Passengers from the P. M. S. Korea were brought up to Shanghai from Woosung Cly half-past nine on Wednesday morning and with them came Mr. William H. Taft, lately Civil Governor of the Philippi Islands, with Mrs. Taft, their two children, and suite. During the morning the e: Governor, who is on his way home to take up the responsible position of Secretary of State for War, was about the Settlement calling on officials and others. In the afternoon he was, however, at home in the cosy lobby of the Astor House, prepared, he put it, to see anybody and everybody. 'A grent many callers arrived and among them representative of this journal Finely built and seemingly in the very pink of health, Mr. Taft has in full measure the robust cordiality of manner which makes American public men so readily accessible, and, with most of his countrymen likewise, coptimisticvis he in regard to the islands he is a confessed optimist. Speciall he has just left behind. ' TI leave the Philippines with the very greatest re-Juctance," were almost his first words, and he continued: Never in the whole 300 years of the civilised history of the Philippines have the islands been in a more tranquil state than at the present. There is no disturbance and very little discontent. Those who say to the contrary either lo not know what they are talking about or do not want to know, The country is rich in minerals and has great: agricultural resources. It is only vat tle" beginning of prosperity Let no-one speak despairingly of the future of the American—occupation to me." On the subject of the admission of Chinese labour t the islands the ex-Governor was equally emphatic. John Chinaman has no chance there other than he had made for himself before the American arrival. "The aim of the United States is to bring the islands into the very closest possible relations with the States, and to overrun the country with Chinese would be very detrimental to that end. Chinese labour is cheap, but everyone knows that the Chinese ate also the best merchants in the world and they would not be content to remain as labourers. And they are not wanted as labourers. So far the Filipino has never had a chance to show what he can do. Nature has b-en bountiful and the necessity for labour has not pressed on him, But I am convinced he has the making of a first-class workman in hi What he has done on the roads, the making of which in the tropics is much more expensive and difficult than laying railways even, because of the torrential rains, has proved that the Filipino is not: a mere idler. The Government has not, felt any tshortaze of Ixbmr and it is undertaking extensive public works. The rapid growth of the principal export, hemp, is another illustration of what Filipino labour properly organised can do."
Mr, Taft is much impressed by th magnificence of Shanghai, to which this is his first visit. The frequency of earthquakes will prevent Manila from ever essit.g such palatial buildings as shanghai, The Governor's stay here was, however, of the briefest, as his chief anxiety now isto get home, and he will reach San Francisco as fast as the Korea, to whose seagoing qualities and comfort he took occasion to pay a compliment, will take him.
Tt may be noted in connection with this flying visit that Mr. Taft is 47 years old, and before he went to Manila in 1900 he was for eight years a circuit judge in the States. One of his brothers edits a leading paper in Cincinnati.
there can be no question that the Provident of the U. S. was very well advised when he selected Judge Taft to be Governor of the Philippines, and that: however able his successor may be, he will find it very difficult, if not impossible to do better work there than Governor Taft has done daring his tenure of office there.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.