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Hispano-Philippine Administration.
There is no need for us to pass in review one by one the several branches, fiscal, judicial, or executive, of the Hispano-Philippine Administration. It is in the main identical with every other Spanish Colonial Administration, historical or existant; and, with them, is based and conducted on the same system by which Spain has first alienated and then lost almost every Colony she once possessed, and by which Cuba is even this day kept in a condition of constant and irremediable revolt. Hence the Philippines have for their part more than once (a.d. 1589, 1623, 1624, 1740, 1762, 1763, 1807, 1815, 1823, 1838, 1872) attempted to follow the track adopted by the last-mentioned Colony, but without success enough to insure the liberation obtained by the former. Why Philippine insurrection, so often set on foot, has never been as yet able to reach the goal, we shall see further on. I return to the administrative system itself. It is based on destination of castes and races, and is ordered to the exclusive profit of the ruling ones, or rather of the officials and the clergy from Spain; while in its working it is marked in every department by injustice, by corruption, by extreme and rapacious selfishness, greater than any I have ever witnessed out of Persia, and by a truly amazing incapacity, practical and theoretical, even for the most ordinary duties of rule. This incapacity is, however, its one redeeming quality; since a system of Colonial Government like the Spanish would, if vigorously and effectively carried out, soon exhaust the land and exterminate the inha- bitants altogether. Lastly, it is an Administration capricious in the extreme, because dependent solely on the caprices or exigencies of the ruling favourite or faction at Madrid; wholly independent of the interests or conditions of the Philippines themselves and their inhabitants, none of whom are admitted to any administrative participation, voice, or representation whatever. Ilence it is an Administration composed of (I take the number from Spanish data) not less than 3,600 Spanish officials, mostly political adven- turers, needy hangers-on of those in office at home, and men of like class, almost all under-salaried, and sent out by the Minister or faction of the day at Madrid to make their fortune as best they may, rule or misrule to their fancy, and, on a change in the fortunes of their patrons, retire unchallenged by investigation or opinion to spend their gains else- where, to be succeeded in their turn by a cognate swarm.
Yet, with all its faults, the Hispano-Philippine Administration deserves the credit of being in its practical working the cause of less oppression at large, and of less cruelty in special instances, though neither oppression nor cruelty are absolutely wanting, than is, or at any rate was, it would seem, usual in Spanish Colonies. This happy circumstance is, so most think, due partly to the supineness of the Spanish resident officials, whom, fortu- nately for those they govern, this most relaxing climate speedily deprives of whatever energy they may have brought out with them, and partly to the great and preponderating influence of the clergy.
That influence is partly for good, partly evil. Various causes, to recapitulate which would be to write the history of the Philippines, have conferred on the Spanish regular elergy--Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans, Recollects, Jesuits, &c.-sent out here under the title of " missionaries," a position extremely powerful from the very first in the Philippine Islands; a position which they have during three centuries not only maintained, but fortified and extended. The bulk of the Philippine Malays, indeed all those who accepted the position of Spanish subjects, some 4,000,000 or more, adopted from the first the well-known Spanish formula of Christianity. To it they have, on the whole, steadily adhered, and though now and then one clan or other has made an abortive attempt at reinstalling the old idolatry to the detriment of the new, no Philippine Malay has it appears incurred the guilt, far more heinous in the eyes of Spanish monks, of inventing or following a dogmatic heresy. Hence the Hispano-Philippine hierarchy, absolute master of the minds, and by a natural nor long-deferred sequence of a lion's share in the lands and worldly goods of the natives, from whom they at the present time draw a revenue, and over whom they exercise an influence greater in either case than that of the Government itself. Hence, too, they have from the first, down to our own time, assumed the attitude of protectors to the natives, stood between them and their lay oppressors, and to the best of their ability hindered others from sharing the fleeces which they regard as by divine right their own.
Clerical rule, though moderately rapacious, is generally, except where heretics are concerned, mild enough, and though averse from progress, fosters an easy-going, half vegetative existence and increase. The clerical rule of the Philippines is in these respects like all the rest. But, I regret to say, to this very clerical predominance is also due, it would seem, a lower degree, or, in fact, a more total absence of education, manliness, morality, and self-respect throughout the born Malays and Mestizos of the Philippines than I remember to have observed in any other Pagan or Christian land.
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From these considerations it would appear that, so far as the Administration is con- cerned, the prospects of the Philippines, for what regards their productive, industrial, and hence commercial value, are not very brilliant. If absolutely abandoned by the Spanish officials and Spanish clergy, they would, not perhaps rapidly, yet surely, become in a few generations next to valueless to the world at large, and even to Spain herself. But such an abandonment is, under the present conditions of national, and especially European, intercourse, impossible. With Java and Singapore to their west, Hong Kong, China, and Japan to their north, and Australasia to their south, the centrally-placed Philippines cannot but participate, imperfectly though it may be, in the immense activity that sur- rounds them; were they better administered, they would yield in importance to no region on the world's colonial list. Of this greater good fortune there is, indeed, no apparent probability. But, as their wonderful productiveness, to which nature seems scarcely to have fixed a limit, must from the necessity of things depend in great measure, not merely on the conditions within, but on the demand without them; and as that demand, based on other fortunes than those of Spain, and over which she has no control, will in all like- lihood progressively increase for years to come, we may reasonably anticipate that, under the action of this external stimulus, the Philippines will, despite of their internal paralysis, not merely maintain their present grade of importance in the commercial world, but even to some extent rise above it.
On this side, accordingly, British interests-trading, commercial, and perhaps indus- trial, in the Philippines-bave a fairly sufficient external, though not an equally satis- factory external, guarantee. And this brings us to the second leading consideration.
Attitude of the Hispano-Philippine Administration towards Foreigners. We have now to determine the degree of direct or indirect support and encourage- ment, or their reverse, that British trade and traders actually receive, or may reasonably in the future expect, from the Hispano-Philippine Administration.
And first: The general feeling of Spaniards, and more especially of Spanish officials out here, towards European foreigners at large, is (I regret to state it) one of distrust and scarce-disguised dislike. Ignorant as they mostly are of the very first principles of poli- tical and commercial economy, the Spaniards of the Philippines regard every penny made within their territory by the foreign trader as somehow taken out of their own pockets; the contact of foreigu prosperity irritates them by its contrast with their own decadence; and being, as a rule, wanting themselves in industry, practical knowledge, and skill, they look with envy not far removed from hate ou those who possess these advantageous qualities. It is a general, aud, I believe, a correct opinion, that were the Administration free to do as it liked, the old exclusive policy of past times would be revived vigorous as ever; no foreign flag would be allowed to approach, no foreign subject to plant a foot in these islands, unless it were, perhaps, a limited number of Chinese under coolic-contract, to be treated as Chinese coolies have been in Cuba or in Hispaniolized Peru. In a word, the Spaniards would rather see the Philippines ruined by and for themselves alone, than prosperous, if to the benefit not of themselves alone, but of others also.
Fortunately, circumstances are stronger than men; and though a Royal Spanish Ordinance, issued not further back than 1844, prohibited the admission of foreigners into the interior of the Colony under any pretext whatever, while an attempt was made by the Hispano-Philippine Government as late as 1857 to renew the Decrees by which for more than two centuries foreign ships had been kept at a distance from these shores, the Administration has been slowly, but progressively, compelled on a tract opposite to its own desires. The yielding began in 1789, when the first half-concession in favour of foreign enterprise was wrung from the weakened grasp of Spain; and from that date down to the present time the Administration has had to witness, though not without many efforts to stay it, an ever-increasing influx of foreign trade and enterprise-an influx which it still persistently endeavours, though indirectly, to limit, but cannot wholly
stem.
The attempt at limitation takes many different forms, and is half-veiled, wholly urged, by many ingenious devices, but chiefly by seven.
Firstly, by checking the natural productiveness of the islands themselves, and conse- quently the wealth of their inhabitants, by the method implied in the first section of this Report, for detail in this matter would be endless. And this, as it appears, is mainly done, not merely negatively and through careless negligence, but positively, on system, and with a definite intent, in accordance with two Spanish axioms-firstly, that a native, if wealthy, or on the way to become so, will lean towards foreigners rather than Spaniards; secondly, that a native who has acquired wealth will soon aim at independence also.
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