The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-10-27

exports to the Philippines during the | last year had been all clear profit, | the cost to the people of the United States would have been very nearly two dollars for every dollar of profit to the producers of these exports. If we reckon the profit upon these ex- ports at 50 pei cant, the result is 1 still more astonishing, so that it is easily demonstrable that the Philip pines are not a commercial asset. There is no reason to believe, how ever, that our exporters would lose this trade if the Philippines were given their independence. The bonds of gratitude would bind them to us in the closest ties of political amity and commercial relationship.
 But it is not claimed by we'll in- formed and fair minded people that the Philippines are now. or will be in the near future, financially payl ing proposition. The argument ad- vanced in favor of their permanent retention is that we owe a moral duty. which cannot with honor, be evaded to the nations of the world as well as to the Filipinos themselves. If it be true that the sacrifices which we have made on account of
 
 immense uplift along educational and material lines, it would seem that we have fully discharged such treaty and other obligations as devolved upon us as the result of the destruction of Spanish dominion over the Islands. Then. too, in promising the Filipinos Independence, we are not preparing to cast them off, as it were, against their wishes. They, as all the world knows, ardently desire their freedom and independence and are willing to assume every obligation and risk in- cident thereto.
 It is not possible, in an article of this length, to discuss the capacity of the Filipinos for f-government. Y Since 1907 they have controlled one branch of their legislature and for the past two or more years, the majority of the Philippine Commis- sioners, constituting the upper branch, have been Filipinos. For years the public service has become more and more Filipinized until now many of the most important posts in the Islands are held by Filipinos. For years three out of seven mem bers of the Supreme Court have been FiIipinos and the President of the high tribunal has always been a Filipino. There are to-day some nine or ten thousand Fihpinos teaching English in the public schools, and only recently Filipino was appoint ed assistant Director of Agriculture. another Deputy Collector of Customs, and still another to the exceedingly important position of Governor of the Mountain Province, the inhabi- tants of which are uncivilized non- Christians. But perhaps the most significant of these recent appoint ;ments in that of MT. Jose Escaler as First Assistant Director of Education. MT: Escaler, in addition to having graduated from one or two other uni- i versailles, is master of arts of Yale university. It may be worthy of note, too. that each of the 81 members of the Philippine Legislature is a Uni- versity graduate.
 In enacting this Philippine legisla- I tion, the Democratic party has but carried into effect the principles for which it has ever stood, for 1t was it's distinguished founder and it's greatest exempler who declared that Every man and every body of men on earth possess the right of self government"
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