Governor Wood finished the speeches with a stirring address. "Capital is safe in the Philippines. Take an interest in them," he said. "They are big, there are wonderful resources and there is big work to do here. The American Flag is still at the top of the pole. The progress of the Philippine people in the last twenty-three years cannot be paralleled, it could not have been accomplished without their cooperation and without our aid." He referred to the so-called laws of discouragement that are said to impede business. "I want to get hold of them and correct them, but they cannot be changed in a hurry. The United States stands for the development of trade and the open-door in the Pacific. One of the best piers in the world will be built; the harbor rivals Seattle, and Manila will be a great port and a distributor of the products of the Far East. There is room for expansion, labor is cheap. Germany, the beaten nation, has learned to live without import or export and understands cheap living. Competition will be keen. They are out to gobble up South American trade. We must get busy. The war talk is tommy-rot. Of course there will be wars in the future, but only irresponsible people think of war at present."
Manuel Queson, in a long interview, after the "Wood-Forbes" report was out, said, "I do not agree with the report as the Islands are ready for independence."
Sergio Osmena, referred to as a great power and known as the "Sphinx of the Philippines," was reticent at first, but later he talked freely about the marvelous resources of the Islands and stated that he, too, believed the Islands ready for independence.
Chapter XI
Hongkong
Returning from Manila we stopped once more at "The City of Mist," Hongkong, and were entertained all over again. While some of the Chamber of Commerce party were motoring to a dance given in honor of the San Francisco delegates, a coolie was hit and nearly run over. Our host told the coolie to get out of the way, while assuring us that it would not have caused much trouble had he been severely injured. He said, "Labor is so cheap here, some coolies try to get hit to get something out of you, and if I had really run over him, I would have given him fifty cents, or so. You know there is a law that if a Chinese accepts any amount of money after being injured, he has no redress." He went on to tell a story about using Chinese women to retrieve instead of dogs in snipe shooting. If these coolie women happen to stand up and get a stray shot, a few cents is given them, and it is called "square." One of the husbands of these women retrievers needed money, so his wife stood up in order to get a lot of shots. She got seven shots and went away with her husband rejoicing upon receipt of five dollars.
It was like meeting someone from home when Mrs. H. W. Thomas and Mrs.
Cudahy joined our party again.
Many of our party looked for the American flag at our consulate, and H.
L. Judell said he could not buy one in all of British Hongkong.
The feeling against the Germans in Hongkong, many of our party decided, must be very strong, as we saw cartoons showing a fierce-looking person killing everyone, and the same person in another pose, dressed as a traveling salesman, together with the warning, "Remember they are one and the same." We also noted sentiment against the Japanese in China, for instance, a Chinese gentleman told a group of our party that he and many of his countrymen taught their children that someday they would fight the Japanese. We were told that if a Chinese child is given a piece of candy and then told that the candy was made in Japan, the child refuses to eat it. This just typifies the attitude we found in China towards the Japanese. But as Dr. Kasper Pischel said at one of our evening meetings, "The spirit of China is not dead but is very much alive in Canton. Where the guidebooks discussed the narrow streets, to small even for rickshaws, I found twenty miles of broad streets. Where I anticipated hovels, a twelve-story skyscraper was seen, and it is my belief that unscrupulous outsiders are trying to keep the old political power in Peking."
Canton