AMERICA’S NEW SUBJECTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CI, Issue 11901, 26 May 1899, Page 4

AMERICA’S NEW SUBJECTS.

The disagreement between General Otis and Mr Schurman as to the basis of the negotiations for peace between the Americans and the Filipinos is not likely to prove a very serious obstacle to the final settlement of the terms. The Filipinos themselves have begun to realise the difference between the treacherous Spaniards and the chivalrous Americans, and will in any case feel little inclination to offer any further resistance to their new rulers. They will find solid evidences of goodwill in the scheme of government ( that has been mapped out by the American Commissioners. The Americans will establish their own authority, but with as much home rule as possible. The natives will be employed in the public service wherever practicable, and civil and religious liberty will be maintained. The proclamation is really a friendly appeal to the islanders to accept peaceably the advantages of justice, order, and material civilisation. These eight millions of Orientals who have come under the United States flag are naturally an object of the keenest interest to the American people, who are inclined to regard them as much superior to the Cubans.. The conflicting statements about their nature and standard of civilisation are explained by the fact that they are a heterogenous race. About two-thirds of the population are as uncivilised as the aborigines of Central Africa, but the remaining third seems nearer to the level of tire modern Hindus or Egyptians. In the forests and uplands of the north and throughout the south are found the Indians, an athletic and fearless race, bearing a strong resemblance to the original inhabitants of the West Indies. But the predominant type rs the Filipino, who has been called " an anomaly, an enigma, a shifting, untranslatable character.” Many of the native women have intermarried 'with the Chinese immigrants who came from the continent and settled in the islands ; and their descendants again have taken Spanish, mates. The result is, of course, a decidedly composite race. Nearly all Filipinos can read and write, and have the capacity so many Orientals display for acquiring with ease and rapidity a superficial veneer of culture. In rare instances, exceptional Filipinos, like the patriot Jose Kizal, have displayed talents approaching genius; but the majority. do not seem to trouble themselves much about the more solid attainments. Like their knowledge, their manufactures are very rudimentary, though in some primitive processes they show extraordinary skill. The women in weaving and all kinds of needlework, and outrival the Irish in their exquisite laces and priceless embroideries, but domestic industries of this kind are more likely to decay than advance when machinery is introduced into the islands. The difficulty the Americans-will have to encounter will be the distaste of a semi-bar-barous people to the sober monotony of modem civilisation. Like the Cubans, the Filipinos are certain to be aggrieved at finding “ freedom the same as a penitentiary sentence,” and will want to know what crime they have committed that they should be expected to work. They will, however,

have a fair chance to develop under ‘their new conditions, and in the course of a few! generations should be numbered among thq most interesting nations of the Pacific.