63^ THE mOPICAL AGRICULTUKIST. [March 1, 1900. 
MARKET RATES FOR OLD AND NEW PRODUCTS. 
(From Lewis £ Feat's Fortniyhth Prices Current, London, February iith, 1000. } 
isr No Price Current having reached us by latest mail, we omit the usual quotations 
and fill with other matter. 
THE VALUE OF THE PHILIPPINES. 
AN ADDliESS BY 8ENAT0B BKVEHIDGB OK INDIANA. 
" Mr. President, the times call for candor. The 
Philippines are ours forever, 'territory belonging to 
the XJnited States,' as the CuuMtitution culls them. 
And just beyond the Pbilippinen are China's illimi- 
table markets. We will not retreat from either. 
" China's trade is the mightiest commercial fact in 
our future. Her foreign commerce was .f2-<5, 7.88,300 
in 1897, of which we, her neighbor, had less than 
15 per cent, of which only a little more than half 
was merchandise soid to China by us. We ought 
to^have 50 per cent, and we will. And China's foreign 
eommerce is o.ily beginning. 
" The Philippines command the commercial sitna- 
tion of the entire East. Can America best trade 
with China from San Francisco or New York ? From 
San Francisco, of course, But if San Francisco were 
closer to China than New York is to Pittsburg, what 
then V And Manila is nearor Hongkong than Havana 
is to Washington. And yet American statesmen pian 
to surrender this commercial throne of the Orient 
where Providence and our soldiers' lives have placed 
us. When history comes to write the story of that 
suggested treason to American supremacy and there- 
fore to the spread of American civiiiziition, let her 
In mercy write that those who so proposed were 
merely blind and nothing more. 
" But if they did not command Cl"ina, India, the 
Orient, the whole of the Pacific for puiposes of ofieuce, 
defence and trade, the Philippines are ao valuable 
in themselves that wa should hold them. I have 
cruised more than 2,000 miles through the Ar?hipelago, 
ever) moment a surpiine at its loveliness and wealth. 
I have rodden hundreds of miles on the islands, 
every foot of the way a revelation of veget,ible and 
mineral riches. No land in Am'Srica surpasses in 
fertility the plains and valleys of Luzon. Bice and 
coffee, sugar and coconuts, hemp and tobacco, and 
many products of the temperat^j as well aa tropic 
zone grow in various sections of the archipelago. I 
have seen hundreds of bushels of Indian corn lying in a 
road fringed with banana trees. The forests of Negros, 
Mindanao, Mindora, Puauan and parts of Luzon are 
invaluable and intact. The wood of the Philippines 
can supply the furniture of the world for a century to 
come. At Oebu, Eev. Father Jolio Segrera told me 
that forty miles of Oebu's mountain chain are 
practically mountains of coal. Pablo Majla, one of the 
most reliable men on the isUmds, confiimed the state- 
ment. Some declare that the coal is only lignite, but 
ship captains who have used it told me it is better 
steamer fuel than the best coal of Japan, I have a 
nugget of pure gold picked up in its present form on 
the banks of a Philippine creek, I have gold dust 
washed out by crude processes of careless natives 
from the sands of a Philippine stream. Both indicate 
great deposits at the source from which they come. 
In one of the islands great deposits of copper exist un- 
touched. The mineral wealth of this empire of the 
ocean will one day surprise the world. I base this 
statement partly on personal observation, but chiefly 
on the testimony of foreign merchants in the Philip- 
pines who have practically investigated the subject 
and upon the unanimous opinion of natives and, 
priests. And the mineral wealth is but a small frac- 
tion of the agricultural wealth of these islands. 
" And the wood, hemp, copra and other products of 
the Philippines supply what we need and cannot our- 
selves produce. And the marke^ts they themselvei 
afford will be immense, Spain's ejcport and import 
trade with the islands undeveloped, was 812,175,549 
annually. Our trade with the islauds developed will 
be §125,000 000 annually ; for who believes that we 
cannot do ten times as well as Spain ? Consider their 
imperial dimensions. Luzon is larger and richer 
than New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois or Ohio. 
Mindanao is larger and richer than all New England. 
Manila, as a port of call and exchange, will in the 
time of men now living, far surpass Liverpool. Behold 
the exhaustlesa markets they command. It isaa if a half 
dozen of our states were set down between "Oceania" 
and the " Orient," and those states themselves nn- 
developed and unspoiled of their primitive wealth 
and resources. Nothing is so natural as trade with 
one's neighbours ; the Philippines make ns the nearest 
neighbonrs of ai the East.,' Nothing is more natural 
than to trade with those yoa know. This is the 
philosophy of all advertising. The Philippines 
bring us permanently face to face with the most 
sought customers of the world. National 
prestige, national propinquity, these and 
commercial activity are the elements of com- 
mercial success. The Philippines give the first ; the 
character of the American people supplies the last. 
It is a providential conjunction of all the elements 
of trade, of duty and of power. If we are willing to 
go to war rather than let England have a few feet 
of frozen Alaska, which affords no market and com- 
mands none, what should we not do rather than let 
England, Germany, Kussia or Japan have all the 
Philippines '! And no man on the spot can fail to see 
that this would be their fate if we retired. 
" The climate is the best tropic climate in the world. 
This is the belief of those who have lived in many 
tropic countries, with scores of whom I have talked on 
this point. My own experience with tropical condi- 
tions has not been exhaustive ; yet spea king from that 
experience, I testify that the climate of Iloilo, Suln, 
Oebu and even of Manila, greatly sur passes that of 
Hongkong." 
" Here, then> Senators, is the sitaati.on. Two years 
ago there was no land in all the ■world which we 
could occupy for any purpose. Our commerce was 
dally turning toward the Orient, and, geography and 
trade developments made necessary our commercial 
empire over the Pacific. And in th at ocean we had 
no commercial, naval or military base. Today we 
have one of the three great ocean possession of the 
globe, located at the most comma nding commercial, 
naval and military point in the e astern seas, within 
hail of India, shoulder with Chin si, richer in its own 
resources than any equal body of land on the entire 
globe, and peojjled by a race wl lich civilization de- 
mands shall be improved. Shall v re abandon it? That 
man little knows the common peo .pie of the Republic, 
little understands the instincts of oar race, who thinks 
we will not hold it fast, and hold it forever, ad- 
ministering just-government by simplest methods." 
In closing the Senator said : " Mr. Presideat and 
Seinators, adopt the resolution offered that peace may 
quickly conie and that we ma^ begin our civilizinx 
saving, regenerating and npli iting wdrk. Adopt it 
and this blood shed will ceas' t when these deluded 
children of our islands learn that this is the final 
action of the representatives of the Aaierican people 
in Congress assembled. Rejject ib, aad the world, 
history and the American people will look where to 
forever fix the awful responsibility for the consequen- 
ces that will surely follow such failure to do onr 
manifest duty. How dare we delay when soldiers' 
blocd is flovring." — American, Manila, 'Teb. 10. 
