CHAPTER III

THE PHILIPPINES AND THEIR PEOPLE

O MEASURE the unknown in terms of the known is a human failing, with the result that many wellmeaning persons find no difficulty in "solving" our Philippine problem by formulæ derived from Plymouth Rock, Bunker Hill, and the Continental Congress. They forget or placidly ignore that the question has to do with a Malay people on the coasts of Asia who, whatever their capacity or limitations, certainly bear little resemblance to our Puritan or Revolutionary forbears. Approached as an abstract proposition, these same well-meaning persons will admit that unless you fashion your structure according to location and materials, it will probably prove a failure. Holding to this truth, it would seem logical that any future disposition of the Philippines by the United States, or any judgment as to past performance, must be based upon the character of material, both in territory and people, inherited from Spain in 1898. Examining the situation in this light, what are the facts?

By formal treaty with Spain, the United States became vested with title to and responsibility for the Philippine Archipelago and Guam. As to Guam, which furnishes a sort of stepping stone between the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines, no issue is presented, there being every assurance it will remain definitely American territory. There remains, therefore, the mooted question of the Philippines.

The Philippine Archipelago is entirely within the tropics, extending from 22° North Latitude to within less than 5° of the Equator, its length, north to south, being approximately one thousand miles. It comprises 3,141 islands, of which more than one thousand are of a size suitable for habitation and cultivation. Fronting directly on the mainland of Asia, the islands lie midway between the Japanese Empire to the north and Netherlands India to the south, with the British ports of Hong Kong and Singapore and French Indo-China just across the way. In their length, they stretch athwart the gateway leading from Europe and India to the Far East, and are on the direct trade route between Oceania, and the Dutch possessions to the south, and China, Japan, and Siberia to the north.

While adjacent to the most thickly populated countries of the world, the Philippines are themselves but sparsely inhabited. The following comparisons may prove interesting and significant.

With area of 115,026 square miles, the great bulk of which is cultivable, the Philippines have a population of less than 11,000,000. The Japanese Empire (excluding Korea and Formosa), with an area of but 140,778 square miles, less than 17 per cent. of which is cultivable, has approximately 57,000,000 inhabitants. Java, with area of 48,503 square miles, has a population of over 35,000,000. Six of the coastal provinces of China, being those most nearly adjacent to the Philippines, i. e., Kwantung, Fukien, Kiangsu, Anwei, Chekiang, and Shantung, with area of 363,220 square miles, have an estimated population of 165,000,000. As against less than 95 persons to the square mile in the Philippines, Japan has 392, Java 720, and the coastal provinces of China 454.

The great islands of Mindanao, Palawan, and Mindoro,

possibly the richest of the Philippine group in soil and natural resources, still remain to all intents unpopulated. With aggregate area of 44,170 square miles, or approximately that of Java, they have less than 750,000 inhabi

tants.

In agricultural, mineral, and forest wealth, as also in strategic trade location, the Philippines have been pronounced by experts to be the richest and most favoured group of tropical islands in the world. With every natural advantage, however, their potentialities in food and other products, the need and struggle for which are becoming increasingly desperate among the nations, are as yet scarcely touched. While the Dutch were developing their East Indian possessions, making of them a veritable treasure house for the inhabitants and the mother country, the Philippines lay dormant, dreaming away the centuries under the somnolent and archaic rule of Spain. Even at this time, despite the stimulus of twenty-five years of American rule, millions of dollars' worth of food products are imported annually. In 1923, importations of rice, the staple food of the people, amounted to $3,706,430, while in the same year importations of meat and dairy products, eggs, fish, and fish products, breadstuffs and vegetables, most of which could be produced in the islands, totalled $9,228,637.

Needless to say the exposed insular position of the archipelago, its extended coast line, sparse population, and undeveloped wealth, make it a coveted field for economic invasion by its more populous and industrious neighbours. The same conditions would, in case of war, subject it to attack from every quarter, and render any possibility of national defence, based upon local man power or revenues, altogether hopeless.

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As to the Filipino people, they belong, racially, to the Malay family, being kindred to the inhabitants of the Federated Malay States, Straits Settlements, Java, Borneo, the Celebes, and that litter of islands lying off the southeast coast of Asia. Just when the first Malay settlements were established in the Philippines is unknown. The wide difference in present types, however, indicates that this coming was in successive waves at widely varying intervals, the latest invasion being that of the Mohammedan Moros, now inhabiting the great island of Mindanao, the Sulu Archipelago, and adjacent seas.

The Malay, however, was himself a usurper, the aboriginal inhabitants of the Philippines being what are now known as Negritos. They are a small black people of doubtful ethnology, the average stature of the men being less than four feet six inches and that of the women under four feet. Of a timid disposition, and altogether primitive in intelligence, this pygmy race is gradually disappearing, the estimated survivors being less than thirty thousand. This remnant, which has resisted every attempt at civilization, is scattered throughout the mountains and unexplored forest areas of various islands, where they exist in a state of nature but little removed from our simian ancestors.

As lodgment was found in the islands by successive invaders, the earlier comers were forced backward into the remoter corners of the archipelago, where they preserved more or less intact their particular dialects, customs, and traditions. While the parent stock was Malay, there was no homogeneity of language among the different groups, nor any attempt to create a government or state which would include the whole population. The various communities remained altogether distinct, each constantly