Menaces to Spanish rule.Government monopolies rigorously maintained, insolent disregard and neglect of the mestizos and powerful creoles, and the example of the United States, were the chief reasons of the downfall of the American possessions. The same causes threaten ruin to the Philippines: but of the monopolies I have said enough.
Growing American influence.Mestizos and creoles, it is true, are not, as they formerly were in America, excluded from all official appointments; but they feel deeply hurt and injured through the crowds of place-hunters which the frequent changes of ministries send to Manila. The influence, also, of the American element is at least visible on the horizon, and will be more noticeable when the relations increase between the two countries. At present they are very slender. The trade in the meantime follows in its old channels to England and to the Atlantic ports of the United States. Nevertheless, whoever desires to form an opinion upon the future history of the Philippines, must not consider simply their relations to Spain, but must have regard to the prodigious changes which a few decades produce on either side of our planet.
Powerful neighborsFor the first time in the history of the world the mighty powers on both sides of the ocean have commenced to enter upon a direct intercourse with one another—Russia, which alone is larger than any two other parts of the earth; China, which contains within its own boundaries a third of the population of the world; and America, with ground under cultivation nearly sufficient to feed treble the total population of the earth. Russia’s future role in the Pacific Ocean is not to be estimated at present.
China and America.The trade between the two other great powers will therefore be presumably all the heavier, as the rectification of the pressing need of human labor on the one side, and of the corresponding overplus on the other, will fall to them.
Nearing predominance of the Pacific.The world of the ancients was confined to the shores of the Mediterranean; and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans sufficed at one time for our traffic. When first the shores of the Pacific re-echoed with the sounds of active commerce, the trade of the world and the history of the world may be really said to have begun. A start in that direction has been made; whereas not so very long ago the immense ocean was one wide waste of waters, traversed from both points only once a year. From 1603 to 1769 scarcely a ship had ever visited California, that wonderful country which, twenty-five years ago, with the exception of a few places on the coast, was an unknown wilderness, but which is now covered with flourishing and prosperous towns and cities, served by a sea-to-sea railway, and its capital already ranking the third of the seaports of the Union; even at this early stage of its existence a central point of the world’s commerce, and apparently destined, by the proposed junction of the great oceans, to play a most important part in the future.
The mission of America.In proportion as the navigation of the west coast of America extends the influence of the American element over the South Sea, the captivating, magic power which the great republic exercises over the Spanish colonies[12] will not fail to make itself felt also in the Philippines, The Americans are evidently destined to bring to a full development the germs originated by the Spaniards. As conquerors of modern times, representing the age of free citizens in contrast to the age of knighthood, they follow with the plow and the axe of the pioneer, where the former advanced under the sign of the cross with their swords.
Superiority over Spanish system.A considerable portion of Spanish-America already belongs to the United States, and has since attained an importance which could not possibly have been anticipated either under the Spanish Government or during the anarchy which followed. With regard to permanence, the Spanish system cannot for a moment be compared with that of America. While each of the colonies, in order to favor a privileged class by immediate gains, exhausted still more the already enfeebled population of the metropolis by the withdrawal of the best of its ability, America, on the contrary, has attracted to itself from all countries the most energetic element, which, once on its soil and, freed from all fetters, restlessly progressing, has extended its power and influence still further and further. The Philippines will escape the action of the two great neighboring powers all the less for the fact that neither they nor their metropolis find their condition of a stable and well-balanced nature.
Need of Philippine awakening.It seems to be desirable for the Filipinos that the above-mentioned views should not speedily become accomplished facts, because their education and training hitherto have not been of a nature to prepare them successfully to compete with either of the other two energetic, creative, and progressive nations. They have, in truth, dreamed away their best days.
[1] Magellan fell on April 27, struck by a poisoned arrow, on the small island of Mactan, lying opposite the harbor of Cebu. His lieutenant, Sebastian de Elcano, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and on September 6, 1522, brought back one of the five ships with which Magellan set sail from St. Lucar in 1519, and eighteen men, with Pigafetta, to the same harbor, and thus accomplished the first voyage round the world in three years and fourteen days.