anti-imperialists.

Yet, in spite of these and a thousand other difficulties and discouragements, a great and really good work goes on, making steadily for the moral and material uplift of the unthankful blacks. Popular education struggles forward against the bigotry and deep-rooted folly of ages. Public roads and other improvements lessen the tremendous distances between field and market, and so lessen the chances of famine. Rivers are deflected and canals built to irrigate waste places and make the desert blossom and bear fruit. Folly and extravagance are restrained in high places; system is established in place of chaos, and the hereditary pauper is taught the blessings of self-support. In something like a century much has been done to reform abuses which, like the pedigree of a rajah, run back through many centuries. True, much still remains to be done; but take it by and with, good and bad together, I know of no other chapter in history so creditable to the race as this.

As I have said, here is a lesson to us, teaching some of the difficulties we must encounter in the Philippines; but is it not also an inspiration, showing what may be done by patient persistence and a high ambition to do our part, in order that we may leave the world better—if only a little better—than we found it? Such an aim is no less praiseworthy in a nation than in an individual; is it not especially worthy of a nation which already, in its short career, has furnished a model of good government and a plea for human rights the world over?

But nations, once more like individuals, do not stand alone in the world, apart from their fellows—independent, isolated, self-sufficient. Each is part of a group, scheme or family, and all are interdependent for help, growth, for their very existence. The Philippines, rich and desirable as they are in themselves and for what they contain, strike the eye of intelligence with much greater force as a part of that complex and highly important system generally known as "the East." At this immediate juncture they are to all the great powers an object of desire and ambition, by reason of their nearness and close relation to the great Empire of China. In the hands of Spain this phase of the islands' importance was nearly or quite eclipsed, for Spain has no part in the great game of empire which engrosses the virile and progressive powers.

The accident of war has done that which international laws and comity forbade. Much as the European powers desired the Philippines, none of them dared to lay hand upon the islands, fearing not the resistance of Spain, but the jealousy of their rivals. The explosion of the Maine thus became a swift and powerful factor in that game of world politics from which we had up to now kept aloof. In the language of the philosopher Dooley, few of our people could have answered, eighteen months ago, whether the Philippines were "islands or canned goods." They played no part in the scheme of our national life. Chance has given them into our hands, and it remains with ourselves to determine whether we are to turn them to account, not only for themselves, but for what they may be made, in their relation to other and larger prizes.

All Europe has listened with mingled incredulity and exasperation to the protests of our anti-expansionists against the annexation of the Philippines. To those who are familiar with the situation in the East and realize the importance of China to the West, it seems incredible that a sane and civilized people should even dream of throwing away so rich a prize, now that chance had thrown it into their hands. Is it hypocrisy or ignorance? Europe can see no other explanation.

But still the opponents of expansion continue to ask, What have we to do with China? Why should the United States concern itself to guard the "open door" in that empire, or to prevent the establishment of "spheres of influence?"—the latter being the polite phrase of diplomacy for chopping up China and dividing the pieces among the great powers.

The plain answer of commerce to these questions is afforded by the statistics of China's foreign trade. Yonder is a vast domain with a population estimated at four hundred and thirty millions—about one-third of the human race—largely dependent for even the simple necessities upon the outside world.

England was the first to batter down the ancient gates of the empire, and she has her reward in that she holds about sixty-four per cent of China's import trade. England's nearest competitor is the United States, with eight per cent, the remaining twenty-eight per cent being divided among the other powers, with Japan at the head of the list. Our own share does not at first glance appear very large, but it should be explained that as a great proportion of our commodities are carried to China in English bottoms and consigned to English houses, it is classified as English business—a part of the sixty-four per cent. The actual discrepancy, therefore, is not so great as the apparent. Moreover, though the beginnings of our trade with China date from the last century, we have not been an appreciable factor in the market until about three years ago, since which time our trade has increased at a rate of speed which has both surprised and alarmed our competitors.[2]