y there is significance in the effect at once produced in
the sugar-raising islands by the passage of the Payne Bill:
idle fields were planted to cane, and the elections took an
unmistakable _americanista_ trend. There is no better peacemaker
than the pay-master. The Assembly, it is true, fulminated against
the bill: success, prosperity, contentment under its operation
might mean the dissolution of a dream. So they might; but the bill
also categorically established the possibility, and more than the
possibility, of permanently profitable relations under the aegis of
the United States. It might even ultimately greatly reduce, if not
entirely destroy, the racial issue. Here is already common ground,
limited though it be, on which Americans and Filipinos may and do
stand together. If any doubt should exist on this score, we have but
to look at Porto Rico, whose total external commerce has grown, in
round numbers, from 17 1/2 million dollars in 1901 to 79 millions in
1911. During this same interval that of the Philippines has risen from
53 million to 90 million dollars, nearly 20 millions of the increase
being due to the Payne Bill. The population of Porto Rico (census of
1910) is 1,120,000; that of the Philippines, 8,200,000: the area of
Porto Rico is 3,606 square miles; that of the Philippines, 128,000
square miles. This comparison is frankly commercial; but thriving
commerce means prosperity, and prosperity spells content. After
eliminating certain natural and social advantages enjoyed by Porto
Rico, and not by the Philippines, the vast economic difference
between the two can be accounted for only by the different relation
they respectively bear to the United States, a conclusion confirmed
by the effect of the Payne Bill. In the case of one, this relation
is defined; in that of the other, undefined. We intend to remain in
Porto Rico; we do not know what we shall do with the Philippines.

VIII.

To conclude, and in part to repeat: when we took over the Philippines,
we unquestionally at the same time acquired a burden. Of this burden
we can rid ourselves by setting the Islands adrift; or we can declare
that we intend to keep the Islands, as we have kept Porto Rico. In the
light of the argument hereinbefore submitted, which of these courses
appeals to the people of the United States? May we, or may we not,
without incurring an accusation of injustice to a dependent population,
honestly ask ourselves if actual conditions