General Chamber of Commerce, Ladies and Gentlemen:—In accepting the invitation to deliver an address on the Philippine Islands under the distinguished auspices of the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce, which by its position as the representative body of the commercial capital of China, its cosmopolitan members! and its far-reaching prominence and influence, is recognised as the leading society of its kind in China if not in all Asia, I have not been unmindful of the honour conferred by your request or of the responsibility resting on me to tell the truth concerning one of the most interesting and bly, from its political and commercial most important subjects of the das. If exceptional opportunities for visiting and studying this wonderful archipelago both in time of peace under Spanish dominion and in time of war and peace again under American control have been mine, a great reward and satisfaction is to impart my information to so intelligent and representative an audience as is gathered here this afternoon. "While there are many who are far better authorities than I, it may be possible for me to present a few facts that will permit you (0 grasp more clearly than before what is the significance of Atiericn's acquisition of territory in the Far East and of the extraordinary step which brings her directly into the field of Asiatic politics, makes her one with the Great Powers of Europe in shaping the destiny of Asia's millions, and causes her to shoulder responsibilities in making new history, remaking old maps, and demarking fresh epochs in the progress of peoples and governments which were never pictured or dreamed of in the most ambitious thoughts of the founders of the Great Republic.
Unless Iam in error, this is the first occasion in the Far East with the Eocitty of Japan when America's newly acquired territory in these parts has been the special topic of discussion.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.