of difficulties." Of the accuracy of this observation fresh proof is destined to be afforded by the settlement we have just made.

Foreign intercourse with China has always been unsatisfactory, and it will continue so indefinitely because of the exceptional rights and immunities which China has been forced to grant the foreigner. So long as China is treated differentially. - that is, so long as she is compelled to treat the foreigner within her borders as no Western power treats a Chinaman or other foreigner in like circumstances enlightened and patriotic Chinese will justly regard foreign intercourse as an evil. China cannot now meet this evil by regular warfare, and it is only natural that she should meet it by administrative obstruction, diplomatic finesse, and popular risings. There can be no just and lasting solution of the Chinese problem short of the admission of China into the family of nations on terms of perfect equality. The Western powers ought to encourage and assist China in the adoption of such judicial and administrative reforms as would make such admission safe. Unfortunately, there are several so-called Christian powers whose fixed policy it is to keep China weak, helpless, and degraded; and they are able to thwart the more humane and enlightened policy of the other powers. The only hope for China, therefore, is in the development of sufficient military strength to inspire fear and compel respect. She must imitate Japan. It was the Japanese army and navy, and not enlightened considerations of reciprocity, that induced the Western powers to surrender the right of extra-territoriality which they so long enjoyed in Japan.

The root of the difficulty in our relations with China lies in the fact that we impose upon her by force the obligations of a sovereign state in the family of nations, and at the same time withhold from her the rights of such a state. The Western powers say to China: You must allow our people to live among you; you must allow our merchants to trade and our missionaries to proselytize; you must allow us to navigate your inland waters and participate in your coasting trade, although we ourselves do not accord such privileges to the foreigner; you must allow us to send you opium, although you declare that it is injurious to the health and morals of your people, and that you could stamp out domestic production if importation were stopped; you must allow us to fix the amount of customs tariff we shall pay on your imports from us, although we ourselves regard the right of taxation as the most sacred of sovereign rights; you must allow our missionaries to reside in the interior of your country, but you must not exercise any authority over them, although their

WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE PHILIPPINES?

THE final disposition of the Philippine Islands will depend on questions of expediency, to be decided in a manner compatible with our national and international obligations. An intelligent discussion of the subject requires, therefore, a careful consideration of our past, present, and prospective relations with these people, and of the political, commercial, and industrial conditions of the Islands, past, present, and prospective; a correct appreciation of the fundamental principles of international law on which our responsibilities to the Philippines and to other nations are based; and an intimate knowledge of the political tendencies here as well as there, as probably affecting our future relations with them, whatever the final disposition of the Islands may be.

Our relations with the Filipinos began in a very favorable manner. We first came in contact with them through our able consular agents, and then through one of our greatest naval officers of this generation. Their representatives in that contact were of their ablest, most progressive type -men who had been prominent before the Filipino public for years; who had become leaders of the native population by their own force of character and as a result of preexisting conditions; and who, as the sequel undoubtedly proved, possessed the whole confidence and the loyal support of the majority of the Filipino people. Our attitude, as they saw it, was that of deliverers from the galling yoke of a foreign bondage which for three hundred years they had tried vainly to shake off. This attitude was guaranteed to them by the courteous hearings given to their representatives and by the cordial coöperation of their forces with ours in the beginning of the contest with Spain, and was clenched in their minds by the arms and ammunition supplied to them through the action of our authorities, with the full approval, as they believed, of the Administration. This was to their minds the crowning test of friendship, recognition, and alliance.

Following this came the sale of Spanish rights in the islands to the United States, and the assumption by our Government of sovereignty over the archipelago. There can be no doubt that our assumption was

and is correctly founded on the principles of international law. Sovereignty must be vested somewhere, in some recognized power in the family of nations. Revolutions, to be effective in the transfer of sovereignty, must be successful, and that success must be recognized. Technically,

in spite of the high-sounding phrases contained in our Declaration of Independence, the sovereignty of the colonies was probably vested in Great Britain, in the international sense, until she, by treaty, ceded that sovereignty to the new power which emerged from the throes of the eight years' revolution. It was certainly so vested until the recognition of our independence by France. There has never been a Filipino sovereignty recognized by Spain, by the United States, or by any other member of the family of nations. The existence of such a sovereignty was dependent on its success in obtaining recognition. This does not in any way conflict with the inherent ultimate right to a change of government by revolution — a right inalienably possessed by every people -but merely asserts the evident fact that to create a national existence such a revolution must succeed.

Hence, in the sense of international law, the sovereignty of the Philippine Islands was vested in Spain until she, by treaty, duly ceded that sovereignty to the United States, when the United States became fully vested therewith. Thus there devolved upon us full responsibility for the exterior relations of the islands and their internal administration. The nations of the world looked to us to guarantee to their subjects in that part of our territory the rights assured to them by treaty - protection commensurate with our power and responsibility.

Not only so; the inhabitants also had a right to look to us to redeem the constitutional pledges respecting personal rights and liberty which are guaranteed to every citizen of the United States by our own fundamental charter of organized government. Whether courts so hold or not, it is undoubtedly the desire of our people generally that the rights of free speech, of the free exercise of religion, of trial by jury, and of the benefit of habeas corpus shall extend to every person subject to the sovereign power of our country, with such limitations only as the safety of paramount public interests may require.

Yet a complication arose which disturbed the orderly and progressive application of these principles, and has proved to be a serious obstacle to peaceful progress. This impediment was simply the fact that Spain could not deliver possession. Cession of territory usually implies peaceable possession. In the case of Porto Rico, we had, by the able strategy of the commanding general, possession of all the country except the

armed camps of the Spaniards. But in that of the Philippines the conditions were reversed. Not only did we make use of the tacitly acknowledged allies, after arming them, but those same forces were actually, at the time of the cession of Spanish sovereignty, in effective possession of nearly all the archipelago except Manila, Iloilo, Baler, and perhaps one or two other unimportant points. Under the technical application of international law they had no sovereign rights; but the fact remains that they had actually made themselves masters of the territory, had captured the Spanish garrisons, were in possession of the official records, and, whether we acknowledge it or not, had organized a system of government, republican in form but imperial in nature, well suited to their needs and very effective in administration. Not only was Spain unable to deliver possession, but she left a legacy of strife entailed upon us by as unfortunate a series of misunderstandings as ever complicated a page in history.

It was hardly to be expected that the mass of the Filipino people would be able to discriminate as above on nice points of international law. The majority of our own people cannot do so. Still less could they appreciate the fine points of our internal system by which the final determination of our policy with reference to Spain and to them had to be postponed for the deliberative action of a political body, in which the most delicate points of our domestic and foreign relations were made the subject of heated and partisan discussions. Moreover, these discussions degenerated into acrimonious political recriminations in which not only the merits of the questions at issue, but likewise the lives and welfare of Filipinos and American soldiers, were equally forgotten, and in which after months of useless delay the honor of the United States, the integrity of the administration, and the dignity of our representatives abroad were upheld by the narrow margin of one vote.

When our own representatives, who had so unanimously plunged us into a war of which these conditions were the direct result, so far forgot that patriotic unanimity which ought to have characterized our whole course in everything relating to that war, less blame can be placed on the leaders of the revolution in the Philippines, who eagerly grasped at the tangible hope of independent sovereignty, of new-born but cherished nationality, thus so plainly set before them. The speeches of those who so noisily opposed the policy of the Administration were published broadcast in the islands by active agencies, not all of which were in the Philippines, and, translated into the Spanish language and thence into the native dialects, became the ordinary topic of daily discussion by the

simple natives in the remotest parts of the archipelago. Nor was it the judicial utterances of men of standing and wisdom, who conscientiously opposed the actual course of the Government, which received the widest circulation and carried the most weight. It was rather the incendiary utterances of partisan orators who openly condemned the policy of the Government that were most speedily translated, most widely distributed, and most eagerly read by the poor, deluded, ignorant people. They were thus lured on to deeds of violence against lawfully constituted authority, which deeds recoiled on their own heads, bringing untold misery and destruction.

The awakening has been painful. Slowly but surely the conviction has been driven home to them that nothing can stay the irresistible onward march of American authority in the Philippines. Its progress, although conducted as gently and with as little severity as possible, under such conditions, has been marked by many heartrending scenes of anguish. War is never a gentle minister, and civil war is the worst phase of armed conflict. When civil war degenerates into open bushwhacking and acknowledged guerilla operations but little can be added to its horrors, and that little has been added by the secret machinations of the unspeakable Katipunan society, controlled in the interest and for the personal aggrandizement of a few unscrupulous leaders, with absolute disregard for the honor, liberty, welfare, or happiness of any part of the people so powerfully affected by its terrible crimes.

The common people, not intelligent enough to discriminate between the treasonable rant of demagogues and the solid utterances of conservative statesmen or the formal announcements of government policy, and not sufficiently well informed to draw correct conclusions as to the significance of current events, bitterly charge the American people with deception, fraud, and duplicity. They honestly believe they are right. The few native leaders who are sufficiently well informed and intelligent to appreciate the stern conditions that have resulted from their rash, ill-considered, and selfish policy are utterly powerless to stem the tide of revolution. A few, in a half-hearted and uncertain way, professing of late a conversion of sentiment, and incited thereto by palpable hope of honors and emoluments, are timidly working with ostentatious publicity, that according to Filipino traits may conceal deep duplicity, for the pacification of the islands on the basis of autonomous government. The very suddenness of their conversion, and the honors and offices. that have fallen to some ex-revolutionists, discredit them in the eyes of their former followers, who rationally ask themselves whether it is safe