The National Geographic Magazine 



labor, and it is quite possible that when 

 you go into the country you will find 

 more trouble in congregating labor ; 

 but those instances are enough to dem- 

 onstrate that Filipino labor is possible 

 of training ; that what is wanted is wages 

 enough to attract them and training 

 enough to make them effective ; and so, 

 with due respect to Mr Ireland, with 

 considerable personal experience in the 

 matter, I am confident that Filipino 

 labor is capable of development, and 

 that while the islands may develop 

 more slowly with Filipino labor, they 

 will develop much more to the advan- 

 tage of the Philippine people than if we 

 should admit the Chinamen. 



IvS OUR GOVERNMENT TOO EXPEN- 

 SIVE? 



And now a serious charge that is 

 made against the government is that it 

 is expensive ; and Mr Ireland figures 

 out that whereas Ceylon, Trinidad, the 

 Straits Settlements, and Burma cost 

 only about 27 per cent of the total 

 exports, the cost in the Philippines is 

 46 per cent. I agree that the cost 

 of the government, under the circum- 

 stances, is very heavy. It must be 

 taken into consideration, first, that this 

 proportion is made larger by the ex- 

 ports because of the deficiency of rail- 

 ways in the islands. In those other 

 colonies to which reference is made the 

 proportion of railways to the area is 

 very much greater than in the Philip- 

 pine Islands. In the Philippines there 

 is only one line of railway, 120 miles 

 in length ; so that when we introduce 

 railways 1,000 miles in length we may 

 suppose that the exports will become 

 greater, and that the proportion of the 

 exports will be very much reduced. 



But I wish also to call attention to the 

 fact that we have been going only three 

 years ; that we have been until three 

 years in a state of war; that our educa- 

 tion is 10 per cent of the exports; that 

 our constabulary necessary to restrain 



disturbed conditions is 6 per cent. Now, 

 the education of these other countries 

 was considerably less than 1 per cent. 

 That we have had because we have so 

 many to control, to build up an island 

 navy which cost us nearly three millions 

 of dollars and costs us upward of six or 

 seven hundred thousand dollars a year 

 to run ; that since we have been there 

 we have had a terrible scourge of chol- 

 era, which necessitated the expenditure 

 in the health department of a million dol- 

 lars ; that we had the rinderpest, that 

 carried away 90 per cent of our draft 

 animals and reduced the business of pro- 

 ducing for the purposes of export. 



Now, all these things Brother Ireland 

 does not consider at all in his comparison 

 between these countries of Ceylon, Trin- 

 idad, the Straits Settlements, and Bur- 

 ma, all of which have been prosperous, 

 and the Straits Settlements, as I have 

 said, receiving all its income from tin 

 and opium. 



I agree that we have too many Ameri- 

 cans in the government. You cannot 

 get an American to go 10,000 miles away 

 from home without paying him some- 

 thing and paying him much more than 

 you would pay a Filipino for doing the 

 same work, and we must expect to re- 

 duce the number of Americans as the 

 government goes on, and by reducing 

 the number of Americans reducing the 

 total expenditure, because in getting a 

 Filipino who will do the same work as 

 an American you ought to be able to get 

 him for half the price. 



Then Mr Ireland criticises severely the 

 treatment of the islands by this country 

 with respect to the tariff, and in that 

 respect I fully concur with him. I sin- 

 cerely hope that next year Congress will 

 reduce the tariff to nothing on all goods 

 produced in the Philippine Islands, ex- 

 cept tobacco and sugar, and reduce that 

 to 25 per cent, merely to justify our 

 putting a duty in the Philippines against 

 you until 1909, in order that the gov- 

 ernment may be supported and not lose 



