1934-02-24 — Page 31

PICTORIAL SUPPLEMENT

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH.

PHILIPPINES' 400-YEAR

CRISIS IN REJECTION

OF U.S. OFFER

This is the first of three articles dealing with the Philippines problem, which has again lapsed into a state of uncertainly in con- sequence of inaction on the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Bill.

BY WILLIS THORNTON.

A struggle for independence that has been waged for 400 years came to a climax Jan. 17.

r

On that day the Hare-Hawes-Cutting law, passed by the last Congress, expired without having obtained the approval of the Philippine Islands, whose freedom it was meant to assure.

Thirty years of legislative effort, during which time the Philippine question always was before Congress in one form or another, came to nothing when the terms of the proffered independence were turned down last year by the Philippine legislature. And as Congress has not now acted, the whole Philippine question has gone back to where it was several years ago.

*

There is no specific legal com-

mitment or promise of independ once only the brave and general promises that have sounded so emptily since American troops con- quered tho islanda after the Spanish-American war.

Several last-minute efforts were made in Washington to prevent the Phillippine situation from lapsing back into the uncertainty which has cursed it for 20 years.

Manuel Quezon, head of a special mission from the Philippine legla. lature, has submitted to President Roosevelt a programme which he belloves would be accepted in the islands but there has been action by Congress,

·

Ito

An independence plan that would give the falands autonomy not later than 1940 is supported by a powerful majority of the leland legislature.

The plan provides that the present form of government be continued unless freedom is grant- ed in two or three years. If autonomy were delayed until 1940, it was proposed that a "remmon- sible autonomous government be established in the meantime."

SUBSTITUTES DRAFTED.

The Foreign Policy Association, endowed research body on foreign affairs, has sponsored with the World Peace Foundation П com- mittee which also has publicly presented a revised programme for granting independence RS & substitute for the expiring Hare- Hawes-Cutting law.

And Senator King of Utah al- ready has submitted his bill, far less favourable to the Philippines than the present one.

Gue-

Resident Commissioners vara and Osias are working for mere extension of the terms of the Hare-Hawes-Cutting bill, believing that, even with imperfections, it is the best that can be had,

They belleve that a new Philip-

Hero' are three outstanding figures in the Philippine struggle for independence on terms which will not mean economic doom for the islanders. Manuel Quezon, shown scated in his apart. ment in Washington, is majority leader and president of the islands' Senato; upper right, inset, is Pedro Guevara; lower left, Camilo Osins. Guevara and Oslas 'are Pallippino, resident com- missioners in Washington.

pine legislature, elected to take Hare-Hawes-Cutting-bill-last-year office in June, would ratify the believed it laboriously had written present bill.

the last chapter in the long story of the Filipino struggle for in- CONGRESS ANNOYED,

dependence. Now it suddenly finds Congress, after passing the that an appendix must be added.

IRISH FREE STATE V. ENGLAND OR DE VALERA V. THOMAS

In the quarrd between the seek to retain Ireland within the Irish Free State and Great Brit- Empire by armed strength, in ain, fate and circumstances have other words, war. elected Eamon de Valera and J. H. Thomas as the chief untagonista. The one is President of the Free

State, the other Secretary for the Dominions in the British Cabinet,

Thomas replied in the British

Parliament. He did it cleverly

To have made a drastic answer would have been to give de Valera a strong battle-cry with which to Ever since President de Valera call a general election. But Then:- has been in power, he has cut tle as solemnly stated that he could After tle that binds his country to not and would not give a categori: the British Empire. The origina!cal answer to a hypothetical ques quarrel started over de Valera's tion. There, for the moment, the refusal to pay England certain matter rests, land annultics. Britain retorted by placing a heavy tariff against Irish exports of butter, bacon and ogge, the chief source of the wealth of the country. Ireland replied by a heavy duty on British . manufactures,

walking miles to his first school. Thomas left school at the age of nine to get his first job as an en- gine-wiper in a railway round- house. De Valera worked in Dub. lu as a teacher, while he took his

degree at the National University,

Thomas climbed the Indder and became an expert railway engine driver. De Valera continued ten- ching, his specialty being muthe matics. Thomas became General Secretary of the National Union. of Railwaymen, one of the strong- eat Inbour organizations in Great Britain.

Both men went into politics. Do Valera threw himself into the Ir- jah rebellion, was a commandant in the Eluster rising of 1916 In Dublin and sentenced to death. was once more arrested, only to Reprieved under an amnesty, he escape through a daring plot.

If all the Empire had been Bought over it is probable that no two more striking opponents could have been found than de Valera and Thomas. The only two thinga they have in common are that both were poor boys and both call them- Then Thomas warned Ireland selves Celts. De Valera was born that it could not have it both in New York City 51 years ago, ways; it could not have one foot his mother being Irish and his In the Empiro and one foot out father Spanish. The latter had side; it could not avoid the obl!-| been a sculptar of some note and gations incumbent upon a domin-then, when Iris eyes falled, sup in 1917.

As a prominent trades unionist, Thomas naturally drifted into pol- itles and became Socialist member

don and, at the same time, enjoy ported his family by teaching muRose high politicALLY. the privileges membership in the sic. Art and the higher things of empire gave. BLUNT WITH BRITAIN.

SATURDAY,

FEBRUARY 24,

1934.

BATTLE

FOR

PAGE THREE

INDEPENDENCE

I

where flags of every nation float from abipe that anchor in the

a naval bean that is both bulwark and peril.

that will have to be answered in the appendix to the book. THREE-PLY PROBLEM.

The waterfront at Manila,

busy harbour. Congress, harried by the hectic stato of our own affairs, is annoyed. This anticlimax to so long and so unceasing a struggle is espe cially unfortunate because that the Hare-Hawes-Cutting net has expired, it leaves a situation that may be misunderstood badly. both in the Philippines and the Far Enet, especially in Japan.

now

Expiration of the act without further statement has led many to the conclusion that the United States regrets extending inde- pendence to the Philippines and now expects to keep them in- definitely.

TERMS ARE SNAG.

The only way to prevent this lapse in a continuous policy would be either by a strong and definite atatement by the president, pending; further action by Congress, or by his appointment of a commission to plungo once more into the mazes of conflicting interests and opinions that bear on the complex problem.

If it appears too hard to get a new or revised bill through the present crowded Congress, this alternative may be chosen.

Practically

and all, factions groups in the islands want inde- pendence. And probably a great majority in the United States want to grant it.

But how, when, and on what terms? Those are the questions

OCEAN

ATLANTIC

The Philippine Independence question, like all Gaul, is divided into three parts:

First there is the straightaway proposition that we got into the islands by accident, never intended to stay, always have promised

PHILIPPINE ISLANDS AT A GLANCE Population-12,100,000. Area-114,000 square miles; three times size of Ohio.

Number of Islande-11 large; 7,000 small.

Discovered-By

1520.

Magellan,

Freed from Spain-In 1898, U.S. paying $20,000,000.

Location-11,364 miles from New York, 9,847 miles from Panama Canal; 6,221 miles from San Francisco; 100 miles from Japan.

them independence, and ought to make good on our promise.

Second, there is the fact that we pines on a basis of free trade. Free imports of sugar and coconut oil-irk American, farmers, who feel

now buy and sell from the Philip-

ST. GEORGE CHANNEL

BRISTOL

IRISH

SEA

LANTIC

OCEAN

that these imports tend to keep down prices and are unfair com- petition. These special farm in- terests now want independence, hot or cold, quick, and of any kind.

Third, abandonment of the Philippines is all tied up with the whole situation in the Far East. Other colonizing nations don't want us to free the Philippines, feeling that, their colonies will want the same treatment.

NAVAL QUESTION.

The Philippines, admittedly de- fenceless either with or without the American forces and defences there, form a military and, naval что valuable problem. They naval base

you concede the necessity for protecting American Far Eastern,trade lanes with naval force.

K

&

They are a liability if you con- sider the possibility of having to defend (or recapture) them from an aggressive nation, say Japan.

So it is not a simple question that has been, dumped back into the lap of the 73d Congress just when it thought the 72d had settled the matter forever.

[NEXT: How the United States

found itself suddenly pitchforked into the business of imperialism, and chafed for 30 years trying to wear a collar that didn't fit.]

THE BRITISH ISLES

NORTH SEA

ENGLISH CHANNEL

Separated by the Irish Sea and, figuratively, by an ocean of differences in temperament and poli- tical viewpointe, Eamon de Valera (left) and J. H. Thomas (right) are spour-heads of the diplomatic dis- puts between the Irish:Fras State and Great Britain

dinner

and saturnine and glum. Thomas Valera, on the stump, in an im is jolly and hail-follow-well-mot passioned orator who wins his au De Valera cares for nothing but diences. Thomas fa a rough-and- his work and his home, which he ready-speaker on, the makes his castle. Thomas loves gatherings and parties and puts on evening clothes so frequently that the cartoonists call him Dress Sult Thomas."

of Parliament for the seat of Dor- by in 1910. De Valera became a Sinn Fein member of Parliament for the constituency of East Claremont, composed of Torles, Liber, knocks. Do Valera seems dour rich food and bubbly wine. De

als and Socialists. He became Sec- retary for the Dominions in the new cabinet and, despite Socialist opposition, was re-elected by Der- life were thus in the very atmos- Thomas became a member of by with a huge majority. De Val- phore the little Eamon breathed in the cabinot In the two Socialist ora led the opposition to the Cos- his early years. Thomas was born governments headed by Ramsay grave government of the Free. Do Valera took up the challenge, 59 years ago in Wales of working MacDonald as Premier. Do Val-State for ten years and in 1931

once more became President. He asked the British Government class parents. There was no time era became President of the Sinn The wolf was too often Fein movement and then President of the Free State in 1910-22. specifically to state what its act-at the door.

When the second Socialist cabinet fon would be if the Irish Free

fell in 1931, Thomas has one of Stata proclaimed itself a republic. TOOK SEPARATE PATHS.

the few outstanding Labour leaders His meaning was plain. He want

who followed, MacDonald in the ad to know whether Britain would

formation of the National govern

for art.

When his father died, de Valors went to Ireland to be educated,

Do Valern is a well educated man whose hobbies, outside math- ematics and the Irish language, are high-brow books. Thomas is a self-oducated man, learned by travel, by contact with men of all classes and by hard.

who has

RUBBISH

AND WHAT-NOT

HOW TO GET RID OF THEM

- By Tomlinson Wright.

A correspondent who is already thinking about spring cleaning asks me if I can tell her what to do with her husband,

My reply is that I make it rule never to meddle with affairs of the heart. I have passed this letter on to a Love Export who will doubtless deal with it, or mislay it in her own tonder, inimitable

way.

Meanwhile I am reminded of several other oddments that have an exasperating habit of clutter ing up the home. I refer partl cularly to old cocon-tine, mont skewers, razor blades, gaslight- and-coko billa' and sundry foreign colns that no automatic machine will accept.

Motorists, of course, have long aince solved the problem of how to dispose of all this old junk. But justly, I think-the motorlat bears yet another burden. It is obviously impracticable to dis- tribute auch bulky things as old tyres over the countryside in any numbers.

Let us assume for the moment. however, that your car, like my own, has passed into the safe keeping of the bank. How, then, are you to fight clear of tho accumulating effects that daily make it more difficult for you to keep your boys or anybody elsn home?

nt

The simplest way, I find, la to put each of these effects to some really practical use.

This may not at Brat accm 80 enay, but I feel sure that with at few helpful suggestions from mo you will soon be able to do all and more with an old salmon tin; say, than Mrs. Ketchup, of the Brighter Monus Movement, does with what is left of Sunday's joint on Fri- day.

Well, and what is wrong with a nice pipe organ? Only the other. day I was reading in the paper how a man had bullt one of these

fine, inspiring instruments out of a few, old tins, and what has been done offco.can be done again.

A

Thore is no reason at all why,

when the wireless-gees over to friends should be dull. Resolve

chamber music, you and your:

to keep them, amused next Christ- mas or whenever it is, with a pipo. organ,

Then take your old meat akeworn -the metal ones, I mean, not those you spoilt by carving them up with the Joint. What could be

handler about your estate than a one-man horse-rake? And what, given a horse and a score or so of common-or-garden meat skewers. could be simpler to make?

Next we come to your old razor blades, and bolleve me, they are full of exciting possibilities. Why

not, for instance, use them instead of buying a new wallpaper for the dining-room?

There is nothing like all-British steel for good, solid wear. Be- sides, you never know when some- body may start something, and in your bullet-proof dining-room you would be a lot anfer.

And now what about your old gas-light-and-coke bills? Well, perhaps on second thoughts you had better keep these.

I need. not discuss all the other vexatious items in detall. Here are a few very brief suggestions just to show you how thoroughly I have gone into the matter:

Foreign (or Badly Bent) colns. These can be lost in Christmas. puddings or disposed of "quickly in quantities of loose change."

Leaking. hot water bottles. These should be put on one sida.. A safe and simple means of dis ves and other up posing of your husband's (or wifo's) relatives setting guests.

Old seed catalogues, circulars,

Do Valera is tall and full of good stories. De Valera applies, only the other way about.m

awkward in his movements. yellow of complexion. Thomas In short and rog checked. Da Val- era neither drinks nor smokes and Is Spartan in his meals and habits Thomas loves a big black cigar,

needs no more stuffing, is to post also delights in after mandate. A good plan, If the lar Apeeches. Do Valera In his talks these unstamped to your local is always grave and nulous income tax man.... Thomas is always humorous talks a cultured Engilshor, an" equally fluent Irish. Thomas has not an "H" to his name, glories in It boasts about it, points out that In spite of his lack of "H's" he has bagged four honorary degrees from great universities.

Old final demand notes.-Samo

For motorists only. The old tyre problem is really quite simple to solve Tyres should be sliced small, fried to a turn and served: piping hot with onions. This will save you wanting your money go- Ing out to some restaurants,