"WARLIKE FRENZY"

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 105, 31 October 1923, Page 8

"WARLIKE FRENZY"

NATIVE UNREST IN PHILIPPINES

STRONG MEASURES PREPARED,

(AUSTRALIAN . NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.)

(Received 31st October, 1 p.m.)

MANILA, 30th October. Following an ambush in which an officer and, ten soldiers were killed, the situation in Mindanaos (Philippines) is becoming increasingly menacing. While no actual encounter between the Government troops and the rebels is yet reported, the Lanao and Cotabato districts are affected by a warlike frenzy. General Wood, the Governor-General, wjio has assumed the personal direction of the dissatisfied districts, has made repeated efforts to negotiate with the insurgents in the hope of avoiding wholesale bloodshed, but the Moros are evidently determined to resort to war. Consequently General Wood has ordered the imemdiato mobiJijafion and dispatch of large constabulary reinforcements to the disaffected districts.

The revolt is attributed firstly to Moro ■hostility to the Filipino methods, and officialdom, the compulsory education of girls, and interference with religious customs, especially polygamy; secondly, to the withdrawal of American officials and garrisons, and the substitution of Filipino troops; and thirdly, to the reflection of the general political disturbance throughout the islands produced by the independence propaganda, and the repeated attacks on American so-w»-eignty, and the Governor-General'3 prerogatives.