It is quite evident from the words and acts of the rebels that they have been casting envious eyes on the large landed estates of the Friars, hoping, on their expulsion, to have a division of the spoils among themselves. Already, before the war, an iniquitous plan of confiscation was boldly advocated in Spain itself. We now learn to our surprise, from the Church News (Washington, D.C.), that this cry has found an echo across the Atlantic from Protestant pulpits in the States. Besides the fact that confiscation would be robbery pure and simple, as the estates are not national property, and have not been given by the Government, but have been acquired in the usual way by purchase, and in the course of three centuries have naturally grown large, confiscation of the estates would mean a great calamity to the country, even if the Friars were allowed to go back quietly to their parishes, and resume their spiritual ministrations among the people. For it was by means of the estates that the Friars introduced agriculture and settled habits of life among tribes originally nomadic; it was by means of the estates that they got them to live in villages, and introduced amongst them the arts of civilized life; it was by means of the estates that they acquired the power of inducing them to labor with a certain amount of regularity and method, the great safeguard against a relapse into a state of savagery. Giraudier, who was director of the “Diario” of Manila, and spent thirty years in the Archipelago, says something very much to the point: “The natives, with some rare exceptions, are in need of tutelage, without which they would fall back to the customs of their ancestors, a tutelage that no one can exercise better than the Friars.” The latter, in truth, made themselves all in all to the people. Within the precincts of the monasteries were to be found workshops for teaching carpentry, forges for teaching the natives the working of iron, brick and tileyards,—in fact, most of the mechanical arts were fostered and encouraged by the Friars. The villages they formed around them presented a pleasing picture of happiness and content, in startling contrast to the homes of those who were still pagan and uncivilized.
A former British consul thus describes them: “Orderly children, respected parents, women subject but not oppressed, men ruling but not despotic, reverence with kindness, obedience with affection—these form a lovable picture by no means rare in the villages of the Eastern Isles.” Will such a happy state of things exist under new conditions? We are very much inclined to doubt it. The experiment tried in some of the islands of the West Indies of making the blacks small freeholders, and planting them on the bankrupt planters’ estates, has not been attended by such beneficial results to the land as to justify our hoping that a similar experiment in the Philippines will prove a success. The natives of the tropics in general are like overgrown children, blessed with the virtues and cursed with the faults of children, rejoicing in present abundance, and destitute of that measure of forethought for the morrow, without which there can be no human progress. What a contrast at the present day do the civilized villages under the paternal care, and, if you will, government, of Friars present to the wild nomadic life still led by the natives of Mindanao, whom the Jesuit fathers are trying to bring under civilizing influences. We find, from letters written lately by some of the fathers there, that human sacrifice is still in vogue, and murder, pillage, and slave-catching extremely common. We fear that self-government, bringing in internal conflicts between the various parts of the Archipelago, would gradually reduce most of it to this deplorable state of things, and that the Philippine Republic would be as great a travesty on civilization as Hayti.
[1] One may hardly be surprised that men who have been robbed of their all—reputation, home, and field of work—are apt to be plain-spoken and severe when commenting upon those who have upset their lives, and destroyed the sacred interests of the religion to which they had devoted themselves unreservedly. Friends, on the other hand, of the persons who have been the instruments of such ruin, are sure to uphold the destroyers as heroes, great of character and great of deed. Hence we need not be surprised at such different estimates of Aguinaldo as those referred to in a sketch of him published in the American Review of Reviews for February, 1899.
“Friends and enemies agree that he is intelligent, ambitious, far-sighted, brave, self-controlled, honest, moral, vindictive, and at times cruel. He possesses the quality which friends call wisdom, and enemies call craft. According to those who like him he is courteous, polished, thoughtful, and dignified; according to those who dislike him he is insincere, pretentious, vain, and arrogant. Both admit him to be genial, generous, self-sacrificing, popular, and capable in the administration of affairs. If the opinion of his foes be accepted he is one of the greatest Malays on the page of history. If the opinion of his friends be taken as the criterion he is one of the great men of history, irrespective of race.”
[2] “Rhodesia and its Government,” by H. C. Thomson. “Malaboch; or Notes from my Diary on the Boer Campaign of 1894 against the Chief Malaboch,” by the Rev. Colin Rae.
Chapter V.
The Sectarian Missionary Movement.
We cannot too strongly emphasize the great interest that the change of government in the Philippines should have for the English-speaking Catholic public, seeing that a Catholic population, as large, if not larger, than the combined Catholic population of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, is about to be brought under the influence of the English-speaking world, and in close touch with the Catholic Church in America, and, perhaps, later on, with ourselves. It is not more than a year ago that the Philippines were a terra incognita to us all, of which we knew the name, but hardly more. For the last ten months they have been brought under our notice almost daily by the newspapers, and monthly in the pages of the magazines. In the meantime their control has passed from Spain to America, and a conflict of opinion is going on in the States as to the desirability or otherwise of undertaking the responsibility of their future government. Under the old régime, Church and State were united: a bearable condition when the State was professedly Catholic, but absolutely unbearable when antagonistic influences control the Government, hamper the Church in her freedom of action, and degrade her into servitude while professing to be her protector. In the new condition of things the Church will be placed in the same position as it holds in America, free to flourish or to die, depending entirely on its own resources, and neither helped nor persecuted by the State. Its ministers, though not enjoying any special privileges, will be protected in their persons and property in common with all other citizens. Its religious orders will receive the same recognition as secular corporations, and their corporate property will be respected. So far so good; for it was to be feared that the Spanish Government, who had been deterred only by political motives from suppressing the Orders, yielding at last to the pressure of the Freemasons, might have confiscated their property, and either secularized their members or expelled them from the islands. Still we cannot close our eyes to the fact that dangers from a different quarter loom up which it much behooves Catholics to carefully consider. There is a pressing necessity of being alive to those dangers, if worse evils than ever are not to befall that large Catholic population of the Far East.