But before a people can take any real part in the government of a civilized land, they must understand something of the principles on which good government is based. They must know something of the world’s history and of the government of other countries. They must have a common language, and must be a united people, all ready to work for the common good. That country can never prosper which is divided by a feeling of race difference, or by jealousies that make hard feeling among its people.
It is because the United States has learned these things by experience that it has opened public schools in the Philippine Islands. It seeks to have all the people learn English, because only by means of a common language can the Americans and the Filipinos come to understand one another; only by means of such a language can the different peoples among the Philippines come into real harmony.
The time is coming, too, when English will be the language of the whole commercial world. Already the people of other great countries know that they must learn to speak it for business uses, and it is taught as a matter of course in most of the schools of Europe.
THE CAGAYAN DE ORO RIVER.
A people must have even more than a common language, common interests, and modern education, to become a prosperous people. Not only must men be wise enough to take part in their own government, but they must have control of the trades and industries and commercial ventures of their own land. So long as the commercial business of a country is almost wholly carried on by foreigners, that country will never become rich. It is not meant by this that foreigners should not be allowed to do business in the country; that is an idea which belongs to dark ages of the world’s history. But there should be no need for them in the country. The people should have such patriotic pride in the welfare of their own land as to conduct its business themselves.
Nevertheless, wherever there is a demand for anything in the commercial world, there will surely, in time, be a supply. There must be merchants in the Philippine Islands. There must be tradesmen, artisans, mechanics, workers in wood, iron, and leather, and followers of the arts and crafts known to civilization. If the Filipino people do not take up these lines of work, and carry them out well and wisely, outsiders will come in and monopolize them. They have already come to the archipelago. Moreover, they will continue to come, from China and Japan, from India and Ceylon, and from all the countries of Europe, if the people of the country do not themselves learn to take their places. So long as the foreigners are here, there will be nothing for the native people to do but to work as laborers, or as clerks and servants.
The great resource of the Philippine Islands must always be agriculture. When modern methods of farming are adopted here, and modern machinery has taken the place of the wooden implements and the out-of-date tools now in use; when we have large sugar mills and refineries in place of the small and primitive ones now here, we shall see great progress made.
With peace in the country, and good government making every man secure in his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, farm work will be very different here. Nearly the entire population of the archipelago ought then to draw a good living from the land. When all the good land is brought under cultivation, the crops raised in the islands ought to increase tenfold over what are now grown.
Before much can be accomplished, however, a great deal of government work must be carried out. This the Americans have in view; already some millions of dollars have been set aside by the civil government to make roads, harbors, and bridges, and for public works of many sorts in the archipelago. A day of hope seems opening, not merely for the Americans to whom the task has fallen of carrying on the work, but for the whole Filipino people. They and the Americans must work together to bring the promises of this day into full fruitage.