On October 1 the Ratification of Philippine Independence was proclaimed at Malolos with imposing ceremony. From 6 a.m. the Manila (Tondo) railway-station was besieged by the crowd of sightseers on their way to the insurgent capital (Malolos), which was en fête and gaily decorated with flags for the triumphal entry of General Emilio Aguinaldo, who walked to the Congress House attired in a dress suit, with Don Pedro A. Paterno on his right and Don Benito Legarda on his left, followed by other representative men of the Revolutionary Party, amidst the vociferous acclamations of the people and the strains of music. After the formal proclamation was issued the function terminated with a banquet given to 200 insurgent notabilities. This day was declared by the Malolos Congress to be a public holiday in perpetuity.
By virtue of Article 3 of the Protocol of Peace the Americans were in possession of the city, bay, and harbour of Manila pending the conclusion of a treaty of peace. The terms of peace were referred to a Spanish-American Commission, which met in Paris on October 1, five commissioners and a secretary being appointed by each of the High Contracting Parties. The representatives of the United States were the Hon. William R. Day, of Ohio, ex-Secretary of State, President of the American Commission; Senator Cushman K. Davis, of Minnesota; Senator William P. Frye, of Maine; Senator George Gray, of Delaware; and the Hon. Whitelaw Reid, of New York, ex-Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States in France, assisted by the Secretary and Counsel to their Commission, Mr. John Bassett Moore, an eminent professor of international law. The Spanish Commissioners were Don Eugenio Montero Rios, Knight of the Golden Fleece, President of the Senate, ex-Cabinet Minister, etc., President of the Spanish Commission; Senator Don Buenaventura Abarzuza, ex-Ambassador, ex-Minister, etc.; Don José de Garnica y Diaz, a lawyer; Don Wenceslao Ramirez de Villa-Urrutia, Knight of the Orders of Isabella the Catholic and of Charles III., etc., Minister Plenipotentiary to the Belgian Court; and General Don Rafael Cerero y Saenz, assisted by the Secretary to their Commission, Don Emilio de Ojeda, Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Morocco. The conferences were held in a suite of apartments at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, placed at their disposal by M. Delcassé. Among other questions to be agreed upon and embodied in the treaty was the future of the Philippines. For Washington officials these Islands really constituted a terra incognita. Maj.-General Merritt and a number of other officials went to Paris to give evidence before the Commission. At their request, conveyed to me through the American Embassy, I also proceeded to Paris in October and expressed my views before the Commissioners, who examined me on the whole question. The Cuban debts and the future of the Philippines were really the knotty points in the entire debate. The Spanish Commissioners argued (1) that the single article in the Protocol relating to the Philippines did not imply a relinquishment of Spanish sovereignty over those Islands, but only a temporary occupation of the city, bay, and harbour of Manila by the Americans pending the conclusion of a treaty of peace. (2) That the attack on Manila, its capitulation, and all acts of force consequent thereon, committed after the Protocol was signed, were unlawful because the Protocol stipulated an immediate cessation of hostilities; therefore the Commissioners claimed indemnity for those acts, a restoration to the status quo ante, and “the immediate delivery of the place (Manila) to the Spanish Government” (vide Annex to Protocol No. 12 of the Paris Peace Commission conference of November 3).
The American Commissioners replied: (1) “It is the contention on the part of the United States that this article leaves to the determination of the treaty of peace the entire subject of the future government and sovereignty of the Philippines necessarily embodied in the terms used in the Protocol.” (2) It is erroneous to suggest “that the ultimate demands of the United States in respect of the Philippines were embodied in the Protocol.” (3) That there was no cable communication with Manila, hence the American commanders could not possibly have been informed of the terms of the Protocol on the day of its signature. The Spanish Commissioners, nevertheless, tenaciously persisting in their contention, brought matters to the verge of a resumption of hostilities when the American Commissioners presented what was practically an ultimatum, in which they claimed an absolute cession of the Islands, offering, however, to pay to Spain $20,000,000 gold, to agree, for a term of years, to admit Spanish ships and merchandise into the Islands on the same terms as American ships and merchandise, and to mutually waive all claims for indemnity—(vide Annex to Protocol No. 15 of the Paris Peace Commission conference of November 21).
For a few days the Spaniards still held out, and to appease public feeling in the Peninsula a fleet under Admiral Cámara was despatched, ostensibly to the Philippines. It was probably never intended that the fleet should go beyond Port Said, for on its arrival there it was ordered to return, the official explanation to the indignant Spanish public being that America was preparing to seize the Archipelago by force, if necessary, and send a fleet to Spanish waters under the command of Admiral Watson. Sagastaʼs Government had not the least intention of letting matters go so far as that, but it suited the Spanish Cabinet, already extremely unpopular, to make an appearance of resistance. Moreover, Señor Sagasta had personal motives for wishing to protract the negotiations, the examination of which would lead one too far away from the present subject into Spanish politics.
At the next conference of the Commission the demands of the Americans were reluctantly conceded, and the form in which the treaty was to be drafted was finally settled. The sitting of the Commission was terminated by the reading of a strongly-worded protest by Señor Montero Rios in which the Spanish Commissioner declared that they had been compelled to yield to brute force and abuse of international law against which they vehemently protested. The secretaries of the respective Commissions were then instructed to draw up the document of the Treaty of Peace, which was signed at 9 p.m. on Saturday, December 10, 1898, in the Grand Gallery of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris. The expenses of the Spanish Commission amounted to £8,400. A delay of six months was agreed upon for the ratification by the two Governments of the treaty, the text of which is given at the end of this chapter. America undertook to establish equal duties on Spanish and American goods for a period of ten years; but it subsequently transpired that this was no special boon to Spain, seeing that America declared shortly after the signing of the treaty that there would be no preferential tariff, and that merchandise of all nations could enter the Islands at the same rate of duty and on equal terms with America. The clauses of the treaty relating to the Philippines met with determined opposition in the United States, where politicians were divided into three parties advocating respectively annexation, protection, and abandonment of the Islands to the natives.
At the closing conferences of the Commission several additional clauses to the treaty were proposed by the one party and the other and rejected. Among the most singular are the following:—The Spaniards proposed that America should pay annually to the descendants of Christopher Columbus $7,400 to be charged to the treasuries of Porto Rico and Manila. The Americans proposed that Spain should concede to them the right to land telegraph-cables in the Canary Islands, or on any territory owned by Spain on the coast of Africa, or in the Peninsula, in consideration of a cash payment of one million gold dollars.
We must now go back to September to follow the thread of events which intervened from that period and during the 71 daysʼ sitting of the Peace Commission in Paris. My old acquaintance Felipe Agoncillo was sent to Washington in September by Emilio Aguinaldo to solicit permission from the American Government to represent the rebelsʼ cause on the Paris Commission, or, failing this, to be allowed to state their case. The Government, however, refused to recognize him officially, so he proceeded to Paris. Having unsuccessfully endeavoured to be heard before the Commission, he drew up a protest in duplicate, handing a copy to the Spanish and another to the American Commissioners. The purport of this document was that whereas the Americans had supplied the Filipinos with war-material and arms to gain their independence and not to fight against Spain in the interests of America, and whereas America now insisted on claiming possession of the Archipelago, he protested, in the name of Emilio Aguinaldo, against what he considered a defraudment of his just rights. His mission led to nothing, so he returned to Washington to watch events for Aguinaldo. After the treaty was signed in Paris he was received at the White House, where an opportunity was afforded him of stating the Filipinosʼ views; but he did not take full advantage of it, and returned to Paris, where I met him in July, 1900, holding the position of “High Commissioner for the Philippine Republic.” His policy was, then, “absolute independence, free of all foreign control.” In 1904 we met again in Hong-Kong, where he was established as a lawyer.
In this interval, too, matters in Manila remained in statu quo so far as the American occupation was concerned. General E. S. Otis was still in supreme command in succession to General Merritt, and reinforcements were arriving from America to strengthen the position. General Otisʼs able administration wrought a wonderful change in the city. The weary, forlorn look of those who had great interests at stake gradually wore off; business was as brisk as in the old times, and the Custom-house was being worked with a promptitude hitherto unknown in the Islands. There were no more sleepless nights, fearing an attack from the dreaded rebel or the volunteer. The large majority of foreign (including Spanish) and half-caste Manila merchants showed a higher appreciation of American protection than of the prospect of sovereign independence under a Philippine Republic. On the other hand, the drunken brawls of the American soldiers in the cafes, drinking-shops, and the open streets constituted a novelty in the Colony. Drinking “saloons” and bars monopolized quite a fifth of the stores in the principal shopping street, La Escolta, where such unruliness obtained, to the detriment of American prestige, that happily the Government decided to exclude those establishments altogether from that important thoroughfare, which has since entirely regained its respectable reputation. The innovation was all the more unfortunate because of the extremely bad impression it made on the natives and Spaniards, who are remarkably abstemious. It must also have been the cause of a large percentage of the sickness of the American troops (wrongly attributed to climate), for it is well known that inebriety in the Philippines is the road to death. With three distinct classes of soldiers in Manila—the Americans, the rebels, and the Spanish prisoners—each living in suspense, awaiting events with divergent interests, there were naturally frequent disputes and collisions, sometimes of a serious nature, which needed great vigilance to suppress.
The German trading community observed that, due to the strange conduct of the commanders of the German fleet, who showed such partiality towards the Spaniards up to the capitulation of Manila, the natives treated them with marked reticence. The Germans therefore addressed a more than ample letter of apology on the subject to the newspaper La Independencia (October 17).
As revolutionary steamers were again cruising in Philippine waters, all vessels formerly flying the Spanish flag were hastily placed on the American register to secure the protection of the Stars and Stripes, and ex-Consul Oscar F. Williams was deputed to attend to these and other matters connected with the shipping trade of the port.