AMERICA'S "OPEN-DOOR" POLICY.

Evening Star, Issue 10900, 7 April 1899, Page 2

AMERICA'S "OPEN-DOOR" POLICY.

At the banquet given at New York in honor of Lord Charles Beresford, Mr Whitelaw Reid, who, it will be remembered, was one of the U.S. Commissioners to the Peace i Commission at Paris, made this important statement in regard to the commercial policy which the United States means to adopt in regarcj to her newly-acquired possessions:— The guest of the evening is probably accustomed to think that the United States is the most extreme Protectionist nation in the world. There are two facts suggestive to anyone taking that vjew. The one is that, though we may be enraged Protectionists, as the French sometimes call us, we have rarely sought to extend the protective system where we had nothing whiph we could develop and nothing to protect. The other is that we also are the greatestFreetrade country in the world. From the Golden Gate our guest has crossed a continent teeming with a population of manufac- | turers. He nas not encountered a Custom- : house. Had he come back from China the other way, via the Suez Canal to London, he would have passed a dozen. When the American Peace Commissioners faced the retention of the Philippines, they were at liberty to eonsider the question in the light |of both sides of the national practice. Here was an archipelago practically without manufactures to protect, or in need of Protection to develop its manufactures. Here were swarming populations, with which trade was sure to increase and ramify in proportion to its freedom from obstructions. Thus it came about that the Commissioners were able to preface their offer to Spain with the | remark that it was the policy of the United States to maintain in the Philippines the " open door." Grea| Protectionist as is the President, he sanctioned the declaration. J Protectionist as is the Senate, it ratified this policy. Under the most-favored nation . clause, what was thus secured; to Spain would j not easily be refused to any nation. The door that will be open there during the next decade will then nave such. a rising tide pouring through it from the awakening East that no man can close.it. There are two ways of dealing with trade in a distant .dependency. You may give such advantage to your own people as to exclude everybody else* That was; fie Spanish way, That is the Freneh way. Neither country has become enriched lately on its colonial extensions. Again you may impose such import and export duties as will raise the revenues needed to govern the territory, such duties to he paid at its ports on the basis of absolute equality for all comers. In some places that is the British way. Henceforth in the Philippines that will be the United States way. The Dingley tariff will not be transferred to the Antipodes. I believe that we may all rejoice at this, as being best for the ; Philippines and ourselves. It enables Great j Britain and the United States to preserve • a common interest and to present a common front in the enormous commercial j development in the East which most attend > the awakening of die Chinese Colossus, and : wherever Great Britain and- the United - States stand together the peace and civilisation of the world irfll be better for it.