The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-08-27
't1ASKIN WRITES ABOUT THE PHILIPPINES:
More Isles Than Dons
Knew About.-The
Population.

MANILA.-This article being the first
Of series from the Philippines, will
be devoted in the main to statistics
The reader DESTROYS of becoming
posted on conditions existing in our
far eastern pos sessions will do well to
preserve the facts contained herein, as
they will be conducive to better un-
Outstanding of the accounts to follow,
and will be valuable for reference at
all times.
Although hundreds of books and
thousands of columns of newspaper
articles have been written on this SUBJ
ject, new conditions are continually
being formed which, together with the
established facts, should be kept con-
Stantly before the people of the United
States, because the future political
privileges of the Filipino must be de-
termined by American legislation. AS
the attempt is being made to educate
the native, the American should not re-
main in ignorance of the condition of
dlIS government , NdIu w AllC ill dT.
gument may be colored by the inter-
ests Or prejudices of the individual, the
actual statistics cannot be misleading,
and are therefore worth remembering |
SIZE OF THE PHILIPPINES.
The Philippine Islands are a part of
the East Indian Archipelago. They |
south of Japan, and north of Borneo. |
They are altogether tropical. The zone |
which we acquired from Spain as set |
forth by the treaty of Paris (Dec. 10, |
1899 including land and water, amounts |
to an area almost thirteen times as
large as all of the New England states. |
The census of the Philippine Islands, |
just issued by the American govern
ment, is the first accurate record of
what our possessions here really |
amount to. This shows that there are |
more islands in the group than the |
Spaniards thought there were.
The exact number, including every |
thing which appears separately at high |
tide, is 3141. However. 2775 of these !
islands are very small. each being less |
than a square mile in area. About |
1900 of them are of such little conse- !
quence that they have never been
named. The total area of all the |
islands in the group Is 115,026 square |
miles Fully half of this territory is !
contained within the limits of the two
large islands, Luzon and Mindanao, the |
former being about the size of Louisi- |
ana and the latter about as large as
Indiana Thus it will be seen that |
there is considerably more water than
land within the limits of the zone coded /
to us. There are SO many indentations I
in the Archipelago, that its coast line,
like that of Alaska, is greater than the /
combined Atlantic and Pacific sea- /
boards of the United States. The
American government paid Spain $780,
900, 900 for the islands, which was about
twenty-seven cents per acre for all the
land contained in them.
SMALL GAIN IN POPULATION.
The population of the Philippines
has been found to consist of about T.
O00, 900 civilized inhabitants, and little
more than half million savages. In
cluded in those designated as civilized
are 1900 Cinnamon and 900 Japanese.
Exclusive of the army there are over
5000 Americans residing here at the
present time, as we'll as about 1000
Spaniards, 700 Englishmen and 400 Ger
mans The bulk of the native popula-
ton is supposed to be of Malay extrac-
ton. Although past records are very
incomplete, the population of the Phil
ippines is supposed to have been quad
rupled within the last century. This
is a very small increase when COM
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