A Lesson From the Malay States

WHATEVER the future may hold, it is certain that in the present America is called upon to make many and heavy sacrifices as an immediate consequence of her victory over Spain. Not only must she now, perforce, abandon the position of magnificent aloofness which she has held so long ; not only must she step down into the arena in which other white races have struggled and striven with such varied success, there to strain her thews and sinews in the effort to rule her distant and undesirable dependency ; but she must also consent to make many concessions against which her national pride will inevitably rise in revolt. Not the least of these, perhaps, will be found in the necessity under which she must labor of sitting at the feet of older nations, to learn from them and from their hard-won experience the rudiments of her new trade. The task upon which she is now embarking is one which she has never contemplated ; for which she is in no wise fitted by training, by inclination, or by tradition. The sensitive brown folk whom she is suddenly called upon to rule have nothing in common with her own sturdy people. The latter press forward with restless energy in the van of the dying century ; the former lag lazily at the tail of the Middle Ages. The Americans are democratic by instinct and by education ; the Filipinos, like all Malayan races, are intensely aristocratic. The Americans love progress, and the change which means improvement and advance ; the natives of the Philippines are conservative to the backbone. It would be difficult to find two peoples more entirely dissimilar in character, in opinions, in ambitions and aspirations, than are the Filipinos and the race by which they are now to be ruled. Yet it is by sympathy, and by a thorough understanding of the native point of view alone, that an Oriental race can be successfully governed, and this is part of the hard lesson which Americans who may be concerned in the administration of the Philippines must set themselves to learn.

In the first place, then, the people of the United States, who have hitherto regarded such matters as lacking both interest and importance, must turn their attention to the records of the work performed in Asia by other white races, and must make a careful study of the methods which have produced the most satisfactory results. T his, at the best, will be experienced only at second hand, but in the absence of anything better it will probably be useful. The English and the Dutch civil servant, who is sent out to the East at an early age, has the advantage of receiving from those under whom he serves some portion of the inherited tradition of the manner in which the Oriental can be most successfully ruled, which has been transmitted from generation to generation by those of his race who have labored in Asia before him. He holds no responsible position until he has been some years in the land of his adoption, and during that time he has had many opportunities of acquiring a practical working knowledge of the character of the natives, and of the means best calculated to give good results. At the age of thirty he is two hundred years old. Behind him is the accumulated experience of his race. His official forbears have blundered through small beginnings, until, by slow degrees, an empire has been won. Almost every mistake that is possible has at one time or another been made by them, though at a period when things were on a scale so small that they mattered little, and the modern civil servant thus knows what to avoid. It is due to those who have gone before him, not to himself personally, that now, when each false step would be a disaster, he blunders less seriously, less frequently, than they were wont to do.

Lacking such continuity of experience and tradition, the American administrators of the Philippines will labor under great disadvantages. Not only will they miss the knowledge of the people and the country, which is in itself well-nigh essential, but they will be forced to assume posts of the first importance without having received any previous training for the work, without the aid of any men grown old in Eastern lore to guide them in their difficulties, without any records in their past history to serve as signposts on their perilous way. The sterling common sense of the Anglo-Saxon will doubtless stand them in good stead. The extreme cool-headed ness for which Americans are remarkable will save them from making many mistakes into which a more excitable race might be betrayed ; but where error of a serious nature is so fatally easy, it is hardly possible that men thus heavily handicapped by circumstances should avoid the perpetration of blunders which may well prove disastrous.

In seeking for an analogy by means of which the Americans may to some extent be guided in their administration of the Philippines, the records of the British in the Federated States of the Malay Peninsula, and of the Dutch in Acheen, most readily occur to the mind. With the work performed by the British in India we need not concern ourselves. The conditions and the peoples are both unlike those with which the Americans in the Philippines will have to deal. In the beginning, the conquest of the vast peninsula was neither contemplated nor foreseen. The Indian empire built itself up gradually, fortuitously, almost imperceptibly, and its history, marvelous and soul-stirring though it be, offers no analogy to the problem in the Philippines. The conquest of Burma is in some ways more analogous to the work which lies before the Americans ; but the Mongolian race with whom the British there had to deal is wholly unlike the Malayan peoples who inhabit the newly acquired archipelago. In the Malay Peninsula and in Acheen, however, the British and the Dutch, respectively, have had to find solutions for problems very similar to those which now present themselves to the Americans. The two nations have adopted different means to the same end, and in the policy of the English the best road to success may perhaps be found, while in the weary little war which the Dutch have protracted with such miserable results for more than twenty-five years may be seen an awful warning, which he who runs may read.

Before turning our attention to a more minute examination of the system employed by the British in the Malay states, it may be instructive to glance at the recent history of Acheen, to see how far it illustrates points of importance to American statesmen concerned in the administration of the Philippine archipelago.

In 1819, at a time when the British still held certain colonies in Sumatra, a treaty with Acheen was executed, whereby all Europeans were excluded from making the latter country the place of their permanent residence. In 1824 the British colonies on the shores of Sumatra were ceded to the Dutch in exchange for certain advantages ; but in the agreement no mention was made of Acheen, though it was understood by the two contracting parties that England abandoned her right to protect that state, while Holland stood pledged not to interfere with its independence. The position created was somewhat anomalous, and in 1871 a further treaty with the Netherlands relieved Great Britain of all remaining responsibility with regard to the Sumatran kingdom. The conduct of the governor of the Straits Settlements, who was mainly responsible for this abandonment, has been often and sharply criticised, but this is a matter with which we are not now concerned.

The immediate result of his action was that war was declared upon Acheen by the Dutch before eighteen months had elapsed, and an armed force landed on the coast in April, 1873. Thus began the Acheenese war, which at the present time of writing is still dragging along, with no more prospect of a final issue than existed twenty-five years ago. The country is ill suited to the operations of troops trained and disciplined on European lines. In the interior it is exceedingly mountainous. The interminable forest, tangled with creepers and underwood, covers most of the country, affording refuge for the enemy, and enabling them to draw the Dutch soldiers into frequent ambushes, where they may be stricken down without even having the satisfaction of catching a glimpse of their foes. No blockade of the coast has been successful in cutting off supplies of arms and ammunition, although the British government has done its best to aid by prohibiting export from its possessions ; nor will any such attempt ever prove effective so long as the seas of Asia continue to be thronged by hundreds of disreputable little craft, owned by men of all nationalities and colors, and manned by folk who love heavy profits and a spice of danger and excitement. Of food the Acheenese will always have a sufficiency. Their country is fertile, and they can grow their crops with little labor in the valleys and on the hillsides of the mountainous interior, where they are safe from the Dutch. The people, who thoroughly realize the nature of their advantages, are firmly set in their determination to carry on the struggle to the bitter end ; and since poor and simple, gentle and wealthy, alike, have grown up to regard the Hollanders as their hereditary enemies, the disastrous war may well prove to be practically interminable.

Meanwhile, it is not only with the Aeheenese that the Dutch have had to contend. The mortality among their troops has often been terrible. Fever, dysentery, beriberi, — that most dreaded form of tropical dropsy, — have all claimed their victims, and even the native soldiers whom the Dutch have been able to put into the field have suffered severely. During the first decade of the war, if rumor speak truly, peculation was rife, and enormous sums were realized by contractors and underlings. Latterly, more supervision and stricter economy have done something to reduce the expenses of the campaign; but the Aeheenese war continues to be a constant and heavy drain upon the revenue of the Dutch colonies, which now has to be supplemented from the income of the mother country, instead of contributing to it, as it formerly did.

Lives of men and money in profusion have been devoted to the war, and what has Holland gained, after so many years of strife ? A certain influence in the districts lying immediately upon the seaboard ; a few forts, held in an enemy’s country by garrisons in a constant state of siege; the hatred of the natives of the land, upon whom she has brought unspeakable sufferings, and for whose good she has not been able to effect anything ; and a serious loss of prestige throughout all her Asiatic possessions. This is, in truth, a deplorable result to have attained after a struggle which has lasted more than twenty-five years, and there is small room for wonder if the Dutch nation as a whole, and more especially those responsible for the administration of the Nether land Indies, are heartily sick of Acheen and all connected therewith. But it is now too late to withdraw from the policy of conquest by force of arms to which the nation is committed, and therefore the war, hateful and detestable though it be, must still be carried on. Any change of tactics now would be likely to endanger the power of Holland in the East.

The theory upon which the Dutch have worked, that the colonies should contribute to the support of the mother country, has resulted in a system of taxation which cannot but be regarded as oppressive, if it, be compared with that in force in any civilized state in Europe or in the British dominions in the East. The natives of the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago were less heavily taxed, even under native rule, than the Malay population in the Dutch colonies. This is the principal reason for the lack of popularity which the Netherlands government has eternally to face; for Malays love money dearly. There are other causes, sufficiently serious in themselves, which need not be further alluded to in this place. That the government recognizes the fact, however, is proved by the excessive precautions against native risings which are taken by the authorities in Batavia, and in all the large centres of the Dutch colonies. With the danger forever before their eyes of fanning these smouldering embers of discontent into a flame, Dutch statesmen dare not discontinue the war with Acheen ; and so the troublous affair drags on and on, unending, but inevitable.

The conclusions to be drawn from the above facts can be more fittingly dealt with in a later paragraph of this article. I will therefore now turn to the Malay states of the peninsula, and will relate as concisely as I am able the history of the British connection with them ; making a rough examination of the system which has been adopted, and the results thereby attained.

In the very early days of “ Old .John Company,” at a time when the conquest of India was as yet undreamed of and the Eastern trade was still in its infancy, the emissaries of the London merchants had for their principal field of activity the islands of the Malay Archipelago. In the reign of James I. of England trade with many native states in Borneo, Java, and Sumatra was in full swing. On the shores of the Malay Peninsula itself a factory was established, in the kingdom of Patâni, in 1612, and was maintained for a period of ten years. Later, when a firm hold had been obtained upon the peninsula of Hindustan, it was from Calcutta that the initiative was taken which had for its result the foundation of the colony now known as the Straits Settlements. In 1786, Captain Light, an officer in the employment of the Indian government, procured the cession of the island of Penang from the sultan of Keda. Nine years later, the town and territory of Malacca, situated on the mainland of the peninsula halfway down the straits which bear their name, were wrested from the Dutch by an expedition fitted out from Calcutta. In 1819 Sir Stamford Raffles acquired for the Indian government the cession of the island of Singapore from the then sultan of Jôhore. Having so obtained these possessions, the East India Company continued to administer them, as outlying flanges of its growing empire, until that great corporation passed out of existence, and the Straits Settlements did not become a crown colony until 1867. During the whole of this period, and for seven years later, the administrators who had the straits in their charge did not attempt to gain a foothold upon the shores of the peninsula other than such as was afforded by the little territories of Malacca, and the district known as Province Wellesley opposite to the island of Penang. The various native states of the Malay Peninsula were suffered to manage, or mismanage, their own affairs in the fashion which most commended itself to them. The despotic rule of the native rajas and chiefs remained as entirely unchecked as in the days before the coming of Magellan ; the cruelties and barbarities, which in the peninsula are inseparable from native government, were perpetrated as of old ; the pirate craft which infested the mangrove - covered coast committed their depredations almost without let or hindrance; ancient abuses flourished exceedingly ; the peasants were ground down and deprived of the barest rights of human beings, and no one conceived it to be his duty to come to their assistance; even British subjects who were so foolhardy as to risk their lives by traveling in the interior did so at their own risk, and the authorities of the colony did not greatly concern themselves. So matters went on until 1874, when the government of the Straits Settlements, which was just beginning to feel its feet as a separate entity after its emancipation from the control of the Calcutta executive, bethought it that the time had come for setting the houses of those who dwelt in such close proximity to itself in something resembling order.

At this time civil wars were raging in the native states of the peninsula, on the western seaboard. In Pêrak, a pretender, who had fraudulently obtained possession of the regalia, was striving for the throne with the legitimate ruler of the land. In Sělângor a sultan lived who recognized that his own best chance of safety lay in permitting the hot-blooded youngsters of his house to fight with one another unchecked. To this end, he supplied all parties indifferently with arms and ammunition when they asked for help, gave to each applicant an informal authority, and sat by complacently as a spectator of a quarrel of so many Kilkenny cats. In each state the struggle was further complicated by the presence of a fairly large population of Chinese miners banded into secret societies, which were largely controlled by capitalists of their own nationality, residing in the colony of the Straits Settlements. The possession of the richest stanniferous land was the prize of victory, and the Malay chiefs, divided among themselves, were quite unable to cope with the Chinese factions. Anarchy, complete as it can be only in Asia, barbarous cruelties, warfare and bloodshed, scarcity and misery, — such were the things which held undisputed possession of the Malayan states when the British government first began to interest itself in their affairs.

The legitimate ruler of Pârak applied at last, in despair, to the governor of the Straits Settlements, for assistance against his enemies and in the administration of his troubled country. A treaty was signed; the sultan bound himself to be guided by his European adviser, and the first British Resident was appointed to live in Pêrak. Almost simultaneously a Resident was sent to reside in Sělângor. These men were unsupported by even a show of force. They had no settled place of abode, and their duty, for the most part, was to learn all that could be ascertained about the little-known states, and to lead the people and their rulers into better ways. It was heartbreaking work, of course. The Malays regarded them with dislike and with suspicion, for they represented the horror of the unknown. The worst that might be looked for from their own chiefs was a matter of which the Malay peasants had a very full knowledge ; the evil that the white men might work upon them, on the other hand, was something of which they could form no estimate. Therefore, the bulk of the population eyed the coming of the white men with the utmost disfavor and fear. The chiefs themselves, who saw in the advent of the strangers a danger which must threaten alike their authority and their privileges, hated the European officers quite sincerely, and did all in their power to thwart them.

Our experience of Malays was of the slightest description at that time. The principal Resident did not even know the language. Like the Americans in the Philippines to-day, the English were playing a game which was new to them, the veriest rudiments of which they had yet to learn. As a consequence, though in a new country it is perhaps inevitable that one or more men should die for the people, Mr. J. W. W. Birch, the first Resident of Pêrak, was brutally murdered in November, 187b. A military expedition was dispatched to avenge his death, and the main rivers, the principal highways of the country, were occupied by troops. No attempt was made, however, to conquer the land by force of arms. The thickly wooded country made military operations impossible, and the only engagements fought were in the last degree inglorious. Had an effort been made to reduce the state by overrunning it with troops, it is probable that the war would have been as bitter and as unsuccessful as that in Acheen. Instead, the English political officials did all in their power to convince the people that the occupation would last only so long as they by their own actions rendered it necessary ; that Mr. Birch’s murderers must be delivered up to justice ; that those who had organized the assassination must be punished ; and that, for the rest, there was no desire to tamper with the liberties of the natives. The Malays were impressed by the show of force, doubtless, for such things commend themselves to the imagination of Orientals ; but the principal advantage which was gained by the occupation is to be looked for in the fact that, through better acquaintance with our methods and with the character of our officers, the natives learned that their fear of us had been groundless, and that by our aid the meanest members of the community might obtain a measure of justice and liberty such as they had never enjoyed under their own rajas and chiefs. With the peasantry thus won over to our side, the native rulers no longer caused us any serious difficulty. The power of a chief lies in the number of his adherents ; when this has shrunk to insignificance, he continues to exist merely as a discontented person who is impotent for harm.

Sělângor did not need to be reduced to order by means of a military expedition. The example of Pêrak proved to be sufficient. In Sûngei Ujong and the Něgri Sembilan, the little states round the territory of Malacca, troops were required before our grip upon the natives had become so firm that the aid of military force could be safely dispensed with ; and in Pahang, the last acquired of the native states, no army of occupation was ever needed, though the police forces of Pêrak and Sělângor were used in 1892 to quell disturbances which had their rise in the discontent of certain native chiefs.

The troops withdrawn, the real labor of setting the troubled lands in order was begun. The Resident appointed to each state was furnished with a number of European officers. The country was divided up into districts, each with a white man in charge. Men who had experience of the Chinese and could speak their language were set to rule that portion of the population. The mining lands were leased to those who had the ability to work them, and private enterprises of all kinds were encouraged to the utmost. At first the greatest caution had to be employed, coupled with the most untiring patience. It was vastly important that things should not be hurried unduly, that the natives should not be terrified by unnecessary innovations, that the old landmarks to which they clung should be respected, that ancient customs should be adhered to when possible, that on all occasions the greatest tact should be exercised, that native susceptibilities should never be wantonly wounded. It was recognized that our power lay in the good will of the bulk of the people; that the only justification for our presence among them lay in our ability to make them freer, happier, and more prosperous than in the days before our coming. Crime of a serious description was punished with rigor, but with justice, for the Malay respects firmness in his rulers; the ill deeds of the chiefs, which had the peasantry for their victims, were ruthlessly repressed, yet the commoners were made to treat, the fallen despots with the ceremony required by custom, and any failure in this respect was treated as an offense. At first, of necessity, many things which were opposed to European ideas of the eternal fitness were suffered to continue. The white men who ruled the land were alone among aliens, and their ability to administer the country was due solely to their personal influence. To maintain this, they were bound to act in a manner which often harmonized more nearly with native than with European notions ; but little by little, as their grip grew surer, they led the people out of the darkness into the light.

Meanwhile, in more material things they adopted a most energetic policy. The country, when they entered it, was one huge forest, threaded here and there by footpaths, cleft in twain by great shallow rivers, hut for the rest trackless and impenetrable. Villages which did not lie upon the banks of the same river, though separated from one another by only a few miles of jungle, were so remote that it was a journey of several days’ duration to pass from one to the other. Vast tracts of stanniferous land were rendered inaccessible through lack of facilities for transport. The natural wealth of the country was thus hermetically sealed. To develop the resources of the states, and at the same time, by increasing the means of communication, to facilitate the work of administration, large sums were devoted to the construction of roads. At first the native states could not produce sufficient revenue to defray the cost of such works ; but the colony lent money freely, and later Pêrak aided Sělângor with funds, just as at present Sělângor is financing Pahang, The sums thus expended were well and wisely spent. The country was opened up in every direction, markets for their produce were brought to the very doors of the peasants, the wealth and prosperity of every section of the population were enormously increased, the revenue rose by leaps and bounds, and the success of the administration was assured.

But perhaps the most interesting and instructive feature of the work effected among the Malays of the native states by British officers is the part which, under their guidance, has been played in the administration of these countries by the natives themselves. Formerly, a Malay chief regarded his position merely as “ a vantage ground for pleasure,” and his people as folk of no account, whom Providence had thoughtfully bestowed upon him for the satisfaction of his desires. He had no sense of responsibility ; duty was to him a thing unknown. He had never been taught to recognize any obligation to the country or to the people over whom he ruled. Before him the commoners and peasantry were as driven cattle, and as beasts of burden he treated them. Thousands of years, during which their forbears had exercised the privileges of undisputed authority, had given to the dominant classes of the Malays no higher conception of their raison d’être than this ; had brought upon them all the evils consequent on complete self-indulgence; and had not even developed in them the manly qualities which come to those who are marked out by instinct, not merely by birth, as the rulers of their fellows. Then the white men came. The chiefs watched these strangers laboring, with small regard for their own comfort, in an uncongenial climate, and wearing out bodies and souls alike for the betterment of those around them.

At first they wondered blankly at the eccentric actions of the Europeans; speculated wildly as to their motives; tried to discover what personal ambition, what love of greed or gain, they might be seeking to satisfy at the cost of so much unremitting toil. Then, gradually and by slow degrees, the conviction was forced upon their minds that there was some driving power at the back of these men, some force or principle to which they themselves had hitherto been strangers. Later still they made the discovery that this was a sense of duty, duty toward the state and the alien people whom the white men had come so far to serve, coupled with a keen interest in the work which they were performing and a love of labor for its own sake. The idea was so foreign to the indolent native temperament that for a long time it could not be thoroughly grasped ; but little by little the example of the strangers was found to be contagious, and the better class of Malayan chiefs learned to assimilate something of the altruistic spirit which they recognized as dominating their European teachers. They met with ready encouragement; and so it has come to pass that, at the present time of writing, the detailed work of administration throughout British Malaya is largely performed by the natives of the peninsula. On the bench, in the custom houses, in every village throughout the land, Malays, trained by Europeans to deal justly by the people, are to be found working for the good of the state in a fashion which would have been incomprehensible to their fathers a short generation ago ; and the number of capable native officers who are annually produced by our system of administration is ever on the increase. The Malayan states are even now only under the " protection ” of Great Britain. They do not form an integral part of the empire, and the sultans and chiefs have therefore a full right to exercise authority in the government of their countries. That, aided by their white advisers, they use this right wisely and well is not the least remarkable feature in the British record in Malaya.

One word as to the European officers themselves. The most responsible posts were filled almost from the first by men of a deep and wide experience in the management of natives, but the subordinate officers were nominated by the Colonial Office in London and by the governors of the Straits Settlements. In many cases they were men who had received no special training for the work which they were to perform, but they received an education in Eastern lore from the older men under whom they served. They were selected from the class which we, in our archaic European phraseology, term “gentlemen;” they possessed the refinement, the good manners, and the care for the susceptibilities of others which make men tactful, and in dealing with Orientals, the most sensitive of human beings, are worth all the ’ologies ; and physically they were generally sound specimens of their race. Moreover, in those very early days there were few amusements or distractions of any kind to tempt them from their work. They lived almost alone among a native population, and they made a study of the people their principal aim and recreation. They were thoroughly in touch with the folk over whom they ruled, and this gave them a surprising influence. Also, they caught the enthusiasm for the work which distinguished their superiors in the service, and they lived for the state, — men with a single idea, whose hobby it was to manage the country in a manner which satisfied their high ideals. Now that the whole face of the land has undergone alteration, the men have to some extent changed with it. European society has grown up about them ; race courses and cricket fields occupy much of the time which of old was devoted to toil; men think themselves ill used if they are kept for long in the solitude of out-stations ; and the cadets, recruited by competitive examination, are content to learn only so much of the language of the natives as will enable them to satisfy the by no means searching tests to which they are subjected. But the most difficult part of the work has already been accomplished; many of the original crew are still at hand to man the ship ; and for the time, at any rate, the prosperity of the Malay states is so well assured that nothing can do it any very serious injury.

Meanwhile, under British protection the Malay Peninsula has emerged from its former obscurity, and has begun to play a part not insignificant in the world to which it belongs. For the last ten years it has produced from fifty to seventy-five per cent of the tin of the globe, its output exceeding largely that of Australia, South America, Cornwall, and all other tin-yielding countries put together. The revenue of the existing federation has risen in five-and-twenty years from a few hundred thousand to over seven million silver dollars. Out of current receipts, roads, which intersect the states from end to end, have been constructed. Over two hundred miles of railway are open to traffic, and an elaborate system, joining Penang to Malacca, is in course of completion. Planting and other private enterprises have been stimulated ; the material wellbeing of the natives has been enormously improved ; and the once lawless land has been made as peaceful and as secure as are the best ordered countries of Europe. This has attracted large numbers of Chinese, the most orderly, hard-working, money-loving, and thrifty natives in the East, and by them has been performed the heavy labor of a kind which the indolent, ease-seeking Malays could never have accomplished. Some Chinese came to the Malay states before ever white men set foot on the peninsula ; but as a race they love best a land where they can make money undisturbed by risk of war and robbery, and this they find in modern Malaya, ruled by a strong government under European control. Without the aid of the white men the present condition of affairs could never have been arrived at ; and this fact, which justifies our presence in the Malay states, is one of which Englishmen may well be proud.

In the space of an article such as this, it is impossible to give more than an outline sketch of the work which has been accomplished, and the methods which the British have adopted for the attainment of their ends ; and the only interest which these things can have for American readers must be sought in the analogy between the Malay states and the Philippines. This is to be sought chiefly in the fact that the natives of the newly acquired archipelago are, with a few exceptions, of the Malayan race.

As in the peninsula and other parts of Asia, the aboriginal natives of the Philippines are negrits, — little curlyhaired, soot-colored creatures, like African negroes seen through the reverse end of a field glass. They are not very numerous, and are too profoundly ignorant and uncivilized to be in any way formidable. The prevailing native tribes, called Igorrotes by the Spaniards, are probably the descendants of the next race wave which passed over the islands. They belong to the Mon-Annam stock, and resemble the Sâkai hill tribes of the peninsula in their physical characteristics, though they have attained to a higher degree of civilization. Last to arrive were the people of the Malayan family, who. though now divided into some fifty different tribes, are scattered up and down the fifteen hundred islands which compose the Philippine archipelago.

Asia is so vast a continent that the maps which most of us are accustomed to see give but a faint idea of the extent of the countries composing and adjoining it. Thus, as shown on the chart, the Philippines appear to be an insignificant group, whereas their most northerly extremity is as distant from the southern islands of Sûlu as is the north of Scotland from the toe of Italy. The work of administering such an extensive area will necessarily be difficult; and if the opposition made be of a serious nature, it will be almost hopeless to attempt to subdue it by force of arms, unless the people of the United States are prepared to make sacrifices of a kind which no nation can pretend to regard with equanimity. Lying as they do in the womb of the tropics, the islands have a climate which is not well suited to white troops. The seasons of the year may, speaking broadly, be said to be three in number : the cold season, from November to March ; the hot season, from April to June ; and the wet season, from July to October. The name which I have given to the first of these divisions is somewhat misleading, for in the Philippines it is never really cold. The distinction between the seasons in the islands is much like that made by Mark Twain in writing of the weather in Calcutta: the hot season is that which will melt a brass doorknob ; the cold season will only make it mushy. The wet season, however, lives up to its reputation. The rain falls in torrents, day after day, night after night; the rivers and lagoons rise in angry spate, flooding the surrounding country for miles ; the heavy malarious mists curl upwards and hang over the steaming land ; everything is clammy to the touch, miserable and oppressive. The country is in places very mountainous. It is covered, as is the Malay Peninsula, with interminable forests. affording excellent cover to those engaged in carrying on a guerrilla warfare, and most hampering and heartbreaking for white soldiery. In the lowlands the floods will enforce a cessation of hostilities for several months in each year, and the truce will give the enemy time in which to make ready for a fresh effort. The geographical features of the islands are of a kind which will render the maintenance of a blockade well-nigh impossible, and the natives will therefore have little difficulty in obtaining all the warlike stores of which they will stand in need. The Americans will find that they have opposed to them all the obstacles which have proved so effectual in defeating the Dutch in Acheen, but always on a much vaster scale. They will have no brown troops to put into the field, such as the British employed largely in the Malay states, and the Dutch summon to their aid in Sumatra ; their base is many thousand weary miles away ; they have no intimate acquaintance with the country or the people ; and if they continue to act in a manner calculated to inspire universal hostility, they will in the end be forced to conquer the group, island by island, a work which may well occupy them for the greater part of the coming century.

Some months ago I had a long talk with the sultan of the Sûlu Islands, and learned his view of the position of the Spaniards with regard to his territories. He laughed at any pretensions they might make that the land was a Spanish possession, and pointed out that they had never attempted to win a surer foothold on the islands than was afforded them by the land ceded for the erection of their forts. With the internal administration of the group, he declared, they had neither the right nor the power to interfere, and further inquiries on the subject bear out the sultan’s contention. A closer examination will also show us that in many of the outlying portions of the archipelago the white men’s control was purely nominal. It must be remembered that the position of the Spaniards in the Philippines was won, in the beginning, not by the sword, but by the Spanish priesthood, — devoted men who penetrated into the unknown wilderness, converting the natives from paganism to Christianity, and lifting them from a barbarism which was almost savagery to a degree of civilization greater than that enjoyed by Malays of any other land.

Whatever the complaints which the natives may now prefer against the Spanish clergy, the fact can never be forgotten that it is to these men they owe their education, and all that makes up their present mental and moral acquirements ; and it is only natural that these missionaries, who in the past had exerted so great an influence upon the people, should cling to the power which they had won for themselves long after their good offices had grown useless to the executive. Thus, the priestly element in the government of the Philippines preponderated under Spanish dominion, and the class of men who were sent out from Spain to fill civil posts were little suited to the task. The cadets of the best families could not be tempted into exile ; the sons of tradesmen and of the bourgeoisie filled the gap ; and the only men of gentle blood and intellectual attainments in the islands were the priests. The administration was hopelessly behind the times; the policy of taxation was clumsy, old-fashioned, and oppressive : the government fell into disrepute with the natives, and the priests, who had become so closely identified with the temporal power, shared in its unpopularity. Rapidly the discontent, fermented by the obvious inefficiency of the executive, spread and deepened; eventually the collection of revenue became the only task which the administration even attempted to perform ; the Spanish control exercised by incompetent officials waxed weaker and weaker: and now, when the rotten system has suddenly crumbled away into dust, the Americans find themselves in nominal possession of the islands which their predecessors were not in a position to hand over to them, and with no sure foundations established by the former rulers upon which they themselves may begin to build.

A consideration of the foregoing facts points clearly to two very definite conclusions. Every nerve should be strained by the United States to avoid the adoption of a policy of unnecessary aggression, and she should endeavor as far as possible to administer the Philippines with the aid of the natives themselves. “ Now is the accepted time.” Later, steps may have been taken and a spirit of antagonism awakened which will render withdrawal from a policy of military coercion a practical impossibility ; yet if once she become committed to such a course, the United States can look only for results which are likely to prove both humiliating and disastrous. If, on the other hand, her statesmen decide to act somewhat on the lines followed by the British in the Malay states, her hold upon her new possessions, if she be content to go forward slowly, but surely, will eventually be firmly secured, " broadbased upon a people’s will.”

In order to attach the natives to herself, she must begin by convincing them that her motives in coming among them are entirely altruistic, that she seeks nothing but the improvement of their lot, and that she has no desire to exclude them from the administration of their country. To do this, she must for a time allow more power to be vested in the native officials than may theoretically be advisable. She should bear in mind the aphorism, “ It is ill to hustle the East,” and she should make up her mind to move very patiently and deliberately. Her officers should be sprinkled about the islands, to learn all that can be known concerning them, to make themselves acquainted with the people, and gradually to obtain an influence over them. The gobernadurcillos, the men who, under Spanish rule, were the heads of the village communes, are mostly natives of the islands. To begin with, these men should be intrusted with the administration of their people and their parishes ; the American political agents contenting themselves with giving such advice as may be necessary from time to time, and interfering only to prevent injustice of a gross description. Very soon the force of character of the white men will make itself felt; the natives will learn where to look for help in their distresses, and for the justice which is incorruptible. When this system has been in force for a period of years, if it be deemed advisable to assume a more complete control of the archipelago, the American officers will find that they have the support and the good will of the bulk of the population behind them, and the change will be effected almost without difficulty. This, in the opinion of those who best know the nature of a Malayan race, will be at once the safest, the surest, and the easiest manner in which the Philippines may be subjected.

To carry out a policy such as this, America must select men of a stamp similar to that of the officers who did the early work among the Malays of the peninsula. They must be men of refinement and education, physically fit to stand the strain of a very trying life spent in a tropical climate, and they must devote themselves to the task allotted to them with enthusiasm and with sympathy. For them there will be no applause of the populace, no short cut to wealth, no reward of any kind save the power to perform quietly and obscurely a noble work for the benefit of a race which has no natural claim upon their services. England has found many of her sons ready to bind themselves to a permanent exile for no higher guerdon. It is for the people of the United States to say whether men of the required stamp will be prepared to make a similar sacrifice on behalf of their country.

I have not left myself space in this article to enter upon such matters as the necessity, to which Americans must become reconciled, for the establishment of a permanent civil service for the management of her colonies, the best tests by which the number of candidates for service in Asia may most fittingly be selected, and many other points bearing upon the question at issue, all of which are worthy of careful consideration. At almost every step America will be called upon to surrender some preconceived idea, some national prejudice, some cherished tradition of her people. In the East she will be dealing with men of an inferior race, and her theories of human equality must be abandoned. The natives under her control will decline to disregard the real distinction between class and class which, despite all disclaimers, exists in the United States as rigidly as in Europe. In other words, only men who have the manners, the refinement, and the education of gentlemen will have any chance of success in administering this Eastern colony, and the United States must either resign herself to failure, or allow the civil service devoted to the East to be drawn from what can only be termed the aristocracy of the land. France, Germany, and Spain have tried to work with materials of a coarser type, and their example is not encouraging. In this lies yet another lesson which the ancient and eternal East will teach the youngest of the white races.

The encouragement of Chinese immigration is viewed by a large number of Americans with superstitious horror, and the arguments against it, where these rice-eaters compete with white laborers, as in Australia and the Western states of the Union, are sound. In the Philippines, however, where the native population is composed of indolent brown folk, the yellow man will be the best tool that the executive can lay their hands on for the rapid development of the islands. It is a commonplace in the Malay states that without the aid of Chinese capitalists and of Chinese labor the white men, no matter how great their energy, would have effected little. The same will be found to apply to the new American possession; and if they be managed with skill and firmness by men who understand their character, the Chinese make as useful and as peaceable citizens as any government can well desire. The United States will have no difficulty in procuring the services of men who know the Chinese intimately in their own country, and no American prejudice should be suffered to interfere with the work of introducing as large a number of Chinamen into the archipelago as can be induced to immigrate.

Another point upon which the administrators of the Philippines will find it necessary to act with caution is that of the religious beliefs of the people. The majority of the natives of the islands are Roman Catholics ; and though they have had occasion to complain of the action of their priests with reference to interference in temporal affairs, and though they retain many of their pagan superstitions, they will resent keenly any attempt to tamper with their faith. The Muhammadans of the Sûlu group will regard their religion no less jealously; and the Americans should make it clear from the first that they intend to respect the convictions of their new subjects, and will take no part in aiding missionaries who desire to effect their conversion to other creeds.

As one who desires whole-heartedly to see the American nation succeed in Asia in a degree as signal as that of the other section of the Anglo-Saxon race, I wish the people of the United States three things: a speedy abandonment of the present policy of armed aggression ; the selection of a band of men who possess the instinct for the rule of a brown people ; and a reliance upon the moral influence of the higher over the lower breed instead of mere brute force. By that path, and by no other, lies the highroad to success.

Hugh Clifford.