The Philippines A Century Hence Part 2

A government that rules a country from a great distance is the one that has the most need for a free press, more so even than the government of the home country, if it wishes to rule rightly and fitly. The government that governs in a country may even dispense with the press (if it can), because it is on the ground, because it has eyes and ears, and because it directly observes what it rules and administers. But the government that governs from afar absolutely requires that the truth and the facts reach its knowledge by every possible channel, so that it may weigh and estimate them better, and this need increases when a country like the Philippines is concerned, where the inhabitants speak and complain in a language unknown to the authorities. To govern in any other way may also be called governing, but it is to govern badly. It amounts to p.r.o.nouncing judgment after hearing only one of the parties; it is steering a ship without reckoning its conditions, the state of the sea, the reefs and shoals, the direction of the winds and currents. It is managing a house by endeavoring merely to give it polish and a fine appearance without watching the money-chest, without looking after the servants and the members of the family.

But routine is a declivity down which many governments slide, and routine says that freedom of the press is dangerous. Let us see what History says: uprisings and revolutions have always occurred in countries tyrannized over, in countries where human thought and the human heart have been forced to remain silent.

If the great Napoleon had not tyrannized over the press, perhaps it would have warned him of the peril into which he was hurled and have made him understand that the people were weary and the earth wanted peace. Perhaps his genius, instead of being dissipated in foreign aggrandizement, would have become intensive in laboring to strengthen his position and thus have a.s.sured it. Spain herself records in her history more revolutions when the press was gagged. What colonies have become independent while they have had a free press and enjoyed liberty? Is it preferable to govern blindly or to govern with ample knowledge?

Some one will answer that in colonies with a free press, the prestige of the rulers, that prop of false governments, will be greatly imperiled. We answer that the prestige of the nation is preferable to that of a few individuals. A nation acquires respect, not by abetting and concealing abuses, but by rebuking and punishing them. Moreover, to this prestige is applicable what Napoleon said about great men and their valets. We, who endure and know all the false pretensions and petty persecutions of those sham G.o.ds, do not need a free press in order to recognize them; they have long ago lost their prestige. The free press is needed by the government, the government which still dreams of the prestige which it builds upon mined ground.

We say the same about the Filipino representatives.

What risks does the government see in them? One of three things: either that they will prove unruly, become political trimmers, or act properly.

Supposing that we should yield to the most absurd pessimism and admit the insult, great for the Philippines, but still greater for Spain, that all the representatives would be separatists and that in all their contentions they would advocate separatist ideas: does not a patriotic Spanish majority exist there, is there not present there the vigilance of the governing powers to combat and oppose such intentions? And would not this be better than the discontent that ferments and expands in the secrecy of the home, in the huts and in the fields? Certainly the Spanish people does not spare its blood where patriotism is concerned, but would not a struggle of principles in parliament be preferable to the exchange of shot in swampy lands, three thousand leagues from home, in impenetrable forests, under a burning sun or amid torrential rains? These pacific struggles of ideas, besides being a thermometer for the government, have the advantage of being cheap and glorious, because the Spanish parliament especially abounds in oratorical paladins, invincible in debate. Moreover, it is said that the Filipinos are indolent and peaceful--then what need the government fear? Hasn't it any influence in the elections? Frankly, it is a great compliment to the separatists to fear them in the midst of the Cortes of the nation.

If they become political trimmers, as is to be expected and as they probably will be, so much the better for the government and so much the worse for their const.i.tuents. They would be a few more favorable votes, and the government could laugh openly at the separatists, if any there be.

If they become what they should be, worthy, honest and faithful to their trust, they will undoubtedly annoy an ignorant or incapable minister with their questions, but they will help him to govern and will be some more honorable figures among the representatives of the nation.

Now then, if the real objection to the Filipino delegates is that they smell like Igorots, which so disturbed in open Senate the doughty General Salamanca, then Don Sinibaldo de Mas, who saw the Igorots in person and wanted to live with them, can affirm that they will smell at worst like powder, and Senor Salamanca undoubtedly has no fear of that odor. And if this were all, the Filipinos, who there in their own country are accustomed to bathe every day, when they become representatives may give up such a dirty custom, at least during the legislative session, so as not to offend the delicate nostrils of the Salamancas with the odor of the bath.

It is useless to answer certain objections of some fine writers regarding the rather brown skins and faces with somewhat wide nostrils. Questions of taste are peculiar to each race. China, for example, which has four hundred million inhabitants and a very ancient civilization, considers all Europeans ugly and calls them "fan-kwai,"

or red devils. Its taste has a hundred million more adherents than the European. Moreover, if this is the question, we would have to admit the inferiority of the Latins, especially the Spaniards, to the Saxons, who are much whiter.

And so long as it is not a.s.serted that the Spanish parliament is an a.s.semblage of Adonises, Antinouses, pretty boys, and other like paragons; so long as the purpose of resorting thither is to legislate and not to philosophize or to wander through imaginary spheres, we maintain that the government ought not to pause at these objections. Law has no skin, nor reason nostrils.

So we see no serious reason why the Philippines may not have representatives. By their inst.i.tution many malcontents would be silenced, and instead of blaming its troubles upon the government, as now happens, the country would bear them better, for it could at least complain and with its sons among its legislators would in a way become responsible for their actions.

We are not sure that we serve the true interests of our country by asking for representatives. We know that the lack of enlightenment, the indolence, the egotism of our fellow countrymen, and the boldness, the cunning and the powerful methods of those who wish their obscurantism, may convert reform into a harmful instrument. But we wish to be loyal to the government and we are pointing out to it the road that appears best to us so that its efforts may not come to grief, so that discontent may disappear. If after so just, as well as necessary, a measure has been introduced, the Filipino people are so stupid and weak that they are treacherous to their own interests, then let the responsibility fall upon them, let them suffer all the consequences. Every country gets the fate it deserves, and the government can say that it has done its duty.

These are the two fundamental reforms, which, properly interpreted and applied, will dissipate all clouds, a.s.sure affection toward Spain, and make all succeeding reforms fruitful. These are the reforms sine quibus non.

It is puerile to fear that independence may come through them. The free press will keep the government in touch with public opinion, and the representatives, if they are, as they ought to be, the best from among the sons of the Philippines, will be their hostages. With no cause for discontent, how then attempt to stir up the ma.s.ses of the people?

Likewise inadmissible is the objection offered by some regarding the imperfect culture of the majority of the inhabitants. Aside from the fact that it is not so imperfect as is averred, there is no plausible reason why the ignorant and the defective (whether through their own or another's fault) should be denied representation to look after them and see that they are not abused. They are the very ones who most need it. No one ceases to be a man, no one forfeits his rights to civilization merely by being more or less uncultured, and since the Filipino is regarded as a fit citizen when he is asked to pay taxes or shed his blood to defend the fatherland, why must this fitness be denied him when the question arises of granting him some right? Moreover, how is he to be held responsible for his ignorance, when it is acknowledged by all, friends and enemies, that his zeal for learning is so great that even before the coming of the Spaniards every one could read and write, and that we now see the humblest families make enormous sacrifices in order that their children may become a little enlightened, even to the extent of working as servants in order to learn Spanish? How can the country be expected to become enlightened under present conditions when we see all the decrees issued by the government in favor of education meet with Pedro Rezios who prevent execution thereof, because they have in their hands what they call education? If the Filipino, then, is sufficiently intelligent to pay taxes, he must also be able to choose and retain the one who looks after him and his interests, with the product whereof he serves the government of his nation. To reason otherwise is to reason stupidly.

When the laws and the acts of officials are kept under surveillance, the word justice may cease to be a colonial jest. The thing that makes the English most respected in their possessions is their strict and speedy justice, so that the inhabitants repose entire confidence in the judges. Justice is the foremost virtue of the civilizing races. It subdues the barbarous nations, while injustice arouses the weakest.

Offices and trusts should be awarded by compet.i.tion, publishing the work and the judgment thereon, so that there may be stimulus and that discontent may not be bred. Then, if the native does not shake off his indolence he can not complain when he sees all the offices filled by Castilas.

We presume that it will not be the Spaniard who fears to enter into this contest, for thus will he be able to prove his superiority by the superiority of intelligence. Although this is not the custom in the sovereign country, it should be practiced in the colonies, for the reason that genuine prestige should be sought by means of moral qualities, because the colonizers ought to be, or at least to seem, upright, honest and intelligent, just as a man simulates virtues when he deals with strangers. The offices and trusts so earned will do away with arbitrary dismissal and develop employees and officials capable and cognizant of their duties. The offices held by natives, instead of endangering the Spanish domination, will merely serve to a.s.sure it, for what interest would they have in converting the sure and stable into the uncertain and problematical? The native is, moreover, very fond of peace and prefers an humble present to a brilliant future. Let the various Filipinos still holding office speak in this matter; they are the most unshaken conservatives.

We could add other minor reforms touching commerce, agriculture, security of the individual and of property, education, and so on, but these are points with which we shall deal in other articles. For the present we are satisfied with the outlines, and no one can say that we ask too much.

There will not be lacking critics to accuse us of Utopianism: but what is Utopia? Utopia was a country imagined by Thomas Moore, wherein existed universal suffrage, religious toleration, almost complete abolition of the death penalty, and so on. When the book was published these things were looked upon as dreams, impossibilities, that is, Utopianism. Yet civilization has left the country of Utopia far behind, the human will and conscience have worked greater miracles, have abolished slavery and the death penalty for adultery--things impossible for even Utopia itself!

The French colonies have their representatives. The question has also been raised in the English parliament of giving representation to the Crown colonies, for the others already enjoy some autonomy. The press there also is free. Only Spain, which in the sixteenth century was the model nation in civilization, lags far behind. Cuba and Porto Rico, whose inhabitants do not number a third of those of the Philippines, and who have not made such sacrifices for Spain, have numerous representatives. The Philippines in the early days had theirs, who conferred with the King and the Pope on the needs of the country. They had them in Spain's critical moments, when she groaned under the Napoleonic yoke, and they did not take advantage of the sovereign country's misfortune like other colonies, but tightened more firmly the bonds that united them to the nation, giving proofs of their loyalty; and they continued until many years later. What crime have the Islands committed that they are deprived of their rights?

To recapitulate: the Philippines will remain Spanish, if they enter upon the life of law and civilization, if the rights of their inhabitants are respected, if the other rights due them are granted, if the liberal policy of the government is carried out without trickery or meanness, without subterfuges or false interpretations.

Otherwise, if an attempt is made to see in the Islands a lode to be exploited, a resource to satisfy ambitions, thus to relieve the sovereign country of taxes, killing the goose that lays the golden eggs and shutting its ears to all cries of reason, then, however great may be the loyalty of the Filipinos, it will be impossible to hinder the operations of the inexorable laws of history. Colonies established to subserve the policy and the commerce of the sovereign country, all eventually become independent, said Bachelet, and before Bachelet all the Phoenecian, Carthaginian, Greek, Roman, English, Portuguese and Spanish colonies had said it.

Close indeed are the bonds that unite us to Spain. Two peoples do not live for three centuries in continual contact, sharing the same lot, shedding their blood on the same fields, holding the same beliefs, worshipping the same G.o.d, interchanging the same ideas, but that ties are formed between them stronger than those fashioned by arms or fear. Mutual sacrifices and benefits have engendered affection. Machiavelli, the great reader of the human heart, said: la natura degli huomini, e cosi obligarsi per li beneficii che essi fanno, come per quelli che essi ricevono (it is human nature to be bound as much by benefits conferred as by those received). All this, and more, is true, but it is pure sentimentality, and in the arena of politics stern necessity and interests prevail. Howsoever much the Filipinos owe Spain, they can not be required to forego their redemption, to have their liberal and enlightened sons wander about in exile from their native land, the rudest aspirations stifled in its atmosphere, the peaceful inhabitant living in constant alarm, with the fortune of the two peoples dependent upon the whim of one man. Spain can not claim, not even in the name of G.o.d himself, that six millions of people should be brutalized, exploited and oppressed, denied light and the rights inherent to a human being, and then heap upon them slights and insults. There is no claim of grat.i.tude that can excuse, there is not enough powder in the world to justify, the offenses against the liberty of the individual, against the sanct.i.ty of the home, against the laws, against peace and honor, offenses that are committed there daily. There is no divinity that can proclaim the sacrifice of our dearest affections, the sacrifice of the family, the sacrileges and wrongs that are committed by persons who have the name of G.o.d on their lips. No one can require an impossibility of the Filipino people. The n.o.ble Spanish people, so jealous of its rights and liberties, can not bid the Filipinos renounce theirs. A people that prides itself on the glories of its past can not ask another, trained by it, to accept abjection and dishonor its own name!

We who today are struggling by the legal and peaceful means of debate so understand it, and with our gaze fixed upon our ideals, shall not cease to plead our cause, without going beyond the pale of the law, but if violence first silences us or we have the misfortune to fall (which is possible, for we are mortal), then we do not know what course will be taken by the numerous tendencies that will rush in to occupy the places that we leave vacant.

If what we desire is not realized....

In contemplating such an unfortunate eventuality, we must not turn away in horror, and so instead of closing our eyes we will face what the future may bring. For this purpose, after throwing the handful of dust due to Cerberus, let us frankly descend into the abyss and sound its terrible mysteries.

IV.

History does not record in its annals any lasting domination exercised by one people over another, of different race, of diverse usages and customs, of opposite and divergent ideals.

One of the two had to yield and succ.u.mb. Either the foreigner was driven out, as happened in the case of the Carthaginians, the Moors and the French in Spain, or else these autochthons had to give way and perish, as was the case with the inhabitants of the New World, Australia and New Zealand.

One of the longest dominations was that of the Moors in Spain, which lasted seven centuries. But, even though the conquerors lived in the country conquered, even though the Peninsula was broken up into small states, which gradually emerged like little islands in the midst of the great Saracen inundation, and in spite of the chivalrous spirit, the gallantry and the religious toleration of the califs, they were finally driven out after b.l.o.o.d.y and stubborn conflicts, which formed the Spanish nation and created the Spain of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The existence of a foreign body within another endowed with strength and activity is contrary to all natural and ethical laws. Science teaches us that it is either a.s.similated, destroys the organism, is eliminated or becomes encysted.

Encystment of a conquering people is impossible, for it signifies complete isolation, absolute inertia, debility in the conquering element. Encystment thus means the tomb of the foreign invader.

Now, applying these considerations to the Philippines, we must conclude, as a deduction from all we have said, that if their population be not a.s.similated to the Spanish nation, if the dominators do not enter into the spirit of their inhabitants, if equable laws and free and liberal reforms do not make each forget that they belong to different races, or if both peoples be not amalgamated to const.i.tute one ma.s.s, socially and politically h.o.m.ogeneous, that is, not hara.s.sed by opposing tendencies and antagonistic ideas and interests, some day the Philippines will fatally and infallibly declare themselves independent. To this law of destiny can be opposed neither Spanish patriotism, nor the love of all the Filipinos for Spain, nor the doubtful future of dismemberment and intestine strife in the Islands themselves. Necessity is the most powerful divinity the world knows, and necessity is the resultant of physical forces set in operation by ethical forces.

We have said and statistics prove that it is impossible to exterminate the Filipino people. And even were it possible, what interest would Spain have in the destruction of the inhabitants of a country she can not populate or cultivate, whose climate is to a certain extent disastrous to her? What good would the Philippines be without the Filipinos? Quite otherwise, under her colonial system and the transitory character of the Spaniards who go to the colonies, a colony is so much the more useful and productive to her as it possesses inhabitants and wealth. Moreover, in order to destroy the six million Malays, even supposing them to be in their infancy and that they have never learned to fight and defend themselves, Spain would have to sacrifice at least a fourth of her population. This we commend to the notice of the partizans of colonial exploitation.

But nothing of this kind can happen. The menace is that when the education and liberty necessary to human existence are denied by Spain to the Filipinos, then they will seek enlightenment abroad, behind the mother country's back, or they will secure by hook or by crook some advantages in their own country, with the result that the opposition of purblind and paretic politicians will not only be futile but even prejudicial, because it will convert motives for love and grat.i.tude into resentment and hatred.

Hatred and resentment on one side, mistrust and anger on the other, will finally result in a violent and terrible collision, especially when there exist elements interested in having disturbances, so that they may get something in the excitement, demonstrate their mighty power, foster lamentations and recriminations, or employ violent measures. It is to be expected that the government will triumph and be generally (as is the custom) severe in punishment, either to teach a stern lesson in order to vaunt its strength or even to revenge upon the vanquished the spells of excitement and terror that the danger caused it. An unavoidable concomitant of those catastrophes is the acc.u.mulation of acts of injustice committed against the innocent and peaceful inhabitants. Private reprisals, denunciations, despicable accusations, resentments, covetousness, the opportune moment for calumny, the haste and hurried procedure of the courts martial, the pretext of the integrity of the fatherland and the safety of the state, which cloaks and justifies everything, even for scrupulous minds, which unfortunately are still rare, and above all the panic-stricken timidity, the cowardice that battens upon the conquered--all these things augment the severe measures and the number of the victims. The result is that a chasm of blood is then opened between the two peoples, that the wounded and the afflicted, instead of becoming fewer, are increased, for to the families and friends of the guilty, who always think the punishment excessive and the judge unjust, must be added the families and friends of the innocent, who see no advantage in living and working submissively and peacefully. Note, too, that if severe measures are dangerous in a nation made up of a h.o.m.ogeneous population, the peril is increased a hundred-fold when the government is formed of a race different from the governed. In the former an injustice may still be ascribed to one man alone, to a governor actuated by personal malice, and with the death of the tyrant the victim is reconciled to the government of his nation. But in a country dominated by a foreign race, even the justest act of severity is construed as injustice and oppression, because it is ordered by a foreigner, who is unsympathetic or is an enemy of the country, and the offense hurts not only the victim but his entire race, because it is not usually regarded as personal, and so the resentment naturally spreads to the whole governing race and does not die out with the offender.

Hence the great prudence and fine tact that should be exercised by colonizing countries, and the fact that government regards the colonies in general, and our colonial office in particular, as training schools, contributes notably to the fulfillment of the great law that the colonies sooner or later declare themselves independent.

Such is the descent down which the peoples are precipitated. In proportion as they are bathed in blood and drenched in tears and gall, the colony, if it has any vitality, learns how to struggle and perfect itself in fighting, while the mother country, whose colonial life depends upon peace and the submission of the subjects, is constantly weakened, and, even though she make heroic efforts, as her number is less and she has only a fict.i.tious existence, she finally perishes. She is like the rich voluptuary accustomed to be waited upon by a crowd of servants toiling and planting for him, and who, on the day his slaves refuse him obedience, as he does not live by his own efforts, must die.

Reprisals, wrongs and suspicions on one part and on the other the sentiment of patriotism and liberty, which is aroused in these incessant conflicts, insurrections and uprisings, operate to generalize the movement and one of the two peoples must succ.u.mb. The struggle will be brief, for it will amount to a slavery much more cruel than death for the people and to a dishonorable loss of prestige for the dominator. One of the peoples must succ.u.mb.

Spain, from the number of her inhabitants, from the condition of her army and navy, from the distance she is situated from the Islands, from her scanty knowledge of them, and from struggling against a people whose love and good will she has alienated, will necessarily have to give way, if she does not wish to risk not only her other possessions and her future in Africa, but also her very independence in Europe. All this at the cost of bloodshed and crime, after mortal conflicts, murders, conflagrations, military executions, famine and misery.

The Spaniard is gallant and patriotic, and sacrifices everything, in favorable moments, for his country's good. He has the intrepidity of his bull. The Filipino loves his country no less, and although he is quieter, more peaceful, and with difficulty stirred up, when he is once aroused he does not hesitate and for him the struggle means death to one or the other combatant. He has all the meekness and all the tenacity and ferocity of his carabao. Climate affects bipeds in the same way that it does quadrupeds.

The terrible lessons and the hard teachings that these conflicts will have afforded the Filipinos will operate to improve and strengthen their ethical nature. The Spain of the fifteenth century was not the Spain of the eighth. With their bitter experience, instead of intestine conflicts of some islands against others, as is generally feared, they will extend mutual support, like shipwrecked persons when they reach an island after a fearful night of storm. Nor may it be said that we shall partake of the fate of the small American republics. They achieved their independence easily, and their inhabitants are animated by a different spirit from what the Filipinos are. Besides, the danger of falling again into other hands, English or German, for example, will force the Filipinos to be sensible and prudent. Absence of any great preponderance of one race over the others will free their imagination from all mad ambitions of domination, and as the tendency of countries that have been tyrannized over, when they once shake off the yoke, is to adopt the freest government, like a boy leaving school, like the beat of the pendulum, by a law of reaction the Islands will probably declare themselves a federal republic.

If the Philippines secure their independence after heroic and stubborn conflicts, they can rest a.s.sured that neither England, nor Germany, nor France, and still less Holland, will dare to take up what Spain has been unable to hold. Within a few years Africa will completely absorb the attention of the Europeans, and there is no sensible nation which, in order to secure a group of poor and hostile islands, will neglect the immense territory offered by the Dark Continent, untouched, undeveloped and almost undefended. England has enough colonies in the Orient and is not going to risk losing her balance. She is not going to sacrifice her Indian Empire for the poor Philippine Islands--if she had entertained such an intention she would not have restored Manila in 1763, but would have kept some point in the Philippines, whence she might gradually expand. Moreover, what need has John Bull the trader to exhaust himself for the Philippines, when he is already lord of the Orient, when he has there Singapore, Hongkong and Shanghai? It is probable that England will look favorably upon the independence of the Philippines, for it will open their ports to her and afford greater freedom to her commerce. Furthermore, there exist in the United Kingdom tendencies and opinions to the effect that she already has too many colonies, that they are harmful, that they greatly weaken the sovereign country.

For the same reasons Germany will not care to run any risk, and because a scattering of her forces and a war in distant countries will endanger her existence on the continent. Thus we see her att.i.tude, as much in the Pacific as in Africa, is confined to conquering easy territory that belongs to n.o.body. Germany avoids any foreign complications.

France has enough to do and sees more of a future in Tongking and China, besides the fact that the French spirit does not shine in zeal for colonization. France loves glory, but the glory and laurels that grow on the battlefields of Europe. The echo from battlefields in the Far East hardly satisfies her craving for renown, for it reaches her quite faintly. She has also other obligations, both internally and on the continent.