The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-10-04
WILEY TALKS
 OF TAFT TRIP Montgomery Congressman
 at Home. RETURNS FROM ORIENT Impressed With Uncle Sam's
 Possessions. Had m Audience With Emperor of Japan and studied the Chinese Boycott Against This Country.

|. After being absent from his home in
 montgomery one hundred and five
 days. having visited the United States
 provinces of Hawaii and the Philip
 pine Islands, China and Japan. Col.
 Ariosto A. Wiley. congressman from
 the Second Alabama District, returned
 yesterday morning at II o'clock.
 Colonel Wiley is enGnusiastic over
 the results attained by the pleasure
 ed by Secretary of War William H.
 Taft. He is, moreover, enthusiastic
 at the prospects of the two Oriental
 provinces of Uncle Sam, but he de-
 clares that his trip to the Far East
 makes him more than ever enthusi- Alabama and Montgomery.
 The long sea voyage and the pleas- ures of the trip seem to have agreed with the genial Montgomery congress- man in marked degree All indi- cations of the illness that alarmed trip have disappeared. Ills ruddy col or is back again, the hearty smile that has won him many votes is more in evidence than ever and his rotundi- ty has again appeared.
 From the time he stepped off the Louisville and Nashville train yes terday morning. he vus busy shaking hands with his friends until late last night.
 1 Glad to He at Home.
 You don't know how glad I am to be back" he said heartily. Mot that the trip was not immense, not that we did not have great time and gained much knowledge. but there's nothing like seeing familiaF faces and familiar sights after being without a home for a hundred and five days. So anxious was I to return that de- clined an invitation to visit Pekin and 1 the Dowager Empress of China with Miss Roosevelt but I had attained the objects I made the trip for and l | wanted to be at home.
 Fate was kind to Secretary Taft and every member of his party. Jupi- l ter Pluvius especially smiled on us We struck the Philippines during the rainy season but the rains were &C., commodating When we wanted to go out at night, the skies were clear | and 1t rained during the day. When | we desired to make trip by day. 1t | rained at night and the sun shone on our excursions. During the summer, the greatest and most destructive ty-- ragged. We arrived in Manila the day l before a great typhoon and safe on shore we saw the grand spectacle of waves. mountains of water, plunging with terrific force on the rocky shores. A few days before we arrivsd in magnitude swept the Chinese coast and 10000 Chinamen met death in the boiling seas. Think of this. Why our terrible Galveston flood was but a drop In the bucket compared with the loss of life caused by this ty- phoon.
 The Chinese Boycott.
 At Shanghai, Canton and Hong Kong, I had the opportunity of study ing the Chinese boycott question. The alN, lon. ta than we are wont to iamgine. I had letters of introduction to many prominent Chi nese merchants. The way some of these merchants and Chinese students were handled at San Francisco arous- ed their wrath and the boycott was instituted by them. It Is true that the merchants have to a great extent abandoned the boycott but worse than the merchants, the laborers. coolies. have taken 1t up. A Chinaman does when he does make up his mind 1t Is hard to change his thoughts. And these are the people that purchase. The merchants only sell and they will be forced to refuse to buy our goods if the buyers refuse to purchase these same goods.
 'The situation is serious and think that prompt action by Congress In modifying the exclusion act will be necessary to establish our prestige in the East \
 Trade With orient.
 For this Eastern trade all nations are striving. Think of China having population of 600.000,000 people, Think that if all of these people will wear one cotton shirt and one pair of cotton trousers a year what the result would be. Southern cotton would be worth 20 cents a pound and we get along nicely with the price at 10 cents. Cotton is raised in only a very desuhory manner in China. in Inda, and in Egypt. The South controls the cotton market and If our people would stop talking this nonsense about abandoning the Philippines and discontinue their agi- tation of free silver and the like, de- voting their energies 10 promoting Ori- ental trade extension, why the South would be the richest section on the globe am as fully convinced of that fact as I am that I am now in Mont gomery.
 "Our trip to Japan was truly delight | full. The ovation extended our party | was remarkable. The Japanese are an | undemonstratiVe people. They received | the news of the battles of Liaoyang. the | Yalu River and Mukden with a re- | markabIe taciturnity, but they receiv- | ed our party with cheers of welcome.
 Wiley Saw MikadO,
 At Tokio I had the pleasure of meet | ing the Mikado. His palace covers | over thirty acres of ground The | grounds cover probably 300 acres in the | very heart of the great capital of the | rising Empire. We were received in | the Homeiden. the most seelusive cham | her in the palace. No Anglo-Saxon had | ever put foot in this room before. The | Emperor gives you the impression of | an automaton, with the exception of his | eyes. They are full of animation and | give some idea of the character of the | man. We were also privileged to walk | in the imperial gardens. where none | hut the imperial family and the keep | ers had ever set foot. The Japs tried | in every way to show us just how hearty an Oriental welcome could be made. our eyes opened. The Philippine 1s- lands have never been given half their | dues when 1t comes to chronieling their value. The question of getting rid of inc Philippines Is absurd, especially from A Southern mans viewpoint. The ] South will in a few years be getting it's ! greatest wealth from these islands and | fheIr importance to the country cannot | be overestmated.
 ",rhe Taft party was peculiarly con- genial. and enjoyable times were not lacking. but as I said before the entire trin taught all of us that we lived in tha greatest country on earth. It made | me Drouder of the United States than avar before, more proud of the South | ana more proud of Alabama"
 Colonel Wiley Is at his suburban home ou the Upper Wetumpka Road |