In regard to the Philippines, this must be remembered,—that we are dealing with human beings, not problems and principles. The stuff one generally reads about foreign places might be just as descriptive of the inhabitants of Mars. Little wonder that those for or against independence or protection fail to win their case! We must remember that for twenty years we have been building up the hopes of children whom we taught in our schools, with our money and our ideals. They are now, many of them, active men attending to the work of the Filipino world. They are our foster-children and would be fools not to want to live their own lives in their own way. Our policy in regard to them must be a negative one; from now on it cannot be positive. All we can say to them is what we cannot and will not permit them to do; we have no right henceforth to say what they must do. We can say that we will not permit them to invite any other nation whose governmental ideals are likely to threaten ours. The world must continue on its road toward the greater and greater liberation of peoples, hence we cannot permit them to step back toward any form of imperialism. We cannot permit them to invite unlimited numbers of Orientals who might swamp them. They must maintain the Philippines for the Filipinos, with as much generosity thrown in as will not endanger that. We must remember that our effort in the Philippines is the first in which any government has attempted to treat its subject natives with any degree of equality,—legally, if not socially. If the world is to move on toward greater freedom—which is needed, Heaven knows!—we must not let the Philippines be an example of the failure of democratic management of natives.
3
In all this some may discover implications that our hold on the Philippines should be maintained purely for strategic reasons. That may be the purpose of the imperialistically minded. There may be some who will read into this fear of Japan or a bellicose attitude irritable to her. Neither interpretation would be accurate, for behind all this are certain historical factors which prove that whatever use statesmen may make of world situations, evil designs will be frustrated so long as the circumstances which created the primary conditions were not evil. Specifically, because the earlier relations between Japan and America were brought about through essentially good motives, these later developments can be kept to a sane path. And severe as may be our present criticisms of Japan, so long as the purposes behind them are good, they can have only a desirable result.
When Commodore Perry went to Japan in 1853, his only desire was to open that country to trade. It may seem now that for the sake of peace in the Pacific it would have been better had he been guided by the spirit of conquest. Had Japan been conquered in the early days, she would never have come to the fore as a possible menace. But she was not. It does not follow, however, that that was unfortunate, for the earliest relations between Japan and America were amicable and basically altruistic. The relations between us have continued to be amicable, but altruism has slowly given way to envy and jealousy. But the point that is missed in all this reference to these cordial relations of the past is that inasmuch as America was a great moral influence upon Japan in the early days, she might continue to be that to-day. Cock-sure as Japanese statesmen have become, and pugnacious as some Americans seem toward Japan, a strong moral attitude will still do more to check hostility than all the shaking of sabers and manœuvering of dreadnaughts. We need the Philippines more as a base for democratic experiment than as a fortified zone. We need them as one needs a medical laboratory for the manufacture of serums in the time of plague,—for the manufacture of the serum of political freedom, of the rights of people to develop and to learn to be free. And this experimental station should stand right there at the door of Japan—and of British and French concessionists, if you please, in China—and of China itself, for none of them has any faith in this educating of natives and making them your equals. Only down below the line, in New Zealand and Australia, far from where it can really affect Japan, is that experiment being carried on. And more than all else, when Japanese imperialism is spreading its wings, when Japanese bureaucracy is throwing out its chest in pride and telling its poor, impoverished people, "See what I am doing for YOU," we need that serum station in the Philippines where a solution of democracy and freedom may continue to be made,—be it ever so weak.
And it needs to be injected into Japan. Some of it is already working in that empire. Japan needs more, it needs to be reinforced. Democracy in Japan is struggling for a foothold. Let the germs of democracy persist in the Philippines and be rushed to the island empire. And let America stand as a great moral force, impressing upon Japan that the rights of the people shall not be suppressed. But that will never be unless the people in America who stand for liberalism, for true democracy, for all that America has hitherto meant wake up to the seriousness of the situation in the Far East and cease to turn from it with sentimental notions about Lafcadio Hearn's Japan. There are two Japans.
Both of these Japans are watching America closely. They are watching the actions of America in the Philippines, they are following in the footsteps of America in China. That need not be taken too literally, for there are two meanings to it. One example points in one direction, another in another. But one or two by way of illustration will do.
When America returned the Boxer Indemnity Funds to China for educational purposes a new precedent was established in international affairs. No other nation had the moral courage to follow suit. But just at the close of the war, Japan, having replenished her exchequer considerably, unloosened her purse-strings and returned the balance of the indemnity funds to China. It was a case of thrifty self-denial, a tardy giving back of gold that none of the powers were really entitled to. As misguided and foolish as the Boxer Uprising was, still had it been a little better organized, none of the evils from which China is suffering to-day would obtain. China should have been as wise in her method as she was in impulse. However, it is good to see Japan doing so much. She should be encouraged.
Again, seeing that American missionaries—and others—are influencing China in the direction of Occidental culture, Japan is following suit. Here it is likewise a tardy giving back to China what Japan took from her centuries ago, for Japanese Buddhism is only the sifting of the Buddhism that made its way from India by way of China and Korea. Still, it is worth noting that intellectual and moral precedents are often as forceful as more materialistic weapons.
Observing the influence that doctors and hospitals wield in China,—the Rockefeller Foundation, for instance,—the Japanese are following suit and establishing hospitals in the interior. Educational and industrial work likewise will lead the way for educational and industrial work by Japanese in China. Witnessing the force of friendship in America's relations with China, the public in Japan is protesting against the antagonizing of this gigantic neighbor to whom the Japanese bureaucratic wolf has been making such grandmotherly pretentions. And indeed there is much good reason for the protest, for the Japanese merchant who expected so much juice in that Chinese plum found that because of antagonism, because of the rape of Shantung, the plum momentarily became a lemon, to use a vulgar expression. Japan, after the "peace" Conference contemptuously handed over what didn't belong to it but a duped assistant in the prosecution of the war against Germany learned that there are more ways than one of killing a cat. And China proceeded to gnaw at the vitals of the Japanese bureaucratic wolf in a most telling fashion. China declared a boycott of Japanese goods that was so effective that it brought about a financial slump in Japan from which she is not yet fully recovered. China was of course forced to yield. One cannot live on sentiment, and when Japanese goods are the nearest and cheapest at hand, what could China do?
If only Japan could see the real significance of this she would at once withdraw all her nefarious demands on China, proceed sincerely and honestly to win the friendship of China, and then undermine the very ground of every foreign trader because of her propinquity. But bureaucrats are blind. They are moles that move underground. The ground of China is all broken up on that account. One of these days the Chinese giant will clumsily step, not in the wake of the mole, but on the mole itself. Inadvertently, of course; giants are such clumsy things!