native press to speak again
on the subject engaging our attention. Thus _Vanguardia_ [57] a bitter
anti-American sheet, arraigns its wealthy fellow-countrymen for lack of
initiative and fondness of routine. It accuses them of a willingness to
invest in city property, to deposit money in banks, "to make loans at
usurious rates, in which they take advantage of the urgent and pressing
necessities of their countrymen," but of unwillingness "to engage
in agriculture, marine or industrial enterprise"; and says they are
"generally lacking in the spirit of progression." According to another
native newspaper, the vice of gambling has infected all classes of
society, men and women alike, rich and poor, young and old. Mere it
is almost impossible to overdraw the picture, so widespread is the
vice. Let us now couple these statements, drawn from native sources,
with the fact that the Christianized tribes, all told, number some
7,000,000; that of these but one-tenth speak Spanish; and that of
this tenth only a very few are educated in any accepted sense of the
word. Repeating here a form of summation already employed in this
discussion, let us bear in mind that, if we decide to make a grant
of independence, we shall be deciding to grant it to a population,
composed, first, of a very few educated persons; next, of a small
fraction able, through the possession of Spanish, to communicate,
with one another; and, lastly, of a remainder--the vast, the immense
majority--not only unable so to communicate, but characterized by
qualities that, however commendable in themselves, do not constitute a
foundation on which popular self-government may safely rest. Further,
we mean to grant it to a population which contains no middle class,
to one in which the poor are peculiarly at the mercy of the rich, and
in which nearly all the elements that make for economic independence
are conspicuously lacking.

VI.

What would happen if we were to grant immediate independence to
the Islands? Without having the gift of prophecy, one runs no risk
in declaring that civil war would be almost unavoidable. At least
this is the belief of some well-informed Filipinos, a belief that
appears to have some ground when we take into account, the great
probability of a Tagalog oligarchy. But, without going so far as to
predict armed strife, it would seem that any government, not held
together by some strong external power, would soon begin to break
up. Its various el