tematic effort on their
(the Moros') part to cultivate the soil, as they know, as well as
the powers that be, that they have no assurance that the land they
will improve to-day will be theirs to-morrow. They have title to not
one foot of land, and no guarantee from the Government that present
improvements will be theirs when they are finally settled by the
former. A liberal _land law_ will also bring an influx of settlers
and capital.... It will not only make this province the richest part
of the Philippine Islands and the State the beneficiary, but it will
remove the necessity for the soldier in the field. No other legislation
is going to improve financial conditions here to any extent. There is
no doubt the Government land unsettled and untouched in this province
amounts to 90 per cent. of all the tillable land, and equals in area
and excels in richness that of all the tillable land of Luzon."

The District of Davao is far more developed agriculturally than the
other four. Planters whom I know personally are opening up land and
producing large quantities of hemp, giving employment to Bagobos
and others, but without any certainty about the possession of the
land. Inexhaustible forests of fine timber remain undisturbed,
and are left to decay in the ordinary course of nature, whilst
shiploads of Oregon pine arrive for public works. My attendance at
the public conferences on the timber-felling question, before the
Philippine Commission in Manila, did not help me to appreciate the
policy underlying the Insular Government's apparent reluctance to
stimulate the development of the timber industry; indeed, it is not
easy to follow the working of the "Philippines for the Filipinos"
policy in several details.

In 1904 General Wood recommended to the Philippine Commission the
incorporation of the present provinces of Misamis and Surigao in
the Moro Province, seeing that the people of those provinces and
the Moro Province belong to the same races and have identical
interests. As it is, the hill tribes of Misamis find themselves
between two jurisdictions, and have to pass nearly a hundred miles
through the Moro Province to reach the sea coast--an anomaly which
will no doubt be rectified by including the whole Island of Mindanao
in the Moro Province.

The American Government's abstinence from proselytism in dealing
with the Moros is more likely to succeed than Spain's well-meant
"policy of attraction" adopted in the last years o