History does not record in its annals any lasting domination exercised
by one people over another, of different race, of diverse usages and
customs, of opposite and divergent ideals.
One of the two had to yield and succumb. Either the foreigner was
driven out, as happened in the case of the Carthaginians, the Moors
and the French in Spain, or else these autochthons had to give way
and perish, as was the case with the inhabitants of the New World,
Australia and New Zealand.
One of the longest dominations was that of the Moors in Spain, which
lasted seven centuries. But, even though the conquerors lived in the
country conquered, even though the Peninsula was broken up into small
states, which gradually emerged like little islands in the midst
of the great Saracen inundation, and in spite of the chivalrous
spirit, the gallantry and the religious toleration of the califs,
they were finally driven out after bloody and stubborn conflicts,
which formed the Spanish nation and created the Spain of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries.
The existence of a foreign body within another endowed with strength
and activity is contrary to all natural and ethical laws. Science
teaches us that it is either assimilated, destroys the organism,
is eliminated or becomes encysted.
Encystment of a conquering people is impossible, for it signifies
complete isolation, absolute inertia, debility in the conquering
element. Encystment thus means the tomb of the foreign invader.
Now, applying these considerations to the Philippines, we must
conclude, as a deduction from all we have said, that if their
population be not assimilated to the Spanish nation, if the dominators
do not enter into the spirit of their inhabitants, if equable laws and
free and liberal reforms do not make each forget that they belong to
different races, or if both peoples be not amalgamated to constitute
one mass, socially and politically homogeneous, that is, not harassed
by opposing tendencies and antagonistic ideas and interests, some
day the Philippines will fatally and infallibly declare themselves
independent. To this law of destiny can be opposed neither Spanish
patriotism, nor the love of all the Filipinos for Spain, nor the
doubtful future of dismemberment and intestine strife in the Islands
themselves. Necessity is the most powerful divinity the world knows,
and necessity is the resultant of physical forces set in operation
by ethical forces.
We have said and statistics prove that it is impossible to exterminate
the Filipino people. And even were it possible, what interest would
Spain have in the destruction of the inhabitants of a country she
can not populate or cultivate, whose climate is to a certain extent
disastrous to her? What good would the Philippines be without
the Filipinos? Quite otherwise, under her colonial system and
the transitory character of the Spaniards who go to the colonies,
a colony is so much the more useful and productive to her as it
possesses inhabitants and wealth. Moreover, in order to destroy the
six million Malays, even supposing them to be in their infancy and
that they have never learned to fight and defend themselves, Spain
would have to sacrifice at least a fourth of her population. This we
commend to the notice of the partizans of colonial exploitation.
But nothing of this kind can happen. The menace is that when the
education and liberty necessary to human existence are denied by
Spain to the Filipinos, then they will seek enlightenment abroad,
behind the mother country's back, or they will secure by hook or
by crook some advantages in their own country, with the result that
the opposition of purblind and paretic politicians will not only be
futile but even prejudicial, because it will convert motives for love
and gratitude into resentment and hatred.
Hatred and resentment on one side, mistrust and anger on the other,
will finally result in a violent and terrible collision, especially
when there exist elements interested in having disturbances, so that
they may get something in the excitement, demonstrate their mighty
power, foster lamentations and recriminations, or employ violent
measures. It is to be expected that the government will triumph
and be generally (as is the custom) severe in punishment, either
to teach a stern lesson in order to vaunt its strength or even to
revenge upon the vanquished the spells of excitement and terror
that the danger caused it. An unavoidable concomitant of those
catastrophes is the accumulation of acts of injustice committed
against the innocent and peaceful inhabitants. Private reprisals,
denunciations, despicable accusations, resentments, covetousness,
the opportune moment for calumny, the haste and hurried procedure of
the courts martial, the pretext of the integrity of the fatherland
and the safety of the state, which cloaks and justifies everything,
even for scrupulous minds, which unfortunately are still rare, and
above all the panic-stricken timidity, the cowardice that battens upon
the conquered--all these things augment the severe measures and the
number of the victims. The result is that a chasm of blood is then
opened between the two peoples, that the wounded and the afflicted,
instead of becoming fewer, are increased, for to the families and
friends of the guilty, who always think the punishment excessive
and the judge unjust, must be added the families and friends of the
innocent, who see no advantage in living and working submissively
and peacefully. Note, too, that if severe measures are dangerous in
a nation made up of a homogeneous population, the peril is increased
a hundred-fold when the government is formed of a race different from
the governed. In the former an injustice may still be ascribed to one
man alone, to a governor actuated by personal malice, and with the
death of the tyrant the victim is reconciled to the government of
his nation. But in a country dominated by a foreign race, even the
justest act of severity is construed as injustice and oppression,
because it is ordered by a foreigner, who is unsympathetic or is
an enemy of the country, and the offense hurts not only the victim
but his entire race, because it is not usually regarded as personal,
and so the resentment naturally spreads to the whole governing race
and does not die out with the offender.
Hence the great prudence and fine tact that should be exercised
by colonizing countries, and the fact that government regards the
colonies in general, and our colonial office in particular, as training
schools, contributes notably to the fulfillment of the great law that
the colonies sooner or later declare themselves independent.
Such is the descent down which the peoples are precipitated. In
proportion as they are bathed in blood and drenched in tears and gall,
the colony, if it has any vitality, learns how to struggle and perfect
itself in fighting, while the mother country, whose colonial life
depends upon peace and the submission of the subjects, is constantly
weakened, and, even though she make heroic efforts, as her number is
less and she has only a fictitious existence, she finally perishes. She
is like the rich voluptuary accustomed to be waited upon by a crowd of
servants toiling and planting for him, and who, on the day his slaves
refuse him obedience, as he does not live by his own efforts, must die.
Reprisals, wrongs and suspicions on one part and on the other
the sentiment of patriotism and liberty, which is aroused in these
incessant conflicts, insurrections and uprisings, operate to generalize
the movement and one of the two peoples must succumb. The struggle
will be brief, for it will amount to a slavery much more cruel than
death for the people and to a dishonorable loss of prestige for the
dominator. One of the peoples must succumb.
Spain, from the number of her inhabitants, from the condition of her
army and navy, from the distance she is situated from the Islands,
from her scanty knowledge of them, and from struggling against a people
whose love and good will she has alienated, will necessarily have to
give way, if she does not wish to risk not only her other possessions
and her future in Africa, but also her very independence in Europe. All
this at the cost of bloodshed and crime, after mortal conflicts,
murders, conflagrations, military executions, famine and misery.
The Spaniard is gallant and patriotic, and sacrifices everything,
in favorable moments, for his country's good. He has the intrepidity
of his bull. The Filipino loves his country no less, and although he
is quieter, more peaceful, and with difficulty stirred up, when he
is once aroused he does not hesitate and for him the struggle means
death to one or the other combatant. He has all the meekness and all
the tenacity and ferocity of his carabao. Climate affects bipeds in
the same way that it does quadrupeds.
The terrible lessons and the hard teachings that these conflicts will
have afforded the Filipinos will operate to improve and strengthen
their ethical nature. The Spain of the fifteenth century was not the
Spain of the eighth. With their bitter experience, instead of intestine
conflicts of some islands against others, as is generally feared,
they will extend mutual support, like shipwrecked persons when they
reach an island after a fearful night of storm. Nor may it be said
that we shall partake of the fate of the small American republics. They
achieved their independence easily, and their inhabitants are animated
by a different spirit from what the Filipinos are. Besides, the danger
of falling again into other hands, English or German, for example,
will force the Filipinos to be sensible and prudent. Absence of
any great preponderance of one race over the others will free their
imagination from all mad ambitions of domination, and as the tendency
of countries that have been tyrannized over, when they once shake off
the yoke, is to adopt the freest government, like a boy leaving school,
like the beat of the pendulum, by a law of reaction the Islands will
probably declare themselves a federal republic.
If the Philippines secure their independence after heroic and stubborn
conflicts, they can rest assured that neither England, nor Germany,
nor France, and still less Holland, will dare to take up what Spain
has been unable to hold. Within a few years Africa will completely
absorb the attention of the Europeans, and there is no sensible nation
which, in order to secure a group of poor and hostile islands, will
neglect the immense territory offered by the Dark Continent, untouched,
undeveloped and almost undefended. England has enough colonies in the
Orient and is not going to risk losing her balance. She is not going
to sacrifice her Indian Empire for the poor Philippine Islands--if
she had entertained such an intention she would not have restored
Manila in 1763, but would have kept some point in the Philippines,
whence she might gradually expand. Moreover, what need has John
Bull the trader to exhaust himself for the Philippines, when he is
already lord of the Orient, when he has there Singapore, Hongkong
and Shanghai? It is probable that England will look favorably upon
the independence of the Philippines, for it will open their ports to
her and afford greater freedom to her commerce. Furthermore, there
exist in the United Kingdom tendencies and opinions to the effect
that she already has too many colonies, that they are harmful, that
they greatly weaken the sovereign country.
For the same reasons Germany will not care to run any risk, and because
a scattering of her forces and a war in distant countries will endanger
her existence on the continent. Thus we see her attitude, as much in
the Pacific as in Africa, is confined to conquering easy territory
that belongs to nobody. Germany avoids any foreign complications.
France has enough to do and sees more of a future in Tongking and
China, besides the fact that the French spirit does not shine in zeal
for colonization. France loves glory, but the glory and laurels that
grow on the battlefields of Europe. The echo from battlefields in the
Far East hardly satisfies her craving for renown, for it reaches her
quite faintly. She has also other obligations, both internally and
on the continent.
Holland is sensible and will be content to keep the Moluccas and
Java. Sumatra offers her a greater future than the Philippines, whose
seas and coasts have a sinister omen for Dutch expeditions. Holland
proceeds with great caution in Sumatra and Borneo, from fear of
losing everything.
China will consider herself fortunate if she succeeds in keeping
herself intact and is not dismembered or partitioned among the European
powers that are colonizing the continent of Asia.
The same is true of Japan. On the north she has Russia, who envies and
watches her; on the south England, with whom she is in accord even
to her official language. She is, moreover, under such diplomatic
pressure from Europe that she can not think of outside affairs until
she is freed from it, which will not be an easy matter. True it is
that she has an excess of population, but Korea attracts her more
than the Philippines and is, also, easier to seize.
Perhaps the great American Republic, whose interests lie in the
Pacific and who has no hand in the spoliation of Africa, may some day
dream of foreign possession. This is not impossible, for the example
is contagious, covetousness and ambition are among the strongest
vices, and Harrison manifested something of this sort in the Samoan
question. But the Panama Canal is not opened nor the territory of
the States congested with inhabitants, and in case she should openly
attempt it the European powers would not allow her to proceed, for they
know very well that the appetite is sharpened by the first bites. North
America would be quite a troublesome rival, if she should once get
into the business. Furthermore, this is contrary to her traditions.
Very likely the Philippines will defend with inexpressible valor the
liberty secured at the price of so much blood and sacrifice. With the
new men that will spring from their soil and with the recollection of
their past, they will perhaps strive to enter freely upon the wide
road of progress, and all will labor together to strengthen their
fatherland, both internally and externally, with the same enthusiasm
with which a youth falls again to tilling the land of his ancestors,
so long wasted and abandoned through the neglect of those who have
withheld it from him. Then the mines will be made to give up their
gold for relieving distress, iron for weapons, copper, lead and
coal. Perhaps the country will revive the maritime and mercantile
life for which the islanders are fitted by their nature, ability and
instincts, and once more free, like the bird that leaves its cage,
like the flower that unfolds to the air, will recover the pristine
virtues that are gradually dying out and will again become addicted
to peace--cheerful, happy, joyous, hospitable and daring.
These and many other things may come to pass within something like a
hundred years. But the most logical prognostication, the prophecy based
on the best probabilities, may err through remote and insignificant
causes. An octopus that seized Mark Antony's ship altered the face of
the world; a cross on Cavalry and a just man nailed thereon changed
the ethics of half the human race, and yet before Christ, how many
just men wrongfully perished and how many crosses were raised on
that hill! The death of the just sanctified his work and made his
teaching unanswerable. A sunken road at the battle of Waterloo buried
all the glories of two brilliant decades, the whole Napoleonic world,
and freed Europe. Upon what chance accidents will the destiny of the
Philippines depend?
Nevertheless, it is not well to trust to accident, for there is
sometimes an imperceptible and incomprehensible logic in the workings
of history. Fortunately, peoples as well as governments are subject
to it.
Therefore, we repeat, and we will ever repeat, while there is time,
that it is better to keep pace with the desires of a people than
to give way before them: the former begets sympathy and love, the
latter contempt and anger. Since it is necessary to grant six million
Filipinos their rights, so that they may be in fact Spaniards, let
the government grant these rights freely and spontaneously, without
damaging reservations, without irritating mistrust. We shall never
tire of repeating this while a ray of hope is left us, for we prefer
this unpleasant task to the need of some day saying to the mother
country: "Spain, we have spent our youth in serving thy interests in
the interests of our country; we have looked to thee, we have expended
the whole light of our intellects, all the fervor and enthusiasm of our
hearts in working for the good of what was thine, to draw from thee a
glance of love, a liberal policy that would assure us the peace of our
native land and thy sway over loyal but unfortunate islands! Spain,
thou hast remained deaf, and, wrapped up in thy pride, hast pursued
thy fatal course and accused us of being traitors, merely because we
love our country, because we tell thee the truth and hate all kinds
of injustice. What dost thou wish us to tell our wretched country,
when it asks about the result of our efforts? Must we say to it that,
since for it we have lost everything--youth, future, hope, peace,
family; since in its service we have exhausted all the resources of
hope, all the disillusions of desire, it also takes the residue which
we can not use, the blood from our veins and the strength left in our
arms? Spain, must we some day tell Filipinas that thou hast no ear for
her woes and that if she wishes to be saved she must redeem herself?"