PHILIPPINES

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 December 1934, Page 12

PHILIPPINES

INDEPENDENCE ACT Among the latest books to appear on international problems in the Pacific is “Storm Clouds Over Asia,” by Robert S. Pickens, with a preface by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, late Governor of the Philippine Islands. Mr. Pickens comes from an earnest Methodist family in the United States, and knows therefore what may be called the.church-politics of the issue he discusses. He has been soldier, city reporter (Chicago “Tribune”), and special was correspondent in China for his newspaper. He accompanied the Chinese revolutionary army in its march from Canton to the Yangtse in 1927, and for the past two years has been again in the Far East studying political and economic conditions in China, Japan and the Philippines. He takes a view of the Sino-Japanese conflict completely opposed to that of home Americans, as indeed do many other Americans who know conditions on the scene from personal contact, and so in his preface does Colonel Roosevelt (a son of the former President), recently Governor-General of the Philippines. But it is his stringent criticism of his own country in its policy towards the Philippines that stands out most strikingly in Mr. Pickens’s book. Therewith Colonel Roosevelt writes that he is “in thorough accord.” The American legislation to give independence to these islands has created a new current of unrest in the Far East of which no man can yet foresee the result, but which the British Government and British and American residents in the Far East regard with unrelieved anxiety. The following is in condensed form Mr. Pickens’s indictment of his country’s attitude:-— American policy in the Philippines has been, and still is, the strangest mixture of inconsistency, amateur imperialism, ' and political mismanagement in the history of the white man in the Orient. ... It is a history filled with muddle-headed thinking, bumble-puppy politics, broken promises, spurts of philantrophy, and Hlinformed public opinion, culminating in 1933 and 1934 with a disgraceful and dishonourable effort to cut the islands adrift for purely mercenary purposes. The Hawes-Cutting-Hare bill, purporting to give the islands independence, is the dirtiest blot on the soiled pages of the history of American dealings in the Philippines. The Filipinos under the leadership of Manuel Quezon, had courage to reject it, but the low state of public information and opinion on the subject in the United States allowed the same legislation to pass a Congress blinded to justice and • decency by a wealthiy lobby and the short-sighted demands of an ignorant minority. If a righteous public opinion is not aroused against this toying with the economic life of 13,000,000 Filipinos . under the guise of granting them independence, our country can scarcely . escape making a tremendous contribution of human blood to the dogs of ’ war which to-day wander so freely i across the Orient.

Anyone who followed, even casually the final bargaining and jockeying which characterised the passage of the bill must have an uneasy feeling that Walter Lippmann was right when he bluntly said that the legislation was “rooted in dishonour.” ’ ’ ’ The two most potent influences behind the passage of the independence legislation were the farm lobby and the Cuban sugar lobby. The small but powerful group of American holders of Cuban sugar properties were the financiers. . . . As the American farmer gradually

moved over the percentage line into the minority figures he, like all minorities, organised a lobby. . . They must now be protected against Philippine sugar and Philippine cocoanut oil, although such protection inevitably will raise the price of sugar, lard, and butter for that greatest of American majorities, the consuming public. We must add the cordage interests, to whom keeping the Filipinos a subject people is a painful thought, especially when their oppression calls to mind the superior Manila hemp which enters the United States free of duty. The House of Representatives shoved the legislation through its forum in forty minutes. . . Then the bill was passed over a solemn Presidential veto with not even a quorum present when the vote was taken.

The bill promises the early and complete wreck of the foundation on which Filipino economic existence is built. In 1933 the islands produced approximately 1,200,000 tons of sugar. The independence bill limited the export of 1933 sugar to the United States to 850,000 tons. The remainder, which represents the margin of profit and the effort to develop the ’industry to its finest point rotted in the fields. There is no market for it outside the United States because it was produced. honestly enough behind the American tariff wall. During the ten years of what Hawes calls the “transition period” and Quexon the “strangulation period,” a gradually increasing duty is placed against Philippine sugar until it is all outside the tariff wall. Sugar was 63 per cent, of the export of the islands in 1932. Even the milkman in Omaha can see what will have been done to the Filipinos by the strangulation of its principal industry in the name of freedom. To a varying extent the Hawes bill does the same thing to all the other products of the islands, naming them one by one with great impartiality. As mounting American tariffs were placed against Philippine products one would naturally assume that the Filipinos would levy duties against American goods, but the Hawes bill forbids it. There are high tariffs on foreign goods entering the islands, but Amercian products come in free. The Hawes bill saw to it that they will continue to have free entry during the strangulation period, while foreign goods continue to pay high duties. In other words, the Filipinos must sell on an unprotected world market, if thej r sell at all, while buying from tariff-protected America any paying protectionist prices.

AMERICAN MARKET WRECKED That the American market in the Philippines, the sixth best market the country has, will be wrecked at the end of ten years goes almost without saying. Even Yankee ingenuity cannot find ways of selling to a beggared people. The worst feature of the whole business is that the bulk of the revenue of the Philippines is derived from land taxes. As Philippine products gradually find themselves outside the American tariff wall, land values will shrink at least 70 per cent. This means that revenues will fall an equal amount leaving the Government if one could be established, without funds for its operation. While cutting that throat of a Philippine treasury,

the bill provides that a United States High Commissioner must sit in Manila and see that a proper Government is maintained. Filipino products are entirely tropical. Tropical products of necessity must seek their markets in colder zones. In the European sugar market, the Philippines will be forced to compete with Java, five days nearer, and also with Cuba, which dumps its surplus sugar at cost prices on the Spanish find other markets after making its profits by selling in the United States under preferential tariffs. The logical outlet for the islands is China, but only in the minds of the ligicians. The Chinese market has been in a chaotic state for many years. The remaining outlet is Japan. If the Filipinos find that Japan is their economic benefactor, the natural course will be for the islands to sacrifice certain of the highly beneficient qualities of independence for ready cash. With the Americans completely out of the Philippines (and few American firms can do business there under the Hawes-Cutting brand of independence) the Japanese will discover there a tropical Manchukuo not needing the police supervision which is costing the Japanese people so much in North China. In vetoeing the Hawes bill, Presi-| dent Hoover said: “Neither our successor nor history will discharge us of responsibility for actions which diminish the liberty we seek to confer, nor for dangers which we create for ourselves in consequence of our acts. This legislation puts both our people and the Philippine people not on the road to liberty and safety which we desire, but on the path leading to new and enlarged dangers to liberty and freedom itself.” In spite of the President’s warning,.

Congress passed the bill over his veto, and it was presented to the Filipino people. Leaders like Quezon looked around for cover. They knew that to accept such a bill would wreck for ever the dreams of their people. Quezon set about at once to organise the legislature against its acceptance. He was ■ eminently successful. Another mission was selected to seek a more equitable independence. With the American people asleep as to what was

going on, Congress passed the same bill again with the very minor changes involving the United States removing its army bases from the islands. The army has wanted to be rid of its bases in the Philippines for years. - 1 1 —■ ■ 1 -TWW