The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-09-09
Spain's Exit Inevitable.

a report has appeared to the effect
that in determining the tenor of the
instructions which shall guide our
peace commissioners at Paris the
president has receded from his earlier
intention to demand as the American
minimum, cession of the island of
LuZon and is now disposed to ask
only for the city, bay and harbor of
Manila and the province of Cavite in
which Manila is situated. Like many
other reports which have been circu-
lated touching this point this one rep
resents conjecture merely; but there
are reasons for believing that it is mis-
leading.
In the first place, no division of SOW
ereignty among the inhabitants of l.u-
zon, leaving part of them slave and
part free, would satisfy either princi-
pie or eXpediency. In principle we are
bound to liberate either all or none,
When Providence through Dewey put
II in our power to do work for hu-
manity 1000 miles further away from
our shores than is the island of Cuba,
our intended theater of administrative
reform, we We're confronted by a re-
sponsibility hardly to be discharged
piecemeal. We can ignore it altogeth-
er and pull out, preferring to be
thought coWardly than to burden our
selves with the care of alien millions
so far away; or we can accept it man.
fully and do our best; but we cannot
divide it and remain consistent.
Nor as matter of expediency would
it do to take a part merely of the one
developed island in the Philippine
archipelago while leaving the remain
der under the objectionable conditions
prevalent when we entered. That
would be to sow the seeds of veXatious
and continuous difficulties which must,
in time, either force us to pack up and
leave or compel Spain to leave. The
power which we now possess to make
one settlement of the question good for
an indefinite period can better be used
while we possess it than to let it slip
now, only to have to fight at some fu-
ture time to regain it.
of insurmountable fact that when
Spain is. deprived of Manila Spanish
rule in the Philippines is done for. BY
no stretch of the imagination can it be
conceived that Spain, without ships Of
war, overburdened with the Cuban
dent and everywhere broken in for
tunes, could summon vitality enough to
impose an effective rule over disaffect-
ed Melays who have seen that rule
broken like rotten reed and some re-
lief won in limited locality by the
natives who rebelled against il. The
encouragement which our occupation
of Manila has given to the spirit of
revolution among the Filipinos spells
an end to further life for Spanish au-
| thority in the East Indies. We have
| administered fatal blow. The shadow
of Spanish sovereignty remains in
parts of the islands but il is q shadow,
and nothing more. The substance is
gone for both time and eternity.
Under these circumstances it is
| visionary to think of any square foot
of ground in the Philippine archipelago
as a possible future foothold for sue
cessful Spanish administration. The
hour of the utter extinction of Spanish
rule in that portion of the earth has
struck. We may sophisticate and the
orize as we please, but that IL the as
| cendant fact in the situation; and
coming events will only project it into
| claarer and holder rpliaf
|