Luzon really has an area of 40,969 square miles and a population of 3,798,507. [322] What Blount is pleased to call “the tail to the Luzon kite,” is made up as follows:—­

Island       Area (Square Miles)   Population
Samar        5,031                  222,690
Negros       4,881                  460,776
Panay        4,611                  743,646
Leyte        2,722                  357,641
Cebu         1,762                  592,247
Bohol        1,411                  243,148
Totals      20,419                2,620,148

Even so, the tail is a trifle long and heavy for the kite, but if we are going to compare Luzon with “the Southern Islands,” by which Blount can presumably only mean the rest of the archipelago, why not really do it?  The process involves nothing more complicated than the subtraction of its area and population from those of the archipelago as a whole.

Area (Square Miles)    Population
Philippines     115,026                 7,635,426
Luzon            40,969                 3,798,507
Difference       74,057                 3,836,919

Performing this operation, we discover that the tail would fly away with the kite, as Luzon has less than half of the total population and only a little more than a third of the total area.

To compare the area or the population of one large island with those of individual small ones, in determining the relative importance of the former in the country of which it makes up a part, is like comparing the area and population of a great state with those of the individual counties going to make up other states.

Blount resorts to a similar questionable procedure in trying to show the insignificance of Mindoro and Palawan.  There are an island of Mindoro and a province of Mindoro; an island of Palawan and a province of Palawan.  In each case the province, which includes numerous small islands, as well as the large one from which it takes its name, is much larger and more populous than is the main island, and obviously it is the province with which we are concerned.

Even if Blount wished to limit discussion to the Christian natives commonly called Filipinos, his procedure is still wholly unfair.  Of these there are 3,575,001 in Luzon and 3,412,685 in the other islands.  In other words, the Filipino population is almost equally divided between the two regions.

As he would not have found it convenient to discuss the conditions which arose in Mindanao under Insurgent rule, he attempts to show that no political importance attaches to them.  In the passage above quoted he does not so much as mention either Mindoro or Palawan (Paragua).  Elsewhere, however, he attempts to justify his action by making the following statements:—­

“The political or governmental problem being now reduced from 3141 islands to eleven, the last three [323] of the nine contained in the above table may also be eliminated as follows:  [324]—­