The San Francisco call., 1898-12-15
THE VALUE OF THE PHILIPPINES.

0N December this news telegram sent 1 from Vancouver B. C.: "Advices from New \/ South Wales say that the steamer Culgon has sailed from Sydney with cargo of provisions for Rear Admiral Dewey's fleet at Manila. The cargo consists of 5000 carcasses of mutton 25o of lambs, ST tons of onons I25 tons of potatoes and P tons ot carrots"
 This reminds the country not only of the incapacty of the Philippines to furnish a food supply for navy and parrisons but that the islands belong different and distant system and lie to other productive countries than to us. This supply of food for our navy is the first expansion of commerce felt since we demanded possession of that archi- pelago, but it does not expand the trade of San Francisco Its benefits go to Sydney and to the stock men and farmers of Australia, while our stock men and farmers pay the taxes which buy the cargo The New York Tribune, commenting on it. says: The Philippines are 1000 miles away, far other great powers or their possessions than to us and belonging to the commercial and geographical system of another continent.
 Their conquest presents features repugnant to American sentiment and antagonistic to American prosperity. What they produce in sugar hemp, rice and tobacco enters into direct competition with the production of American farmers, while climate and distance seem to forbid that American farmers shall supply even the army and navy needed to feed the large force by land and which watch and tend them
 Ii we force labor in the fields of the Phil ppines Spain did, those fields can readily crush out sugar production at home. What that will mean may be estimated by a study of our beet sugar pro- ducton in the United States.
 There are over twenty beet sugar factories in this country, which produce this year I2ooooooo pounds of refined sugar In 1894 only five of these were in operation, and their production only 44S86, 900 pounds The industry has 1ourished and advanced here faster than in any other country where 1t has been established In 1889 its production only
 ooo 900 pounds the increase since then is II6ooo, GOO pounds in nine years
 It took France twenty years to reach production f 100 pounds of beet sugar We have exceeded it in nine years This has been done by free white vol untary labor in the fields and factories It has added valuable crop for rotation to American farms.
 The Republican platform of I8o6 sad "We con demn the Democratic administration for not keeping faith with the sugar producers of the United States. The Republican party favors such protection will lead to the production American soil of all the sugar which the American people use, and for which we are sending abroad annually more than $Iooooo,- to foreign countries"
 The soil of the United States in 1So6 was conti- mental soil The labor to produce thereon all the sugar consumed by our people American white labor, paid at white rates.
 That party pledge is not kept by going forth the atrustic wapath and coming home loaded with spells i'll the shape of tropical islands, which can produce every pound of sugar use, which do this with the involuntary labor of the tropics, paid scale that would starve voluntary white labor at home.
 Well may the American farmer and laborer ask what stake they have in imperialism when obsoletes the of their land and destroys the wages of their labor, without the compensating advantage of furnishing mutton and potatoes to imperial mill tary establishment, required to hold posses sons in subjecton,
 Perhaps part of the country is hit harder by this policy than California The pecuiarities Of eli mate limit annual crops for rotation We have much soil adapted to the sugar beet that is not fitted for other annual crops until beet culture has subdued its refractory elements. The beet came to us as reve- lation and blessing Wherever sugar factories have been planted community life has taken fresh i'm pulse, lands have acquired a value, commerce has extended its operations and its profits, and the commonwealth has gained. If all this be cancelled those responsible for its destruction will have day of settlement with the people.