to be to their honour. Of the is a confession of failure. It is no palliation to insist, as our Spanish authority, Colonel Monteverde, does, on the brutal character of the Tagalos. If they deserve his censure, they are at any rate a standing proof of the incapacity of their teachers. When we ask why the friars, Dominican, Augustinian, and Recollects, have become objects of hatred, the answer given by English and American witnesses is, firstly, because the individuals are immoral; and, secondly, because the Order is greedy. Mr Worcester quotes an example of a Spanish soldier who became a friar simply because he wished to lead an idle sensual life in a climate which suited him. Mr Forman speaks of many uncleanly livers among the regulars to his knowledge. But this laxity of life, even if we believe that the friars used their power to indulge their passions, might not have aroused hatred in a people whose own habits are sufficiently lax. It is rather the restless greed of the Order, which had its headquarters in Spain, which has no conscience, which looks upon the steady pursuit of its corporate profit as a virtue, which never forgets, or forgives, or rests till it has secured its purpose by force or by intrigue, which has ended by becoming intolerable. Mr Forman tells us that when the Spanish Government proposed a few years ago to introduce its own excellent system of land registration into the Philippines, the friars offered an obstinate and successful resistance, not because they feared to lose what they held, but because they thought that a settlement of titles would put a stop to their power of expansion at the expense of lay owners. As it was, no man who opposed them could be sure that he would not be robbed by the chicanery of the judges, who were bribed or overawed by the friars. In short, the Orders were hated in the Philippines for much those reasons which brought about the revolt of Protestant Europe in the sixteenth century -or for that matter, the violent attack made upon them in Catholic Spain itself little more than half a century ago. Where it has the power, the Church of Rome never fails to show that it has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. If such power as this was to last, it ought to have been carefully excluded from all outside influence. This was impossible, partly because of the action of the Spanish Government itself. Revolutions at home had some effect even on this remote colony. The power of the religious Orders had been limited in theory. If it was little reduced in practice, the reason is to be found in the constant intrigues of the chiefs of the Orders at Madrid. Yet it was being steadily undermined. Bad as the administration was, it did not prevent native Filipinos from acquiring wealth by trade. They sought to secure education for their sons, and found it in the Jesuit school at Manila. The Society has never recovered the vast estates it held before it was suppressed in the last century, but since its reconstruction it has been allowed to reopen its schools. Mr Worcester speaks of the Jesuits as the most educated men he met in the Philippines. Perhaps because they do not own land they have escaped sharing the unpopularity of other Orders. The Spanish Government has encouraged, or even compelled, its colonists to send their sons te the university at Madrid, in the hope that they would be trained into sound sentiments. As a matter of fact, the result was to bring them into contact with modern "Liberalism." The young Filipinos who came to Madrid in search of a diploma as doctor or lawyer not infrequently wandered on to Paris and Brussels. Colonel Monteverde says, and no doubt with truth, that they took their models everywhere from the men who "were discontented with the government under which they lived." We can believe him, for we know the educated baboo. Of course these civilised Filipinos came back with their heads full of Liberalism, and of vague aspirations after "rights" which were perfectly incompatible with "the government under which they lived." An example of this class was the José Rizal, a pupil of the Jesuits, an M.D. of Madrid, a student at Paris and Brussels, and also an oculist of some reputation, who was finally shot by the Spaniards. Just when the ground had been well prepared in this fashion, came the Spanish revolution of 1868. The amazingly feather-headed persons whom it brought to the Of helm at Madrid thought fit to the Katipunan, or League. permit the meeting of a "reform- This organisation was probably ing assembly" at Manila. imitated less from the Freecourse this body had nothing masons, Carbonari, or any other more pressing to do than to set European body known to the about reforming the Spanish educated Filipinos, than from administration out of existence. the familiar Chinese model. In A trifling knowledge of the the matter of secret societies histories of revolutions will en- the Chinamen who swarm at able any reader to tell the rest Manila have nothing to learn of the story for himself. The from anybody. The Katipunan friars were angered, and Gov- included all ranks-and not a ernment frightened at the fire few of the native troops. Its it had raised in the heather. members made an incision on There was reaction, suppression, the leg, and signed with their and coercion-and there was blood. The scar was the mark also hidden discontent and secret of the brotherhood. During agitation. It would seem, how- the years preceding the outever, that the Filipinos were break of the rebellion in 1896 not as yet resolute or prepared. the Katipunan had practically The futile conspiracy of 1872 organised an unseen army. It was easily stopped, and rather was divided into districts and more than twenty years passed sub-districts, each with its own before anything dangerous hap- chief. There was a regular pened. During that last in- hierarchy of leaders, and a head terval of peaceful corruption centre. Nothing was wanting Spanish governors robbed and but an opportunity, and that their subordinates pilfered as was supplied when the vices before; a swarm of legal officials of Spanish administration alhampered all industry, to the lowed the rebellion in Cuba to injury of their own countrymen become formidable. Then the engaged in trade, as well as the Filipinos saw their opportunnatives. The religious Orders ity. Mr Forman says that were restless, possessed with a they sent a numerously signed fear of "Fracmasones," Free- petition to the Mikado, and masons, and therefore ever more that the Japanese Government severe in exercising their author- communicated it, names and ity. The Spanish Government, all, to the Spaniards. with all the foresight it dis- may entertain some doubt how played in Cuba, allowed its far this story is well founded, garrison to sink to fifteen hun- and yet it is perfectly consistdred men. This handful of ent with Spanish methods that white troops, and a few thousand the doomed Government at native soldiers, formed all the Madrid should have had the force it had to control seven or warning, and still should have eight millions of discontented taken no effectual measures to subjects ripening for rebellion. meet the danger. Certain it is that when the revolt broke out it found Don Ramon Blanco, The friars were so far right that there was a secret society, VOL. CLXV.-NO. MIV 3 U One some 6000 native troops, of whom numbers belonged to the Katipunan-and this was all there was to meet a whole population in arms. The rebels had concentrated the Captain General, with 1500 Spanish soldiers and in the province of Cavite, on the south side of the bay of Manila. The island of Luzon runs north and south, with a projecting peninsula, or rather bunch of peninsulas, at the south-eastern corner. Manila lies on the western side, near the southern end. Here the land is narrowed by the great sweep of the bay. In the centre of this narrow part, and south-west of the capital, is the large Laguna de Bay, or Lake Bay. The space between the lake and the western sea is the province of Cavite. The border on the south is a range of hills running east and west, which separate Cavite from the province of Batangas. From these hills the land slopes gradually down to the north till it sinks into the bay of Manila. This cockpit, of some forty kilometres from north to south, and forty-four from east to west, was the scene of the campaign of 1897 and of much of the late fighting imposed on the Americans. It seems a small space for an irregular force which has to face disciplined troops; but the difficulty of a country is not in proportion to its size. Cavite is harder to overrun than hundreds of miles of open desert. The rainy season-from June till near the end of the year— turns the soil into a full sponge. Innumerable streams rise in the southern hills of Tagaytay and run to the bay of Manila. In the rains they cut deep courses, which in the dry season become what the Spaniards call barrancas sandy river beds With all their weaknesses and vices there is still a foundation of manhood in the Spaniards. Therefore, though taken at a terrible disadvantage, by their own fault, they yet stood and fought. It was little they could do except keep their hold on Manila till help came. For once the old saying, Socorro de España 6 tarde llega, ó nunca, Help from Spain comes late, or never, was falsified. Though terribly hampered by the demands of Cuba, the Spanish Government poured out troops to the number of 26,000 or 27,000. It also sent out a new Generalthe Don Camilo de Polavieja, who has been already introduced to the readers of 'Maga.' Don Camilo is the very model of that hombre de pan y palo, the man with bread and a rodor in other words, rewards for his friends, and blows for his enemies-who continues to be the Spaniard's true ideal of a governing person. He is a High Churchman, and therefore sure of the support of the friars. Under the direction of Polavieja the neighbourhood of Manila was swept of the rebels by the end of 1896. Then in the dry months, which begin in January and last until June, the new Captain-General carried out the campaign described in the too eloquent but instructive pages of Colonel Monteverde. with steep banks. Though the religious Orders have some of their best estates in Cavite, the province is yet full of wood, bush, and patches of reed. These montes, cogonales, and cañiverales supply ample cover to the Tagalos, and afford the material for stockades. Wet as the province is in the rainy season, there is often a difficulty in finding waterparticularly for large bodies of men-in the dry months. A country of this character presents obvious advantages to the side which is fighting to resist invasion, even when it is well supplied with roads and bridges. But from the very nature of Spanish administration there were few of the first and still fewer of the second. The Filipinos, too, were far from being ill supplied with arms. Colonel Monteverde calculates that they possessed some 15,000 good rifles, Remingtons, Springfields, or Berdans. They clearly never wanted for cartridges. Some of these weapons were seized in the stations of the Civil Guard overpowered by the rebels in the early days of the rising; others were brought in by deserters from the native troops. Not a few must have been obtained by smuggling. The Filipinos had no modern ordnance, but endeavoured to supply the want by guns of their own invention called lantacas. From Colonel Monteverde's description it would seem that the lantaca bears a close resemblance to the once famous Swedish guns of the army of Gustavus Adolphus, which were made of copper and leather. The inner tube is a piece of iron water-pipe. Bars of metal are laid along it and well fastened on, served, as the sailors would say, with rope, and the whole covered with leather. The breech-piece was made of wood. Rude as these guns are, they can still do damage. Colonel Monteverde describes how one of his comrades, Major Vidal, was blown to pieces by one of them while leading his men to the storm of a stockade. a stockade. One can believe that, when well charged with slugs and nails, and fired at short range into a storming party, they are capable of scattering a good few wounds. Necessity has plainly proved herself once more to be the mother of invention, even among the Filipinos. But, indeed, Colonel Monteverde's narrative leaves the impression that these barbarians are by no means so feebly barbarous in their tactics as we might believe them to be when we only knew that they had finally prevailed over the Spaniards. Thanks, no doubt, to the preliminary efforts of the Katipunan, they possessed a regular military organisation. At the head was Emilio Aguinaldo as Generalissimo, with his staff of lieutenants-general, majorsgeneral (in Spanish, Mariscales de Campo), brigadiers, and so on. All these officers had their due insignia. In the matter of uniform the Filipinos were indifferent, but their marks of rank were simple and not without decorative merit. On the whole the Filipino measures of defence were not contemptible. Their |
