their views of justice or expediency, in the labor and silver
questions--the convictions, the fanaticisms, of the vast silver
nations--and enormous multitudes of the people of Asia, touching the
silver standard--and the possible progress of labor, as a guiding as
well as plodding ability increases incessantly in interest, and must
grow in inheritance. As the conditions of progressive civilization are
developed our interests cannot be wholly dissevered from those of the
Asiatics. We would be unwise to contemplate the situation of to-day
as one that can or should perpetuate itself. Suppose we accept, the
governing responsibility in the Philippines. It is not beyond the range
of reasonable conjecture that American labor can educate the laborers
of the Philippines out of their state of servitude as cheap laborers,
and lead them to co-operate rather than compete with us, and not to
go into the silver question further than to consent that it exists,
and is in the simplest form of statement, whether the change in the
market value of the two money metals is natural or artificial. It is
necessary in common candor to state that the most complete solution
of the money metal embarrassments would be through the co-operation
of Asia and America. Europe is for gold, Asia for silver, and the
Americas divided. Japan is an object lesson, her approximation to
the gold standard has caused in the Empire an augmentation of the
compensation of labor. This is not wholly due to the change in the
standard. The war with China, the increase in the army and navy, and
the absorption of laborers in Formosa, the new country of Japan, have
combined with the higher standard of value, to elevate wages. All facts
are of primary excellence in the formation of the policies of nations.

CHAPTER IX

The Philippine Islands As They Are.

Area and Population--Climate--Mineral Wealth--Agriculture--Commerce
and Transportation--Revenue and Expenses--Spanish Troops--Spanish
Navy--Spanish Civil Administration--Insurgent Troops--Insurgent Civil
Administration--United States Troops--United States Navy--United
States Civil Administration--The Future of the Islands.

General Frank V. Greene made an exhaustive study of all reports
of an official character regarding the area, population, climate,
resources, commerce, revenue and expenses of the Philippines Islands,
and prepared a memorandum for the general information that is the
most thorough and complete ever mad