws at will, should come to have the notion that they are stronger than the Philippine Government. Such a con dition naturally will result in endless troubles. For when the Government decides to take a sterner attitude towards them in the enforce ment of laws, there will arise continuous friction because of the natural opposition to Philippine laws of Moros who have been accustomed to live in their own way. But any action taken for the improvement of Moro administration is timely. Any day set for the inauguration of a more enlightened policy of administration that will teach the Moros to respect and obey Philippines laws will be most opportune. There should be no delay in this matter. The days of uncertainty are past, when the Legislature had its policies regarding Moro affairs and Malacanang had its own. The Islands now have a Chief Executive who believes in a government of laws and who will have the laws respected and obeyed at all cost. This is the time to bring the Moro provinces under the equitable control of Philippine laws. —Herald, May 26. PHILIPPINE CZARS The czarist regime of old Russia never pro duced anything, worse in principle, than the power accorded the board of pharmaceutical examiners by Philippine statutes. True, that body of dignified gentlemen cannot exile anybody to Siberia, merely by a wave of the hand, nor can they cut your head off, just because they are in the mood for it. But they can put an innocent advertising manager in jail, and keep him there indefinitely—or at least until he can find some kind individual to bail him out. This they can do without the slightest semblance of a hearing, without permitting the suspected criminal to defend himself. Some one swears out a warrant, it is presented to the municipal court judge, and a policeman jogs off to arrest the advertising man. He generally gets to the publication office around five or six o’clock and if the minion of the law is conscientious enough to carry out every order of the warrant, his victim goes to jail, unless at that late hour, he can raise bail. Our bureaucrats are a pretty hopeless lot, but the board of pharmaceutical examiners repreCOMMITTEE AWARDS Best of the Month— Only One Law for Moro and Chris tian.—(.Herald, May 26)—Select ed by Professor Shannon and the Committee. Best of Each Paper— Only One Law for Moro and Chris tian.—(Herald, May 26—Selected by Mr. Verne Dyson. Philippine Czars.—(Tribune, May 6)—Selected by Mr. Jesus Valen zuela. Welch’s Brain Juice.—(Times, May 22)—Selected by Professor Cristino Jamias. For Political Purposes.—(Bulletin, May 21)—Selected by Professor Vicente M. Hilario. Certified. —G. P. Shannon. NOTE.—Mr. Verne Dyson, a new mem ber of the English faculty of the University, takes the place on the committee of Mr. Marcial Lichauco, who has resigned his University position to teach law in the Universidad de Sto. Tomas.—Dr. Shannon says, “Mr. Dyson has had consider able newspaper experience, and knows the Orient well. We are for tunate to have him as one of the judges.” sents bureaucracy gone mad. One of their functions—and a very proper one—is to protect the public against false claims by patent medicine markets. The law obliges them to watch care fully medicine advertisements carried by the newspapers and magazines circulating in the Philippines, and announced on billboards and placards. There is no evidence that they at tempt to regulate the billboards or the American and foreign magazines circulating in the Phil ippines. But they do regulate the newspapers—and with a vengeance. They require the newspapers to submit to them proofs of every advertisement of a medicine to be published. They demand certain condi tions in formulas to accompany these advertise ments, disregarding the practice of other coun tries which evolved most of the medical prin ciples upon which the practice of the doctor’s profession in the Philippines is based. They take days to pass upon advertising submitted to them, and, sometimes, they approve a publi cation of an ad, only to arrest the man respon sible a few days later. No newspaper objects to sane and impartial methods of judicial procedure. There can be no objection to a law which is impartially and sen sibly administered. But to single out the news paper offenders, and let others break the law, to treat what is a misdemeanor with the same seriousness that courts treat a robbery or a murder, to condemn a man without giving him the day in the prosecuting attorney’s office, to which any other crime entitles him, to send a policeman who doesn’t even know the offense for which the warrant has been issued—these are practices too bureaucratic, too czarist, to be allowed to pass unchallenged. If the board of pharmaceutical examiners has embarked upon a campaign to drive false and mis leading medicine advertisements out of circula tion in the Philippines, it will have the unqual ified support of every decent publication or firm. But it must give some evidence that common sense and justice are to rule its actions. And it must put an end to the practice its methods encourage—that of throwing an unoffending newspaper employe into jail for an offense which is, in no way, imputable to him. —Tribune, May 6. WELCH’S BRAIN JUICE Out of the brain of Representative Welch of California has been concocted a bill which would classify Filipinos as aliens under the immigra tion laws of the United States. Apropos of this bill, a Filipino contemporary, “wanting to be reasonable,” according to itself, expressed the opinion that “it reflects the dominant feeling” of the states along the Pacific side of the Union. It is unquestionable that the California gentle man is trying to curry favor with the electorate, but his bill does not represent the sentiment of his constituents or of the Americans living along the Pacific seaboard any more than it reflects the opinion of other Americans living in the rest of the United States. The bill, as can be easily seen, will not even deserve a committee hearing. Just imagine the Filipinos under the American flag, being declared aliens under that same flag which has pledged them progress and protection! Why, Senator Bingham who wants to have the Fili pinos become American citizens would feel repulsion at the idea! There have been many proposals and pro nouncements regarding classification of Filipinos as a race. A California court even went to the extreme of declaring them Mongolians. If such tendency is not stopped it will not be long before Filipinos are held as Eskimos. For the satisfaction of all concerned, it would be advisable if the United States, through con gress or the federal supreme court, established a definite ruling that Filipinos are Filipinos and that as citizens under the American flag they are entitled to the protection and consideration afforded by that flag to everyone owing it alle giance and being ready to uphold and honor it through thick and thin. —Times, May 22. FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES Such things as the bill fathered by Congress man Welch of California proposing that for immigration law purposes Filipinos be classed as “aliens” by the United States have just enough effect to do harm. We are perfectly sure that the people of California as a whole are becoming alive to the importance of Far Eastern trade and to the vital place of the Philippines in that trade. There fore we should have confidence that the people of that state, and the people of the whole United States, would not endorse an absolute reversal of policy in dealing with the Islands and their residents. However, that confidence does not lead to a disregard for the temporary ill effects of such acts of political trickery as the intro duction of the Welch Filipino “Alien” bill. A general election campaign always is likely to produce some rather objectionable moves, to which class the bill in question belongs. The Timberlake resolution for the restriction of duty-free Philippine sugar belongs to the same class. It is condemned on the same grounds. If the move of Mr. Welch were to be taken as typical of the attitude of the public mind of the state whose representative he is, we might expect a made-in-California move to have congress or some other body close California to residents of other states, since they are filling California— Iowans in particular.
content: Scattered fire
Lead kindly light
Statistic say
A.M. de Castro a worthy public servant
Baker Memorial fund
Only one law for Moro and Christian
Philippine Czar
Welch’s Brain Juice
For political purposes