The evening times., 1900-01-22
ploushlne With the Boer Heifer.

Were we to make the remark. il might
be attributed to prejudice; so We will
merely observe that a publication noted
for it's pro-Bo sympathies, this morning
took the view that the Grand Opera House
meeting last night, under the auspices of
the irish societies. was an antf-Adminis-
tration, anti-expansion rather than an
anti-British outpouring.
There may be something in this shrewd
if cynical suggestion. Certainly some OF
the leading Filipinos were present, and not
speechless, and the logic of their appeals
was very strongly suggestive of the
splendid proposition that we ought to in
terfere against England in South Africa.
in order to establish "a precedent upon
which the powers of Europe could inter
fere against the American flag and
sovereignty in the Philippine archipelago
Senator Mason. the eminent Republican
Filipino from Illinois, rather confessed
the secret hope of his kind in this
direction. when he declared, as reported:
I'VE do not want the Beers to have the
kind of liberty that England would give
them. We want the Beers to have the
kind of liberty they want We want them
to have the kind of liberty the Filipinos
want
As an official definition of the sentimen-
tai position held by the American Filipinos
nothing could be more concise or clear
than Mr. Masons pronunciamento. Every
one knows the kind Of liberty enjoyed by
all nations and classes in South Africa and
elsewhere throughout the civilized portions
of the British Empire. There is
free speech free press, COM
mon schools, absolute religious
federation. thoroughly representative gov
eminent. and complete protection 10 life
and property. That, according to Mason,
is not the kind of liberty we want the
Beers to have He prefers the kind they
want. What that is, is rather we'll known
by this time. II is the liberty to say, as
the Boer laws do. that the black Africans
are without souls. and hence are not hui
man and entitled TO the rights of human
ity; that no church which does not teach
the Heidelberg catechiSm shall ever be al
lowed TO exist in the Transvaal; that no
Jew or Catholic can vote, hold Office, or
possess civil rights within the republic;
that the right of citizenship shall he de
MED TO all persons who are not native
Dutch Afrikanders or Germans, and that
the franchise shall always be denied TO
majority of Inhabitants, who. however, be-
fore the war, owned seyen-tenths of the
property. and paid nine-tenths of the taxes
Of the country. The kind of liberty the
Beers want is liberty to tax the many for
the benefit of the few-taxation without
representation.
But Mason goes a long step farther. He
asserts that we want the Beers to have
the kind of liberty the Filipinos want"
Well. nobody is in any doubt as 10 the
quality of that desired boon. The Tagals
are meant of course, and the analogy is
perfect. Aguinaldo and his tribe, consti-
tuting less than twelve per cent of the
Philippine population, want power and lib
erty to erect tribal dictatorship and oil
garchy over the other eighty-eight or more
per cent They want liberty to tax, en-
slave, and own the majority. There is
more consistency in the American Filipino
position. as exemplified in the speech of it.
apostle. Mason. than we had previously
thoughf