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October 12, 1901.] POLITICS IN THE PHILIPPINES.
FROM A CORRESPONDENT.]
Manila, 5th October.
THE NATIONAL PARTY.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
those not of his following, his newspaper dis- covered that the need of the islands was autonomy, and it has since then been studiously vagno in advocating it.
THE KATIPUNAN,
This course made so little headway for his Surmise will not go far astray which attri- plans, offices and honours falling invariably to butes to the National Party, now advertising the other side, that a party organisation seemed itself with a declaration of principles, the aspirn-essential He is quite averse to hiding himself, tions of "outs" in Philippine politics who wish but sufficient reasons, apparently, have kept to become "ins." The party had to declare for him in the background in this movement, while something, and so chose to rally around others have been the spokesmen. The editor autonomy, a term as elastic in these islands as of another newspaper served as his agent in anywhere else. If in spite of a belated appear. bringing the new party to the attention of ance in the open field, the party may so far
those in authority. This person had no enviable forestall Federal plans as to save for itself some
task. His notions about autonomy were as of the nuggets from the official mine that the obscure as any that Paterno's newspaper had Federals are working, autonomy will mean advocated, and in drawing away from enquiry, little more than the measure of self-government rather more prying than had been expected which the municipal and provincial laws already into the meaning of the term, he took refuge provide. Should the Federal leaders continue to in the declaration that the party was founded absorb all the good things with which the on the Katipnuau. which he declared to be yet appointing power hopes to compose the native existing. to be 490,000 strong and to be as mind, autonomy may not stop far short of united as ever in behalf of native welfare. Kati. independence in its demands.
punan was a good word with which to conjure | in other years. It implied secrecy, mystery. and a power to be dreaded. The word meurs a league. When the friars denounced it to the Spanish authorities, they made it appear that it was a league for intrigue and assassination; a branch of free-masonry, with murderous designs upon the priesthood and upon the Whether or not agents of the government. these were the purposes of its organisation, they may well have been adopted. for the wholesale arrests which occurred at the instance of the priests, the executions and deportations that followed, the confiscation of property and ruin of families in the train of these proceedings, and the other fresh tyrannies imposed under cover of punishment for treason and for plots to overthrow church and state and against loyal lives, could have have had no effect more natural than to drive to desperation the native temper and goad the Katipunan into living up
to its reputation.
PEDRO PATERNO.
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What the Katipunan may have been, original- or in its development, is of no importance in the present administration of affairs. Nothing has occurred under American government to justify its existence, and least of all in the last There are men here awaiting trial for plotting an outbreak. At the time of their arrest recently, they let it be understood that they were acting under the Katipunan, and that the masses of the people were behind them. Scarcely anyone attached credence to this state- ment. the common belief being that here were a few fanatics who imagined that they had a mission to strike at authority and were willing to suffer death in the hope of winuing renown as martyrs. Their relationship to the Katipu- nan excited much the same comment that applies to the vagabonds who appear now and then in peaceable districts and exact tribute in the guise of insurrectos.
Politics is an occupation in which the native of parts delights. It has often opened a way not only to fame but to fortune. Whatever | the original resources of Pedro A. Paterno, the directing force behind the National Party, there would probably be trouble in gathering a consensus of public belief that in the devotion of his talents to the affairs of state his pocket has suffered. Such money as Spain may have paid to get rid of the insurrecto leaders in 1897, when Aguinaldo and the rest moved over to Hongkong, passed through, Paterno's hands. According to the agreement between Governor- General Rivera and Paterno, the total sum was to be $1,700,000, of which $700,000 was for families of those, not insurgents, who had suffered from the effects of the insurrection, and $800,000 was to be for the rebels in arms, one-half payable to Paterno in Hongkong by demand draft, and two cheques for $200,000 each. payable when peace should be fully established. No record has ever been made public of the proposedly disposition of the remaining $200,000. Whether it was intended that this sum should cover expenses or be lost in the shuffle, may be left to conjecture, for the records made public are quite silent on the subject. The memorandum that did get into print provided expressly that the distribution of money should be left abso- lutely to the discretion of Paterno. Thus he acted within his rights if he handel to Aguinaldo, in Hongkong, $200,00, as has been lately reported, instead of $400,000, the sum commonly credited to that transaction. Paterno himself is on record as saying that the sum entrusted to him for use in Hongkong was $300,000. In an appeal for a reward for his eminent services -the gift to be a title of Prince or Duke and Grandee of the First Class, and $1,000,000-he set forth that he could prove that he had an in-
COMMISSIONER WRIGHT. come of $25,00, or more: Fortune had thus not been unkind to him, whatever its source.
When the agents of Paterno, however, at- It is a tribute to the political skill of Paterno, tempt to revive the Katipunan as a power in that although he was universally denounced by politics, declare themselves its representatives, the natives for his action in aiding Spain to
and undertake to secure for it official recogni- trick the native leaders into a treaty, by pro-
tion, Commissioner Wright. before whom the - mise of substantial payments of money. the committee of Nationals first appeared, thought deputies to the first Insurrecto Congress, in it time to stamp with official disapproval,once September 1898, elected him President of that for all the scheme of managing politics through body. His presence of mind did not desert him a secret society. Ho le: the committee under even in that exalted station. Indeed he seemed stand that, according to the American view, that specially alert there in watching and guessing way of dealing with public concern was wholly how the cat,would jump, and when the bad, and hence could expect no sympathy or tol- American troops invested the rebel capital and eration from those in authority. The National moved northward, a longing to escape the spokesman explained at length that action turmoil of fatile strife and to enjoy once more
hereafter would be quite open, as he had so home quiet possessed him, and he made his way advised the various lodges and they had all back to Manila. He gathered a following here, agreed, but the prospect was not only too verbose and soon after the arrival of the present Civil to be wholly credited but it left the impression Commission he appeared before it to propose that he had assumed to speak in a capacity that the role of mediator, in which he had more widely representative than the faots figured with, Spain, presumably to his personal warranted. His notions of autonomy, what- liking in spite of the execrations of his country-ever they may hare meant to himself. could not
be reassigned him, in order that he might bring in Aguinaldo and put an end to dis- order. He failed to impress the American authorities as well as he had the Spanish Governor-General, and then had recourse to a newspaper, whose excuse for publication was to keep himself in public and official view and to check the schemes of other natives ambitious in politics. When official favour smiled upon
men,
suggest an improvement upon the work already done toward enlarging the scope of popular gor- erment, although he did not regard the laws so far put in operation as affording as ample authority as the natives wished, or as promising. the ultimate independence of the Philippines, under the protectorate of the United States. He was flatly informed by Commissioner Wright and afterward by Governor Taft, that the
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sovereignty of the United States in the islands must be accepted without question and could not be discussed.
PATERNO'S AIM.
There need be
concern over the new record that Paterno has thus made, for he him- self is not likely to regard it seriously, or as anything except a means of maintaining a fac- tion leadership and thereby perhaps enabling him to figure at some time in official calculations. A following is necessary to his political being. There will always be natives in sufficient number outside the pasture of pa'ronage to support a faction in opposition to the government. If Patern can keep himself at the head of some- thing, he will doubtless feel that his turn may come. His hope is to be in line for favour, if he cannot at once enjoy it.
Chances in that respect appear now remote. Paterno probably does not know that he has much to unlearn. With all his adroitness in dealing with Spaniards and natives, he retains uotions that are quite unrepublican, and his earlier successes were not calculated to leave him with deprecatory opinions of himself. The fondness for titles displayed when he wished Spain to reward him with nobility, has not yet been eradicated. Only the other day he appeared before the Commission and suggested that persons proposing important public im- provements or measures for the general welfare be rewarded with money and titles. The argu ment he had prepared to enforce that sugges- tion suffered abrupt curtailment, for it was a busy day with the Commission. There is no doubt that he would have elaborated his idea had he been permitted to do so. What he said is a matter of common knowledge, for he spoke in public meeting. His retention of the leader- ship of the National Party, in the face of that exhibition, may be taken as a forecast, so far as the working of the native mind may be divined, of what might happen in a Philippine Republic were such a man to have voice in its control.
A PRACTICAL MAN,
As with others of his race, the theories of Paterno do not handicap his regard for practical personal benefits. His newspaper may denounce the other side, and incidentally those in authority. It may not do for him in his platform, or otherwise in political profession, to admit that American rule holds eat much hope for the people of his race. Yet deplorable as are existing conditions, he seems to think them quite favourable to the Two advancement of his private fortune. civil engineers, just returned from an inspec- tion trip into the eastern and northern parts of this island, have with them specimens of coal and of gold-bearing quartz. They say they found in Principe and Isabela Provinces large coal deposits of good quality. Whereever they went in those provinces, they were confronted with documents, purporting to be from Paterno, to the effect that he had acquired an estate in the lands and warning all persons against tres- pass. Mining titles are not yet worth examina- tion, but presumably Paterno is one of thous- ands who filed claims when American conquest seemed assured, in the belief that if they could secure. official certification, the government would protect title and insure benefits against all comers. It may be doubted if Paterno's faith in the protection of his rights would be as firm as now were there a prospect of a transfer of government to his own kind, or after his own fashioning. He is a believer in the doctrine that patriotism is patriotism and business is business, and that the two have no necessary relation.
THE FEDERAL PARTY,
It will not do to trust impicitly to the Fede
new rule. rals as unchanging allies of the Their leaders figured less conspicuously per
affairs of baps than did Paterno in the other days, but political chance did that for them. rather than a disposition to let Paterno outshine them. A recent order from Spain withdrew decorations that had been conferred upon Dr. Tavera, President of the Federal Party and now one of the Legislative Com- trip of seven mission, at $5,000 per year. In a weeks through the southern islands with the Civil Commission, he permitted himself to be introduced at nearly every meeting as a man who had consented to go on the trip out of pure patriotism, to the neglect of his valuable pri- vate practice. The speeches that he made at Americanism, these meetings burned with destined to redeem and elevate his people
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