the present
Government, and both he and the other chiefs declared that they were
contented with things as they are. Such testimony as is afforded by
the foregoing incident is not lightly to be brushed aside to make
way for an abstraction. If disregarded, then the efforts that we have
made to better the condition of Mindanao, to introduce some idea of
law and order, some notion of the value of peace and of industry,
will come to a sudden end; for the Christianized Filipinos can never
hope to cope with the active, warlike pirates of Moroland. So far as
this part of the Archipelago is concerned, a grant of independence
means the re-establishment of slavery, the recrudescence of piracy,
[58] the reincarnation of barbarism. How great a pity this would be
may be inferred from the fact that Mindanao forms nearly one-third
of the Archipelago in area, and exceeds Java in arable land. Now,
Java supports a population of over 25,000,000.

If we turn our attention to the other non-Christian elements of the
Islands, the case is no better. The Christianized Filipino fears
and dreads the pagan mountaineers, the head-hunters who occupy so
large a part of Luzon, the largest and most important island of the
Archipelago. He grudges every _centavo_ spent under our direction
for the betterment of these truly admirable wild men The governor,
the Christian governor, of a province bordering on the wild men's
territory, had, indeed, no other idea of the way to treat his pagan
neighbors, about 50,000 in number, than to kill them all. His argument
was that they were worse than useless, why spend any money on them,
when, by exterminating them, all questions affecting them would be
forever answered? But, under our administration, some excellent work
has been done, and is growing, to turn these as yet unspoiled peoples
to account in the destinies of the Archipelago. Independence would
mean the _end_ of this work, the restoration of the old order of
rapine, murder, and all injustice as between Christians and pagans,
and of internecine strife and warfare as between the communities of
the pagans themselves. That this result would follow is not even
questioned by those who have acquired their knowledge at first
hand. Are we willing to shoulder the responsibility of such a result?

We have at our very doors an example of the danger of independence
to a people unfilled for the burdens and responsibilities of
self-government. We have already since 1900 b