The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, The Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, January 11, 1899.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 8, 11 January 1899, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, The Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, January 11, 1899.

For tho cause that laeka a3sistaaeß, For tke -wrong tli£,t needs rssistaneo, For tie futae ia the iistaasa, And tka g«d that rre can is.

Evidently the Americans only half completed the subjugation of the Philippines when they wrested the islands from Spain; and it is doubtful whether the major part of the work does not yet remain to be done. As has been anticipated all along, the insurgents do not view with particular favour the idea, of submitting to the new authority. Perhaps they misapprehend the nature of it and conceive that they are merely exchanging one yoke of injustice and oppression for another just as bad. More probably, however, they are as averse to being under any Government, however good, as they have always been, and trust to being able to maintain their semi-independence against American aggression as they were able in a kind of way to do against the Spanish. At all events, it is certain that they intend to try. Of. course the ultimate result of such resistance is a foregone conclusion. Defeat is inevitable. But before the rebels are effectually crushed America may be put to no little trouble and expense. It would doubtless be possible in a country like the Philippines for the insurgents to wage a guerilla Warfare for many months and to hinder the. speedy establishment of law and order in the group.

One of the effects of this state of rebellion in the Philippines will be to fyvouv the anti - expansion party in the United States. That party, with Mr Andrew Carnegie as one of the

leading exponents of its principles, was loud in resisting the proposal to annex the Philippines. It deprecated, according to its own words, 'the moral juicjuity of converting a war for humanity into a war of conquest.' It dwelt on 'the physical degeneration, the corruption of the blood, and all the evils of militarism which will ensue if the troops are to be kept- in the Philippines and elsewhere longer than is absolutely necessary to enable a Government to be established which will protect life and property.' And generally it denounced expansion on the ground that it was a violation of the principle ou which the Republic was framed, and would entail a large

inci-ease in taxes for armies and navies and probably a demand for limited conscription. These objections directed against the whole principle of territorial expansion will certainly be strengthened should any serious difficulties be experienced in patting down the Philippine insurgents. And already they are urged by a considerable section of prominent men in the States. Only last week it was announced in our cable columns that the Anti-Imperialist League, which is meant to embrace all opposed to the policy of annexation of territory not contiguous-to the United States, had branches in thirty States, and that its membership included the ex-President, Mr Grover Cleveland, Mr John Sherman, formerly Secretary of State, Bishop Potter, Mr Carl Schurz, and many other influential Americans. * ■■•••'•-,_..

In the United States, where all the evils of parly government flourish and bear fruit with a luxuriance they do in no other country, the Anti-Imperial-ists are likely to be heard a good deal in time to come.' Eor one thing, they represent a sentiment that prevails in no small degree throughout the whole Republic—-the sentiment in favour of America's keeping to herself and not mixing up in the complications of the other nations. In the second place, it is greatly to be suspected that more than mere sentiment prompts this Anti-Imperial outcry. The objectors one fears are not altogether uninfluenced by the prospect of the effects which Imperialism may have on the fiscal and economic policy of the States, in which many of them are interested. According to that great manufacturer, Mr Carnegie, who has made his millions largely through the protective policy of the United States, the adoption of the 'open door' policy in the Philippines must mean the beginning of the end of protection in America. It is scarcely to be anticipated, however, that this anti-expan-sion movement is likely to gain such strength as to lead to a veversal of the policy which was inaugurated by our American cousins after Hie recent war. The movement claims the la.rge.st following in the' Eastern States, but among the sparsely settled communities of the West the Imperial spirit asserts itself with overwhelming force. This significant circumstance has-been attributed to the fact that in the Western States, the conditions of life foster the taste for enterprise and experiment more than is the case in the East; and also to the fact that the people of the West are more keenly alive than their neighbours to the opening up of new commercial spheres in the Pacific, which is to be their ocean, as the Atlantic is the'ocean of the Easterners. Tbat tie r«ninu«lt

of the West must prevail there seems no room to doubt. The United States has enlered on a new policy, and though it is early to predict, it would be contrary to all Anglo-Saxon pre--1 cedents if she abandoned it.