Chinese are the chief offenders in the adulteration of articles of export. The Philippine indigo-trade has been ruined by their persistent adulteration of that product. Almost every article of export has suffered in this way, being marked down in the London market so as to permit purchasers to pay for the elimination of foreign matter and still realize a profit.

It is of the first importance that our government should arrive at something like a broad and far-seeing policy with regard to the admission of Chinese into the Philippines. The application of the Chinese Exclusion Act to the Philippines en bloc was a grave blunder. The conditions of the two countries are radically different. In the United States it might be urged that Chinese labor came into disastrous competition with American labor. Even there the Act would never have been forced through had it not been for the exigencies of party politics, and its passage and enforcement has hampered nearly every form of industry in California and adjacent States by cutting off the only supply of labor upon which dependence can be placed for the agricultural, mining, and fruit-raising industries of that rich coast. But the application of that Act to a country where there is no supply of unskilled labor to suffer by the alleged competition is an example of the folly of intrusting delicate matters of Asiatic administration to inexperienced lead

It works needless hardship upon the entire Archipelago, upon Chinese laborers, seeking honest employment, and upon those who seek to develop the vast resources of the country. It defeats, or indefinitely delays, the establishment of railways, the building of roads and bridges, and the general opening up of the country.

The Filipino is not a laborer. By that I do not mean to say that he is always lazy and unwilling to perform

any kind of labor. He is not a day laborer. He will never be a success as "a gang-man." All his instincts are against it. The idea of toiling day after day at the same round of tasks for money is repellent and unmeaning to him. Conditions of life are so easy that he sees no need of money in any considerable amount. A few pesos satisfy his immediate wants. All his past bears witness to the impossibility of his keeping more than a few pesos. If he had it, the tax monopolist knew it, and he was straightway "marked down" for exploitation. If he invested it in surplus goods, land, or cattle, or in any other form, he was certain to be a mark for the envy of some official or some ladrone. He has learned his lesson written in iron by centuries of oppression. It has practically killed out the instincts of acquisition which have grown in races enjoying protection in the use and enjoyment of the fruits of their labors. To become one of a gang of sweating men, and dig or lift or saw or hammer day after day in the hot sun, controlled in his hours and all the details of his labor by a "boss," and he not always gentle and considerate, but sometimes violent and profane, this is to the Filipino slavery, and he will have none of it. Give him his little plot of land, or his fishing rights, and with his carabao or two, his pet gamecock, his chickens, and his family about him, and he is content. It is useless to fight against nature. Here is where the Filipino is as near an economic factor as he is at present capable of becoming-I mean that class of the Filipino people who live by their toil. And curiously enough it is exactly at this point that the most urgent economic need of the country is found. Given a host of small cultivators, each developing to a good degree the possibilities of a small tract of land, and you have the conditions which will make the Philippine Islands a

garden, enrich her people and fill her treasuries to bursting with profits on the exportation of those tropical productions for which the modern world is calling with ever-increasing urgency. To attempt to drive this instinctive cultivator from his little piece of land, and make a sullen and inefficient laborer of him, will not only be utterly futile, it will be an economic crime. It will put him, in so far as it succeeds, into the class from which come the principal disturbers of the peace of Europe and the United States, and at the same time withdraw him from an occupation every tendency of which is to make him a contented member of the social and political body.

It should be possible to provide for the importation of Chinese laborers under time contracts, at the expiration of which they must be returned to China. The entire number so admitted could be easily regulated by a system of registration compulsory upon corporations or individuals making such contracts. Government could keep its own identification office for such coolies as it imported for public works. The tendency of this system would be to exalt agriculture and horticulture to the place of importance which they deserve, and to develop by example such labor possibilities as the Filipino pos

sesses.

It would be disastrous to permit unrestricted immigration. The population of China is so terribly overcrowded, and opportunities for gaining a bare livelihood are so scanty, that hordes of unskilled laborers and prospective merchants would come down upon the Philippines. But immigration under suitable restrictions is a necessity to the development of the Islands. Every added month of residence makes this more clear to any one with good opportunities for personal observation. Such relief should be granted in time to make it of use in the

era of construction now opening. He will furnish brawn for railway, road, and bridge work, and the pay he gets will enable him to go home independent for the remainder of his life. He will toil on the erection of mills, the openings of mines, and the furtherance of all industrial and commercial interests. The resultant prosperity will be shared in by the Filipino on his land, and thus indirectly the coming of this patient human machine will help the very man who is supposed to be crushed by his coming.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE FRIAR LANDS.

IN all reference to the friars it should be remembered that the monastic orders are meant, and not individual members of those orders. By friar lands is meant lands owned by monastic corporations, such as the Augustinian, Dominican, or Recolleto Orders. As has been already pointed out, it is impossible for a friar to hold property. His legal identity becomes merged into his order when he takes its irrevocable vows of poverty. Cases in which this vow has been violated are known, but are not frequent; and for the purposes of this chapter are not considered.

That much of the lands of these corporations has been secured lawfully can not be questioned. That practically all of it can now be held against any and all claimants, however it was originally secured, can not be reasonably doubted. In some cases, as in that of the hacienda of Imus, in the province of Cavite, it seems tolerably clear that friar ownership was gradually asserted over a large and immensely fertile tract of land by an abuse of power in connection with the use of water from a dam constructed on friar land, and sold to farmers of near-by tracts. The story of this dispossession of Filipinos from their rightful ownership is told in full with great circumstantiality in Senate Document No. 190, pages 269-280, by Don Felipe Calderon, one of the leading lawyers of Manila. It is a sad story of oppression and tyranny. But supposing it capable of confirmation in every detail, undis