In passing the Friar Lands Act, which they did during my absence on leave, the commission, none of whose members were posted on land matters, rather thoughtlessly made applicable to the sale of vacant lands the conditions and limitations of the Public Land Act.
We had been compelled to purchase some vacant estates and to forego the purchase of several which were thickly occupied, for the reason that the friars insisted on selling the one and absolutely refused to sell the other. We had to take the best bargain we could get. The vacant lands on certain of the estates could not be sold in small tracts.
The Friar Lands Act was accordingly amended by the Philippine Legislature, of which the Philippine Assembly was then the Lower House, and all restrictions on the areas of those lands which might be sold were removed, so as to make it possible to get rid of the vacant friar lands.
Interest was piling up on the purchase price of the latter, and obviously it was best for the government, which had to administer them, and for the people, who had to pay the bill, that they should be disposed of as soon as possible.
Ultimately an opportunity presented itself to sell the San José Estate of some fifty-eight thousand acres in its entirety to an individual, and it was thus sold after consultation with the attorney-general of the Philippines and the attorney-general of the United States as to the rights of the government in the premises, and with the approval of the secretary of war and of President Taft first had. The buyer acted as an agent for Messrs. Welch, Havemeyer and Senf, who were all heavily interested in sugar growing and desired to establish a modern sugar estate in the Philippines. This fact, when it became known, was the beginning of trouble.
Two very distinct classes of men were interested in imposing the existing legislative restrictions relative to the sale of Philippine lands. The first were influenced by the most honourable of altruistic motives. They feared the monopolization of agricultural lands and the evils of absentee ownership. The other class were the representatives of certain important sugar interests in the United States who wished to keep out Philippine sugar at all hazards and had shrewdly figured out that the simplest way to do this would be to prevent its production on a commercial scale. They therefore sought to restrict the sale of public land so as to make it impossible for an individual or an association to buy enough to establish a modern sugar estate. This they succeeded in doing. They even went further, and by limiting the land which a corporation might own and control made it impossible for a corporation to purchase enough land of any sort for such an estate. But that is another story with which we are not here concerned.
They built a fence around Philippine lands which they deemed to be “pig-tight, horse-high, and bull-strong,” but we unwittingly cut a small hole through it. The limitations on the sales of land did not apply to land belonging to the insular government which had first imposed certain restrictions on the size of the areas of vacant friar land which might be sold and had then removed them, having the same right to do the one thing that it exercised in doing the other.
The San José Estate was sold to an individual. By him it was sold in part to other individuals who had the undoubted right to acquire as much land as they could get, and in part to a corporation not authorized to engage in agriculture which acquired only such land as it needed to conduct its legitimate business and was therefore within its legal right. The transaction was a perfectly legitimate one from every view point. It spread consternation among the beet-sugar men, and Congressman Martin of Colorado, a state which has extensive beet-sugar interests, made upon the floor of the House a scurrilous attack upon President Taft, Secretary Root and the insular government officials concerned in which he accused them of violating the law and of having formed a gigantic conspiracy with great corporate interests, more especially with certain sugar interests, not only to deprive the friar land tenants of their holdings but to prevent Filipinos in general from acquiring land and to turn the Philippines over to the trusts. Mr. Martin and his fellows insisted that section sixty-five of the Act of July 1, 1902, in itself imposed the restrictions of the Public Land Act on the sale of friar lands; that the commission in imposing these limitations in the first instance had merely voiced the will of Congress and that its act in subsequently withdrawing them was illegal and iniquitous. They apparently lost sight of the fact that if so, the iniquity was shared by the Philippine Assembly. Later they endeavoured to explain the action of the assembly by saying that it did not know what it was doing, and certain members of that body made a similar claim, for political effect. As a matter of fact, I myself explained to the members of the assembly friar lands committee the purpose of the bill with which they were then in full accord.
I requested an investigation. One was authorized by the House. It was made by the Committee on Insular Affairs. Its cost to the United States was very large. The secretary of the interior, the executive secretary, the attorney-general, the director of lands and other witnesses, were called to Washington from the Philippines and taken away from their work at a rather critical time. The result was a complete vindication of the several persons who had been attacked. Congressman Martin failed to make good his charges in any particular, and incidentally members of the committee and such other persons as cared to follow the proceedings were given a valuable demonstration of the manner in which the insular government transacts its business.
There was, however, one unfortunate indirect effect. In view of the difference of opinion among congressmen as to whether Congress had or had not intended to make the limitations to the Public Land Act relative to areas which could be sold applicable to friar lands the secretary of war issued an executive order providing that their sale should be subject to such limitations, pending an expression by Congress of its will in the matter. Congress has never acted.