While a deep interest in the political problems tempts me to deal at once with the policy to be pursued by our government with respect to the Filipinos, I am constrained to proceed logically and discuss first the islands and their people. And in speaking of the Filipinos, a distinction should be made between those who inhabit the northern islands and are members of one branch of the Christian Church and those who inhabit the island of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago—people who are followers of Mohammed. While a considerable number of Christian Filipinos are to be found in Mindanao and some in Sulu, the Sultans and Datus have dominated the country. Even Spanish authority never extended over the southern islands and the garrisons maintained at the seaports were constantly in fear of massacre.
Leaving the southern islands for the next article, I shall confine myself at present to Luzon, Panay, Negros, Cebu, Samar and the smaller islands which make up the Visayan group. These islands contain the bulk of the territory, a large majority of the people, most of the material wealth and practically all of the civilization of the Philippines. Luzon, the largest of the entire group, reaches north almost to the nineteenth parallel and is about six degrees long. Like the islands of Japan, it is mountainous and well watered. The other islands of the group are considerably smaller and extend as far south as the ninth parallel. They, too, are mountainous, but the valleys are fertile and support a large population. The principal industry is agriculture, and the soil produces a variety of cereals, fruits and vegetables. Rice, as in other oriental countries, is the chief article of food, though hemp is by far the largest export. The hemp plant looks so much like the banana that the traveler can scarcely distinguish between them. Sugar cane is also grown in many parts of the islands and would be cultivated still more largely but for the low price of raw sugar. Sugar, however, cannot be raised here with the same profit that it can in Hawaii and Cuba, owing to the fact that it must be replanted more frequently. Tobacco of an excellent quality is produced on several of the islands and in sufficient quantities to supply the home demand (and nearly all Filipinos use tobacco) and leave a surplus for export.
The cocoanut is a staple product here of great value, and its cultivation can be indefinitely extended. Of all the crops it probably yields the largest income on the investment, but as the trees do not begin to bear until they are about eight years old, they are only cultivated in small groves or by those who can afford to wait for returns. Copra, the dried meat of the cocoanut, is now exported to the value of two and a half million dollars, but systematic effort ought to very largely increase this export.
A FILIPINO VILLAGE.
The methods of cultivation and the implements used are not as modern as one would expect. The carabao, or water buffalo, is the one all-purpose farm animal. Carabaos are something like the American ox, but are more heavily built; they are uniform in color—a dark drab—and have heavy, flat horns which grow back instead of forward.
The agricultural situation in the islands is at present most distressing. The fields were devastated by war, and before labor could restore what the soldiers had destroyed, rinderpest attacked the carabaos and in some places carried away as many as 90 per cent of the animals. We visited a sugar plantation which had lost more than half of its carabaos during the two weeks preceding. Everywhere one sees fields overgrown with grass which cannot be cultivated for lack of plow animals. One can understand something of the rinderpest calamity when it is remembered that these patient beasts do all the plowing and all of the hauling in the Philippine Islands. We often see them ridden, sometimes bearing two persons. In addition to the ravages of disease and the ruin wrought by arms, the Filipino farmer has suffered from the closing of his market. When United States authority was substituted for Spanish rule, the Filipinos lost the advantage which they had previously had in the Spanish market, and then they were shut out of the United States by a tariff wall. And to make matters worse, they now bear the brunt of the Chinese boycott aimed at American goods. Every speaker who has attempted to voice the sentiments of the people during our stay in the islands has laid special emphasis upon the injustice done to the islands by our tariff laws. This subject was also brought to the attention of Secretary Taft and his party, and all of the American officials here urge the importance of relief in this direction.
