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as being reduced, and it has made an effort to supply another and more useful investment by the constinotion of railways, from part at least of the revenue raised from the royalty on tin. Since British protection the royalty on tin has yielded a total of $47,000,000, and the Federated States have in the same time expended $3,000,000 in the construction of railways, to which wili be added another $6,000,000, before the close of this year, when they will own 360 miles of fully equipped railways, constructed without the assistance of any borrowed money. Since the first section of railway was opened, the traffic receipt, up to the end of last year, amounted to $12,500,000, and the profits after payment of maintenance and working expenses, give a return of over eight per cent, on the capital expended. However valuable the tin may be as a reserve, while lying in the ground, it is probably of greater public advantage to have a railway system which helps the country -miners, planters, and traders alike-while yielding a considerable amount of revenue, and affording employment to a large number of people.'
•
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
uniformly distributed among the States thin has that of the Chinese or of any other race. Total population of the States has reached something more than 676,000, an increase of 61.55 per cent, in ten years. It may not be that the Malay increase originated wholly within the States for the comfortable conditions there have doubtless attractel Malay immigration from neighbouring districts. But the birth | rate has been noticeably large, reflecting general happiness, a satisfying prosperity, and whole- some living,
What federation has done for the Malay must be measured by standards of government. While commera, and industry are of course dependent upon orderly rale, the Malay con- tributes so little to either of these lines that the contentment which he manifests is to be traced
Malays attend the schools only moderately well. They cultivate the rice fields, and many of the educated among them get clerkships in public offices and in commercial houses. are 193 vernacular aid State-aided schools in
There
[March 29, 1902.
THE HONGKONG JUNTA.
The following, says the Manila Times, is an open letter sent out in printed form by one of the Hongkong Junta, Venancio Concepcion, who is about to give up the isolated and useless struggle and is anxious to return to his native land and settle down once more with his family. The epistle is addressed to the Filipinos at large and gives his reasons for his present action. From late advices from Hongkong it appears that the letter voices the sentiments of the majority of the Junts, although a few still oling to the phantom of independence and desire to prolong, in every way possible, opposition to the United States.
"maui.
The following is the translation of a festo". It is printed in and dated from Hong- kong, January 31st:-" More providential events than those resulting from the efforts of men. and which will be noted in the ineffaceable pages of history, have given you a conceptioa of the sublime ideal of liberty. As your faithful son, I swore blind obedience, and I cheered for your life, brandishing the arm which you had placed in my hands for the defence of our sacred rights. But as I now see you resigned to the dictates of Fate, I think the time has arrived, on the prin ciple of noblesse oblige, for me to relinquish my task, by giving through the efforts of my feeble pen an account of what I have done, before enter the life of what is my sacred duty
my family.
to causes bearing only remotely upon pecuniary considerations. Mr. Treacher, in discussing this question, says that the reply to it is that protection has given to the Malay security for life and property unknown before to the common peopl, when wives, daughters and property were at the mercy of the aristo. cracy; it has given him a permanent title to his Development in tin mining may find no land; it l'as established for him means of com. parallel in the Philippines, but it may be munication by road and rail; it has opened for noted that although tin had been taken from the him a local market for his labour and his produce. Peninsula for centuries, the industry in earlier it offers him free education for his children, free years was precarious and only moderately pro hospital treatment, an'l medicines when sick, and ductive. In the disturbed conditions that pre-banks where he can deposit at interest his small vailed, a miner could become prosperous safely earnings: it has abolished slavery and piracy I only if he were strong enough to defend his and practically put an end to the scourges of property. Otherwise, his operations were small-pox and cholera; it has helped to drain and attended with as great risk to person and pro-irrigate the padi-fields, contributed to the cost of perty as were ever mining operations in the mosques, opened to the native offices under the Philippines under the blighting greed of Spanish government at good salaries and secured pen- officials. Miners got their first fair opportunity sion, and disposed of arbitrary taxation, forced ander British protection, which opened the field levies, and compulsory labour. In return for quite as unreservedly and insured the legitimate these benefits, he pays to the Government only product of private or corporate enterprise as
a small annual quit-rent, if he is a landholder, completely as can now occur in the Philippines. and nothing on the products of his labour, whe- Possibly the tin taken out in the earlier years may ther he may sell them in the home market or have been worth more than the gold obtained export them. from the washings in the Luzon Lills, but in general mining was conducted under disadvantages so grave as to justify com- parisons between the Peninsula and the archipelago. When the field became free in the Peninsula, and individual rights were guaranteed real development began. Until then there was small incentive to explore the wealth of the land, which since then has yielded many fortunes and has brought to the states a degree of prosperity rare for a like area in any part of the world. The Peninsula had no such ready made advantages as nature bestowed on the archipelago. Its agricultural product was rice grown in quantities barely sufficient to feed the inhabitants. Many would have starved, had they relied on this product. Only a small pro- portion of the land ever know cultivation, and the abounding jungle and swamp barred ap- proach to much of it. Railways and roads have virtually created a territory of vast fertility, to be enriched further by irrigation until, quite apart from the mines, products are assured from the States as varied and bountiful as may be had in any tropical region. Experiments have not yet tested the capabilities of the Peninsula in tobacco and hemp, nor is it supposed that the Peninsula will develop those staples of wealth as has the archipelago, but in coffee, tea, cinchona, pepper, rubber, and various fruits, the outlook is promising; there are undoubted possibilities in sugar; and inspection of the forests has encouraged the hope that in this line may be developed one of the most important industries in the States:
towards
"In thus realising my task. I do not wish to pose, and much less to minimise the reverses which your fate has met, and over which you still inourn. I know the first is due to human nature, and in the second I am even a partisan. I therefore wish to place matters in their proper light, for the peace of my conscience.
+4
I endeavoured in an honourable and dignified manner to carry out the duties with which you had entrusted me, forsaking the dear faces of my family and my personal interests, from that night of the 4th November, 1893, in the land of the Hongas, in Panay. Thereafter you sent me to Luzon in January, 1899, entrusting me with posts of honour in the battles of Bulacan Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, and Tarlac, when you the States, with nearly 9,000 pupils, many, of thought fit to place me under the immediate orders of your first Chief Commander, Sr. them Chinese. In most of the vernacular schools, a special teacher is engaged to give
Aguinaldo, as chief of his general staff, being and instruction in the Koran. Hospital patronage
followed through Pangasinan, Union is mainly Chinese, but the Malays have cheer-
Lepanto, and in the mountainous districts of Hocos Tiagau, Lepanto and Bontoc, until the fully submitted to measures for sanitation, and the pests to which Mr. Treacher alludes, dreaded 14th December following, when I presented in the Peninsula in other years as is the visita-myself as an envoy of your forces to suggest tion of a typhoon in the Philippines, and demanding victims in every district, have been stamped out.
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the suspension of hostilities to the then head of the American military forces in Cagayan Lepanto, by whom I was received and detained antil I was brought before General Otis, who, owing to the circumstances and conditions of the country, ordered me to prison. I was incarcerated on the 18th December in the Anda Street police station, where. I must state with all justice, I was well treated and received the utmost consideration from my captors.
The native may work as little as he likes It does not make him at all envious to see others about him taking wealth from land that might be his. The dainty taste that once distinguished him in the murderous kris, fashioned to cut like a razor, yet embellished with inlayings of gold or silver, the handles in exquisite carving in
"In regard to the advice given by certain mem- bone, ivory, or rare woods, finds expression now bers of your ephemeral government, which was only in the colour blendings and draperies of the covened with the consent of the local authorities, sarong which hangs like a close fitting skirt I took the oath of allegiance towards the United from his waist. Now that the kris forms no States on the 23rd of June, 1900, as being the longer art of the everyday outfit, and men may protectors of your rights and liberties, but this go safely about the settlements unarmed, the form was rejected and I was held prisoner until the 26th of the month, when, after deliberation old art has been laid aside, and has left no worthy successor. Managing to get on to-day, with your pro-consuls in regard to your rights the native borrows no worry for the future, and being ultimately recognised, I swore allegiance does not take life seriously otherwise, beyond his to the American sovereignty, upon which I was necessities There is not a sordid atom in him. given my liberty, conditionally on my reporting Disinclination to undertake ordinary labour He is genial, generous, strong in his attaob-myself every Saturday to the provost-marshal, characterises the Malays here, as elsewhere.ments, ready to risk anything in service that | which I did, and it was only in the middle of the Some of them have become well-to-do through he deems exalted, inclined to a dependency which month of July, 1991, that this formality was the accident of ownership in land which others will not degrade him, and most obliging and waived. mainly Chinese, were glad to rent for responsive' under decent treatment. He likes "Notwithstanding such a rigorous supervision, mining, and to pay well for it. Chinese furnish his own way, and is sensitive to slight; and and in spite of the numerous and dangerous nearly all the miners, as well as the operators. gratitude, and trust are within the range of his mistakes which were then being daily commit. They have succeeded, employing primitive emotions, although neither may yet have beented, and the uncharitable manner in which cer methods, where Europeans have failed, and min- convincingly displayed in the Philippines. tain of my actions were looked upon, it is ing promises to remain in their hands. That Metaphor may be strained which designates nevertheless a well-known fact that I unicon- account for the great increase in the Chinese him as the gentleman of the East, but his in-ditionally placed my poor services at your population, from 163,000 in 1891, to 303,00 instincts are likeable, and improved acquaintance 1901. In Perak and Selangor, the great tin producing States, the Chinese ontnumber the Malays by 78,000. Malay population has advanced, however, from 230,000 in 1891, to 313,000 in 1901, and the increase has been more
with him prompts the wish that the energy which he is ever ready to exhibit in lines where courage and daring shine might be broadened for more practical account, English care has not advanced him in that direction.
disposal, with the same disinterestedness with which I have always acted, when I was sent by you to come here and work in the interests of peace, and I again abandoned my family hearth and home and came here where I now find my self, depending upon the small pittances you
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