West of the White House, in the city of Washington, rises the great pile that is the State, War and Navy Building. Therein sit two gentlemen who are in charge of the U. S. policy in the Far East. One of them is the Secretary of State, whose subordinates at Tokyo, at Peking, post to do his bidding. The other is the Secretary of War, whose subordinate at Manila functions as the Governor General of the Philippines.
But there are also other Americans who, unofficially, represent the U. S. in the East. One of them is Thomas F. Millard, a hard-headed imperialist thinking in terms of weltpolitik for a "parochially-minded" Republic. In China, where nearly every great power, except the U. S., subsidizes at least one newspaper, Mr. Millard founded and edited The China Press (Shanghai), Millard's Review (Shanghai), made himself the most eloquent American voice in the Far East.
Recently, he revisited the Philippines after an absence of years. From there he wrote a series of articles, concluded last week in The New York Herald-Tribune. Therein he set forth his solution of the Philippine problem: Let the U. S. keep the islands forever.
His reasons in brief:
1) Filipinos are not capable of using wisely the self-government they now have. This was indicated by the corruption (laughable if not so serious) which occurred during 1916-21 under the Jones Act before General Wood arrived to check the gay career of the politicians.
2) But even if they should acquire self-governing capacity, "it is fallacious to presume that the right of self-government and the right of independence are identical."
3) If independence were granted, now or in the future, Filipinos, as most of them admit, could not maintain it against foreign aggression.
4) The independence-talk is manufactured by the big caciques (political and industrial bosses) who want to dispose of the public domain at a fat profit to themselves. Their insincerity is indicated by their naive assumption that independence will be accompanied by some sort of "mandate" or "guarantee" under which the U. S. will protect them. What is there in this for the U. S.?
5) The U. S. has in the Philippines an immense national treasure which it is in no way obligated to surrender for sentimental reasons. Of the total area —larger than Illinois and Ohio—80% belongs to the Government.*
Assuming these vast lands are worth only one billion dollars, that is approximately ten dollars for every American —man, woman, child. †