'A proper system of government for tropical possessions is a problem the 20th century must solve, and in order to maintain present racial ascendency the Anglo-Saxon must not only solve it but must act vigorously upon the solution.
The proposal of the United States to educate the Filipinos to the standard of self-government 15 a proposition which all history discredits. The example of the West India races, when recognised as self-governing, is an example of anarchy and bloodshed, and there is the other sample of the negroes in the Southern States, when equalised by Congress in citizenship with the Saxon, for the record of the nine Southern States which, in consequence, passed under negro control, is forbidding in every sense. The cflort to make the negro the equal of the Saxon, even when immediately surrounded by the elevating influences of the larger branch of that race, has been a signal failure, and is so recognised by a tee ent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which' gives a State the full right to regulate suffrage within its borders.
The public debt of the nine Southern States at the close of the war was $76,000,000, but after being under negro control a few years their debts had been {nereased to $289,000,000, and practically without valuable consideration.
is not believed that the policy of the mited States to educate the Filipinos to govern themselves will prove successful, and the title of the United States to the Philippine Islands ought never to have been qualified by the announcement of any such polic mie To preserve order in the Philippine Islands a just but strong hand must appear visible, and if a good class of Chinese were encouraged to settle in the Islands it would prove a safe guarantee of order. The Chinese are peaceful and by nature imbued with commercial instincts, and in fa few years there would appear favourable results.
As the United States will award just treatment to the Filipinos, and secure the proper return and enjoyment of their industry, this will be an agency of great influence in favour of order, but the races which nature seems to have decreed should live in the tropical zone have not been stamped with the seal of superiority and capacity for self-government. They must feel the chastening influence of laws which not only enforce peace but guarantee justice and reward for labour, Bnd these are the guiding principles for governing the tropical zone.
T. R. Jersican.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.