Arizona republican., 1898-05-24
NEW OCCASIONS TEACH NEW
 DUTIES.

clearly that in making war upon Spain we have assumed new responsibilities from when we certainly would have shrunk a few months ago. It seemed the work of a short time only to drive Blanco and his soldiers out of Cuba, but Havana, nearly month after the outbreak of hostilities, "sits scornful trados are dying as fast as ever. We have not established a single perma- nent camp on the island, and it is inn possible to say when we shall do SO. of our ships elsewhere, and the fate of Admiral Cervera's fleet will have to be determined before there can be serious advance on Ouba- This does not mean that the government has
 been dilatory in it's movements, con
 sluering the state of unpreparedness in which it found everything at the outset. But we see anew how slowly large bodies move, and how rash the predictions were that our triumph over the broken-down Castilian nation wouiu be accomplished in a phenome- nally brief time.
 At the close of the first month Of actual warfare we find that our great thousand miles from New York in a quarter of the world on which we had no designs whatever. Nobody has ever suggested the annexation of the Phil ippines, and yet they are practically in our control and how we are to get rid of them on anything like satisfac- tory terms cannot be foreseen. Japan would unquestionably like to have them. but would Germany permit her to acquire such valuable possession? Would Great Britain permit the trans fer of them to Germany, or Germany sit idle while we turn them over to Great Britain? Spain will be in no condition to receive them back at the end of the war, for she is already close to the end of her rope, with her treasury bankrupt, her dynasty totter- ing and the populace ripe for revolu- tion of an even more radical type than would suffice to put Don Carlos on the throne. The administration evidently appreciates the new occasion that has thrust upon us the new duty of gov erning the Philippines for an indefi- nite period. When is our suzerainty to terminate? When are we to re- nounce this rich province? That re- mains to be seen. We can scarcely submit to any arrangement that will injure our trade relations with Ma nila We are concerned with the Philippines in a business way more inumately than any other nation on the face of the earth. By and by we archipelago advantageously. At pres ent there is nothing for us to do but maintain order there, and to accom- plish this we must send out more troops than we thought at first would be enough to meet the emergency.
 If the Philippines present prob lem of this kind to us, what shall be said about Cuba and Porto Rico? If we cannot let go the far Asiatic group, how can we drop these nearby islands when once they have come into our possession? What would become Of Porto Rico if we did not establish a garrison there at the end of the war and hold it until we could dispose of it profitably to ourselves and to the satisfacl.on of it's inhabitants? How can we let go of Cuba the minute hos
 tlilties are ended, expecting the insur- gents to set up at once a fully equip
 ped government? We are bound to see to it that order is established in all these Spanish colonies, and it is go- ing to be, perhaps, an indefinite time before we can relinquish our hold up- on any of them.
 At such a time it is difficult for the
 individual or for the government to have a hard-and-fast policy. Our course as a nation must depend on events as they occur, and nobody will deny that they are occurring at rate that leaves us scant time for sober re- fection. We shall all hope that no false step will be taken at such a crisis
 and that out of the new responsibili-
 ties heaped upon us we shall emerge with greater faith in our future and
 brighter hopes for civilization as typi- fled in tue spreading influence of the English speaking race.