July 20, 1901.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
them when they shall have accommodated | Promises have been made most confidently in themselves to modern practice, t
various provinces visited that order will be restored and kept through local agencies. On the eve of the return of the Commission from the south, a telegram came from Laguna, asking that civil government be established | there. It is probably a safe guess that the other provinces in Luzon where military operations have not availed to restore order will come into line, trusting in the good faith of the Com- mission, and undertaking on their own account to suppress disorder. Should moral influence or police activity be unequal to this task, the military will no doubt be an efficient aid.
The chief lesson to be imparted under the new rule will be that of government honestly administered. It is most important that it should be exemplary. Natives will look to Americans in office as guides to public conduct. Lessons thus imparted, to have full value, should be perfectly clear and direct. Nothing can so retard governmental progress as mis- conduct by Americans, who may ease their consciences with the reflection that at this distance from home they ought to make the most of their opportunities. Nothing will escape notios in view of the association of natives with Americans in affairs. How apt pupils may be in evil may be inferred from the notions drilled into them through misrule, leaving out of account reputed inborn ten- dencies. How well the lesson of correct observance of office obligations may be learned, is a question for experience to answer.
THE MILITARY AND CIVIL RULE.
AMERICAN . FILIPINO APPOINTMENTS.
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71.
extent that while their own offences will not be condoned, misconduct by American oficials will
extent of the la be punished to the full
SLAVERY AND POLYGAMY.
Slavery and polygamy - will need patient treatment. There are already indications that slavery may be terminated in a way that will appear voluntary. The military, order which authorised persons to make complaint of slavery. or slaves to seek protection and liberty by appeal to military commanders, has had some beneficial effect. A few slaves have thus appealed and been set free. Their owners so far, have made no fuss over this action. Now comes news SAFEGUARDS of GOVERNMENT.
from Zamboangs that Datto Nando there has Government in the municipalities and pro-issued a sort of emancipation edict in relation vinces, while in important respects autonomous, to slaves in his district. This does not mean is to be surrounded by safeguards calculated to much uumerically; but it is encouraging sa an repress unworthy tendencies. Municipal officers, indication that the problem may almost work. whether chosen by popular election or appointed itself out. Much will depend upon the treat- by local authority, must be subject always to ment of those who hold slaves." Since there oversight by the provincial officers. Bonds will is no reason to suppose that efforts will be be required of those handling public funds, and made to deprive them of this property the checks commonly used to prevent usurpation by force, the need will be for a” tactful and to encourage good behaviour will be applied. Governor in that district. Military manage- Of the five provincial officers, the Governor will ment there has been in the main discreet. be the only one to be elected, and his election There is no tribe hostile to Americans, and must be approved and confirmed by the executive many of them are quite friendly. If they shall authority of the islands. The Treasurer must have careful handling in the future, through qualify with a bond equal to the largest sum of civil agency, with the retention of a military money likely at any time to be in his hands, the foron as a visible expression of power, they may Supervisor must be an engineer, and the Fiscal become good subjects. The man who under- a lawyer. These officers, together with a Sec- takes to do this will have a task that will call retary, serve now in each organised province upon his ingenuity, his patience and his aptitude. under appointment, because the first provincial for dealing with human material that has here- election will not be held until next February. tofore always been unwieldy and unmanageable. It was not many years ago that the tribes were aggressive. All through the Visayas may be seen watch-towers that were built and occupied by natives as lookouts, that the people might be warned of the approach of savage invaders. Moros sent out their shell fleets over seas often turbulent, usually taking back with them booty and sometimes, slaves. So much has been said by everybody against the Spaniards that it is a relief to be able to give them credit for having put a stop to that as well as to the piracy that infested those waters. But the Spaniards could never do much with the tribes except defensive- ly. The nearest they came to accomplishing results by aggression was when they laid a bed for a railroad from Iligan to Lake Lanao, in Mindanao, took two or three gunboats up to the lake and dumped them there, after shelling the people away from the shores. The railroad enterprise failed, and the Americans may fish out the gunboats should they over wish to disperse the Moro settlement of 250,000 people at the lake. On the other hand, these very instruments may now be turned to account in a way to enlist Moro co-operation and en- couragement. If the Moros could be convinced that there were no menacing intentions toward them, and that ready access to the coast, by rail or any other kind of road, would bring them trade, money, and protection, it is by no means certain that they would oppose the improve ment. They are gifted with natural shrewdness, they have an eye for the main chance, and if they believe, as they say and not, that they will have fair play, there is no telling how far their disposition might be moulded for the acceptandé of suggestions in relation to other things. {
In some of the provinces, the representatives of the municipalities who met the Commission asked that preference be given to Americans in the appointments in order that the provincial machinery might be started right. The Com- mission has appointed, however, more Filipinos than Americans to the office of Governor. In every instance except one, the Americans appointed wore army officers, most of them volunteers whose military service is about to end. Suggestions for such appointments often came from natives, showing that officers whose, semi-civil duties brought them in contact with the people, not infrequently commanded such respect and affection as to make them the choice for the performance of duties wholly civil-quite as often American appointments were to be explained by faction feeling, running so high that the Commission chose this way of steering clear of it in its own work.
There has been some uneasiness over sup- posed military jealousy of the succession of civil power. While this is true in a measure, it may be said in general that where commanders have brought their districts into pacified condition, willingness to be succeeded by civil authority is most cheerful. In such dis riots military supremacy has been effective largely because it was judicious, applying when needed per emptory measures, and at other times well tempered consideration. There are districts in which commanders have matters so well in hand and understand conditions so thoroughly that they feel sincerely apprehensive lest a change of authority may menace the order now prevailing. Since troops will be at hand for an indefinite peried to uphold civil authority, fear of trouble on this account would seem to be needless. In districts not pacified, the military force will certainly not be reduced, and in some of those districts events have shown clearly enough that change is needed, and that even civil authority cannot be more inert or helpless than that which it will supersede. It is unfor- tunate for the peace of the islands that the provision was struck from the army bill which would hare entitled men long in service to retire one grade above their active rank, for that would have disposed of officers whose declining careers are so consumed with heartburnings, that younger men are promoted over their heads, as to unfit them for useful activity, disregarding any other causes. Whatever comment may be justified on
infinences which at one time possibly restrained military progress in the islands, events now prova that officers who bestir themselves for peaceful con- ditions are the ones for whom favours and approval are reserved, and that for a time at least a share of the honours has fallen to those whe earned them. The situation here in respect to the military personnel and the relation of that branch of the service to civil authority would need detailed treatment to make them clear. They serve now merely to accentuate conditions in some of the unpacified territory.
Whether opinions expressed at some of the meetings on the southern trip of the Commis- sion, that civil government might have been advantageously established in various provinces months ago, are justified or not, the conclusion will hardly be questioned that a long step toward the welfare of the islands will have been taken when the military becomes auxiliary to the civil establishment. It would be as unfortunate to continue military rule as to withdraw the troops. Giving full credit to the commanders for what they have accomplished, signs have everywhere appeared that it was not wholly force of arms that impelled many of the surrenders. Insurgents who have been pacified by capture or surrender are those who could become so without personal danger. In summing up military operations, it should not be over-supervisory and corrective power in the central looked that insurgents whose surrender with honours of war will not be permitted, manage to elude the troops as well as they ever did, and are still powerful for mischief. Even if all who are in were convinced of the hopelessness of their canse, it would be a violent assumption either that they were alone in that view or that they might not have remained out in spite of it. The fact is that the work of the Commission has led the people to wish to give a trial to the form of government that the Commission offers.
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There were several reasons for giving the natives preference whenever it could be done without friction. Since the Governor is to be the only one of the five provincial officers elected, the probabilities are that natives generally will hold that place. By starting with a native, the Commission may escape criticism that might otherwise possibly be leveled at it hereafter on this score. The Provincial Board for administrative purposes is to consist of the Governor, the Treasurer and the Supervisor, the last two of whom, beginning with the next official year, are to be selected under the provisions and restrictions of the Civil Service Act. In view of the high requirements that bar the way to these two offices, the probabilities are that for some years both of these offices will be held by Americans in nearly every province. The two officers will constitute a majority of the Provincial Board. In other words, the immediate control of provincial affairs will be in American hands, although natives may hold three of the five provincial offices. The Secre- tary is merely a recorder and keeper of records, and the Fiscal attends to law work for the province and its municipalities. In cases in which natives may cease to remain a minority in the Provincial Board, the law provides such government as to make provincial administra tion a dangerous undertaking. At nearly all of the meetings in provincial capitais, emphasis was laid on the prime importance of public service for the public good. Natives cannot fail to understand what is expected in this regard, or that it is the intention, so far as central authority can control, to hold strictly to the performance of his duties every public official, and they have been assured that profes- sions are to be upheld in practice to such an
ROADS AND CIVILISATION, D Tribal life implies isolation. One departure from the customs that have hedged the tribes may lead to others. It might not be too much to expect a multiplication of roads, should one experiment prove fortunate. Mando's order points to the effect of good treatment in s single neighbourhood. Other neighbourhoods might follow it under similar treatment. Blow as that process may be, an, atttempt to force such a result would probably be slower, Moros might be reached. for their traditions make them live near the water; but other tribes that practise slavery have their habitat in the wilds, where such small bodies of white troops as are likely to be kept in the southern islands could never run them down. If polygamy is over to be abolished it must be from enlightenment or self-interest. Talk about it at present might as well be addressed to the monkeys which share with the tribes the wilderness. There will be opportunity in that region to test the value of patience and tact as a civiliser, or to settle official opinion on the proposition that the only good savages are dead ones. It is
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