The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1908-02-25

but ms CONSCIENCE di VIII make MIN
cease to wink at laXity in high places
is all that stands In the way of the Fiji
pinos government, according to
report by Secretary Taft en his recent
trip to the Philippines which was
made public at the White House to-
day. Ages OF domination under cor
rupt Spanish officials have so ingram
ed in the native character a careless
ness toward graft, an indolent tendency
not to mix in, says the Secretary, that
it is hard to make the dweller i'm the
United States possessions in the Far
East take steps to protect his own in
terests.
For this reason Secretary Taft can
not see how the Filipinos can be pre-
pared for independence before a gene
ration or, more probably, two. on
this point the report says.
The greatest difficulty that we have
had to contend with in vesting Fill
pinos with official power in municipal
ties is to instill in them the idea that
an Office is not solely for private emo
lument When / say that the develop
ment of municipal government in the
Philippines has been satisfactory,
am far from saying that it has been
without serious defects
up to the time Of our occupation,
the government had represented to the
Filipino an entity entirely distinct
from himself with which he had little
sympathy and which was engaged in
an attempt to obtain as much money
as possible from him in the form OF
taxes. He had been taught to regard
an Office as the private property of the
person holding it, in respect to which
ordinary practice justified the holder
in making as much profit from it as
he could.
THE idea that a public Office is a
public trust had not been implanted in
the Filipino mind by experience The
conception that an officer who fails in
his duty by embeZzlement or other
wise was violating an obligation that
!
the public, he found it difficult to
grasp.
He was apt to regard the robbine
of the government by one of it's Off
GERS as an affair he had little or no in
terest in in which, not infrequently
his sympathies were against the gov
eminent.
The sense Of responsibility for the
government they control, whose Off
GERS they elect, is brought home to the
people of a municipality with slownesF
and difficulty. We are making prog,
ress, but we must be patient, for it is
not the task Of a day to eradicate ira
ditions and ideas that had their origin
i'm a system of government under
which this people lived for centuries.
Another difficulty we have had tC
overcome has been the disposition O
municipal councils to vote all Of the
available funds for the payment Of
their own salaries and leave nothlnl
for the improvement or repair Of roads
the construction of buildings or the
payment of school teachers. ThesC
evils have had to be remedied by plac
ing the funds in the hands Of the pro
vincial treasurer"
The provincial treasurer is usually
an American.
Still the Secretary is hopeful, ever
optimistic. He is confident, from hi
observation of the Filipinos, that the,
can be made an upright people, skilled
in the arts in the trades, in commerce,
and the professions Book learning
he says, has been seized on eagerly
American teachers and American tex
books, he thinks, will bring about {
result that will shame the German
French and British scoffers at the colo
nization ideas Of the United States
The Secretary says in the course 0
his report
Peace prevails throughout the isl
and today in a greater degree thai
ever in the history of the islands, eth
err under Spanish or American rule
Agriculture is nowhere impeded by tn
fear by the farmer Of predatory bands
mo one denies that so per cent. 0
the Filipino people are densely ignor
ant The whole tendency under tn
Spaniards was to keep them ignoran
and innocent The Spanish publ
school system was chiefly on paper.
Statistics show that but per cen
: of the people speak Spanish. All tn
others speak in the varying dialects
which among the civilized people nun
Der about l6.
THE Philippine people should b
educated sufficiently to have a commo
medium of communication, and ever
man, woman and child should have tn
benefit of the primary education i
that common medium Reading, wri
ing and arithmetic are necessary