Unexampled material prosperity has come to the islands, partly as a result of the establishment of peace, and the improvement in means of communication; partly from a very different cause.

Among other dire calamities which he says have befallen the Philippines Blount includes “tariff-wrought poverty,”1 and he roundly scores the Congress of the United States for its attitude toward the suffering Filipino.

As a simple matter of fact, tariff legislation enacted by Congress has been the commercial salvation of the islands. The tariff law of 1909, known as the Payne Bill, was passed August 5, 1909, and went into effect sixty days thereafter. In order to make the effect of this act more apparent, the figures from July 1, 1909, in the following statistical tables are printed in bold-faced type. These tables speak for themselves, very loudly.

Internal-Revenue Statistics

Trade with the United States

Total Trade, including that with the United States

The Philippine government collects as internal revenue one-third of one per cent of the gross business done by merchants and manufacturers in the islands. The fiscal year ending June 30, 1909, was the last before the opening of free trade with the United States. The figures for the four subsequent years therefore show the resulting stimulus to business.

The gross business on which the percentage tax was collected in 1909 was $190,000,000 (₱380,000,000). The increases over that year have been:—

The gross business increased by a fifth in one year; by two-fifths in two years; by more than a half in three years; and by more than three-quarters in four years.

In the year 1909 the total exports and imports of the Philippine Islands amounted to $59,000,000 (₱118,000,000). The increases over that year have been:—

The total trade increased by nearly one-third in one year; by more than a half in two years; by more than three-quarters in three years; and more than doubled in four years.

An attempt has been made to make political capital out of one of the heavy drops in hemp values.6

It is astonishing how fully Providence sometimes squares accounts with the falsifier. Whatever may be thought of the advisability or inadvisability of the hemp duty rebate, there is no escape from the conclusion that it does not determine the price of hemp. While it is true that there has been a time during the past two years when the hemp grower received half, or less than half, the price for his product which he obtained ten years ago, it is also true that during the latter part of this same period he has received very much higher prices than either he or any of his ancestors ever before obtained. This apart from the fact that the price ten years ago was quite abnormal, due to crop shortage resulting from a bad state of public order. It is a poor rule that does not work both ways. If the hemp rebate is responsible for the recent slump in prices, it must also be responsible for their having later “kicked the beam.”

The facts set forth in the following tables are also significant of improved conditions:—

Banking

Postal Savings Bank

Coastwise Tonnage Cleared

Importations of Coal (Equal Consumption Very Nearly)10

If possible, let us have more of this same kind of tariff-wrought poverty and commercial distress! The country needs it.

This extraordinary story of rapid increase in commercial prosperity, as well as in the volume of commerce between the Philippines and the United States, is but a faint indication of what would come about under a fixed policy which assured future adequate protection to life and property in these islands.

Specific assurance that the United States would not surrender sovereignty over the archipelago until its inhabitants had demonstrated both ability and inclination to maintain a stable, just and effective government would be followed by a steady, healthful commercial development which would bring in its wake a degree of prosperity hitherto unknown and undreamed of. The Philippines have the best tropical climate in the world; soil of unsurpassed richness; great forest wealth; promising mines; and a constantly growing population willing to work for a reasonable wage. Give assurance of a stable government, and prosperity will increase by leaps and bounds. Turn the country over now, or ten years from now, to the Filipinos to govern, and the reputable business men, mindful of Aguinaldo’s demand for his share of the war booty when Manila was taken; of the attempted confiscation of the lands of the religious orders and of Spanish citizens generally,12 of the proposal to tax foreigners13 as such, and of the torturing of friars, other Spaniards and Filipinos as well, in order to extort money from them; of the widespread brigandage, the raping, the officially authorized and directed murdering and burying alive which prevailed during the period of undisturbed Filipino rule, will fold their tents like the Arabs and quietly steal away. There will remain that peculiar class of business men who, as the Filipinos put it, love to fish in troubled waters. They will not lack good fishing grounds.

Should we not stimulate the commercial development of the islands by adopting liberal provisions as to the sale of public lands, safeguarding the public interest by imposing at the same time severe conditions as to cultivation? And should not our anti-imperialist friends cease to rail at those of their countrymen who are willing to spend the money without which commercial development is impossible? Can they not grasp the fact that the influx of Americans and American capital sounds the death knell of slavery and peonage? It was Americans whose testimony enabled me to prove to the world the existence in the Philippines of these twin evils, and to bring pressure to bear which resulted in prohibitive legislation. It is Americans who are helping the poor Filipinos to become owners of land. It is Americans who are encouraging them to take contracts for cultivating cane, so that they have a direct interest in the crop.

Increasing prosperity means more money for the maintenance of order, for schools, for hospitals, for sanitary work and for public improvements. The diminution of exports which would promptly follow any serious disturbance of the peace of the country would result in the loss of much of the ground already gained.

The average business man is not a sentimentalist. So long as he can safely carry on his work, and can be sure of just treatment, he does not worry much over the nationality of the government officials who maintain such conditions, but he will not invest his money in a country where it is not reasonably certain that such conditions will continue to prevail.

The business men of the Philippines know by experience what American government of the archipelago means. Some of them know, also by experience, what Filipino rule means. The slump in real estate values and customs receipts which so promptly followed Mr. Wilson’s expression of hope that the frontiers of the United States might soon be contracted, conclusively demonstrated their opinion as to the effect of Philippine independence on the peace and prosperity of the country.

The number of Filipinos who thus far have demonstrated ability successfully to manage large commercial enterprises is exceedingly limited. Must not commercial prosperity coexist with political independence, if the latter is to be stable?

During the visit of the congressional delegation which accompanied Mr. Taft on his return to the Philippines in 1907, public sessions were held at which the Filipinos were given opportunity to make complaints. One fervid orator denounced the collection of customs dues, internal revenue taxes, the land tax and the cedula tax. A congressman asked him how he expected to get money to run the government after all taxes were abolished. He replied, “That is a detail which can be settled later.”

Would it not be well to consider, at this time, one very important detail, namely, what would be the effect on the insular government of a marked falling off in the business from the taxes on which practically all of the insular revenues are at present derived?