Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1901-07-11
The New Start in the Philippines.
From the New York Time


The establishment Of qualified form of
civil government the Philippines which
was formally inaugurated July cannot be
called a complete reve. cal of our | olicy
there, but it is so mark 4 a development in
that policy, and is due to such a great
change n the conditions, that the contrast
with even few months since IS very
striking.
Substantially what the President is doing,
in accordance with the provisions of the
Spooner resolution, is to substitu civil for
military government. The essential differ
ence will be that the action of the civil
government in their respective spheres, the
munici pality and the province, will be final,
instead, as formerly, subject at all times t.
the Intervention, revision and possible an
nulment of the general commanding, or of
his subordinates. 1t is by no means certain
that this will not result IN some confusion
and disorder, or that the military will not
have to be used still in extreme cases. The
United States government must reserve the
means in the last resort to enforce it, But
the fact remains that an attempt is now
being made on a large scale throughout
nearly the whole of the archipelago to maD-
age public affairs through civil agencies
closely resembling those in use in the
United States. The administration of civil
and criminal justice, the construction and
care of highways public improvements,
sanitation, schools, all the matters that in
American cities and towns are intrusted to
civil officers are so - be intrustfd in the
islands. The central governmental body,
executive and legislative, renai1s the COM
mission of which Judge Taft is the preJi-
dent. The provincifl and municipal bodies
are constituted under system adopted by
the commission
The towns, or "pueblos," elect their
councillors, who have the expenditure of
funds for local purposes and the collection
of the taxes, under the care of the prov;n-
cial treasurer. Each province has its gov
ernor, appointed, until next February, by
the commission, and afterward elected by
the councillors. Under the governor are the
treasurer, in charge of all money matters;
a supervisor, in charge OF all highways and
OF surveys OF land for taxing purposes, and
a secretary. All these a,sociate officers
under the governor are to come under the
civil service law and to be appointed and
promoted by competition. Natives having
as good standing in competition as Ameri-
cans are to be preferred. The courts, for
the present, we understand, will be sell cted
by the commission. For the suffrage there
are to be the very modest tests of intelli-
gence and property holding.
1t will be seen that this is a radical de-
parture from the essential principles and
methods of military government. Yet it
must be remembered that it is made posi-
BILE only by the success of experiments in
partial self-goyernment set up under Gen.
Otis and conducted with singular intelli-
gence and pains by military officers
Obviously the whole scheme is something
OF an experiment, and a very serious one.
There are, however, some promising signs
of its success. 1t is supported heartily by
a considerable body of educated Filipinos,
some of them recently in arms against the
American government 1t is inaugurated
and will be operated by men in thorough
sympathy with its purpose, from the COM
mission to the President 1t is the alterna-
tivea and the only alternatiye-to the
difficult, costly and dangerous system of
military rule. Its success will depend, on
the one hand, on the fidelity, honor and
intelligence Of the Representatives of the
United States government, and ON the.
other hand on the fitness Of the Filipinos
to do the work assigned to them Mean
while it is worth nothing that this expert
ment does not sustain the inference made
by the more extreme anti-imperialists that
the lust of arbitrary government would
tend constantly to increase, and that our
management Of the Philippines would go
from bad to worse.