The San Francisco call., 1898-12-01
THE .PHILIPPINE PURCHASE.

\ l
 our Peace Commissioners at Paris have arranged
 with Spain for the purchase of her sovereignty in the Philippines for the of $oo,ooo,ooo, leaving the island debt in an unadjusted condition. This treaty of purchase may be separate from the treaty which settles our controversy with Spain, 1t may be part thereof On this point there is nforma- ton. When the history of the West and East Indian tropical islands is considered it is plain that Spain has driven very good bargain. We have many horid statements of the fertility of the tropical islands. Their beauty has been written and sung and they are imbedded in literature from Hakuyt's Voyages tc Joaquin Millers poems But when we are taking twenty millions from American taxpayers to buy land thousand miles away, practical people it becomes to look beyond the poetry of the purchase and what it will prospectivey add to our basket and store.
 The commercial value of the West and East In- dian tropics lies in certain products of their so sugar, hemp, tobacco and rice. An examination of dspel illusions which form the ridescent back ground of this new purchase.
 Labor in the tropics has had features in com mon with labor in the temperate Tropical pro- duction Of the articles of has been always forced. Labor under vertical IS not necessary to the support of life. That support is furnished spontaneously by In the temperate life must be supported by labor The worlds highest civilization is in that zone because have to live by overcoming the resistance of In the tropics nature presents resistance, but lavishes the sus- tenance of man with prodigal hand. Therefore tropical civilization has always been low.
 The European countries which have held tropical possessions have realized profit on them only by forcing labor to production. When France owned Hayt the exports were $5o,oooooo year, the result Of 1abo bv lac md AfterT oiot LOuverture, Hayti became independent France was expelled labor ceased because the lash and spur withdrawn, and the exports fell to $I,5oo,ooo and consist principally of the spontaneous products of the soil
 Jamaica was the only greatly fertile West Indian possession of Great Britain. When production was forced by the lash on the back of slave labor it an important possession, but its exports have fallen to $7,58263o annually, although by reason of the altitude of its mountains it has the best climate found in any of the American tropics.
 The same story runs round the world. When forced labor ceases tropical production lapses and commerce decays. The great trouble with Spain that she held to slave labor i'll the tropics long after England and France gave up, and after Canovas emancipated her slaves force exerted by military government continued to compel labor to its task, until in Cuba and the Philippines it revolted.
 Every day comes the story that the liberated Gu bans refuse to work Spanish compulsion is upon them more Three-quarters of them are negroes. Nature produces all they want, and they will lapse into exactly the condition their congeners, the descendants of the black slaves in Hayti, San Domingo and Jamaica. They live where white men cannot where other labor exist, and if there is power to drive them to their tasks these will remain undone
 The conditions, in a more marked degree, prevail in the Philippines Spain by combination Of military and theocratc government laid exactions upon the people that could be met only by forced labor. That labor produced total inward and out ward commerce of only $3o,ooo,ooo year at the highest tide of Spanish oppression of the people by compelling them to work. What are we going to do in the Philippines? vast majority of these ten mil
 lions of people refuse to go again into colonial dtons To them those conditions forced labor and they don't to work because they don't have to in order to supply all their wants Therefore it is plain that must make title good by con- quest. Spain may give us quitclaim; she cannot give warranty After we conquer the islands we cannot put labor again under the lash. White labor there is impossible We will have all the difficulties and cost of military government, and get gold brick in return
 Let this be remembered: No nation has ever se- cured profit out of tropical colony except by sys- tenn of servile labor, or compulsory labor We can not change natural conditions, and therefore cannot get out of the Philippines a Spanish profit without ,Isinp SDanish methods