One of the datus, Mandi by name, was outspoken in praise of the present Government, and both he and the other chiefs declared that they were contented with things as they are.  Such testimony as is afforded by the foregoing incident is not lightly to be brushed aside to make way for an abstraction.  If disregarded, then the efforts that we have made to better the condition of Mindanao, to introduce some idea of law and order, some notion of the value of peace and of industry, will come to a sudden end; for the Christianized Filipinos can never hope to cope with the active, warlike pirates of Moroland.  So far as this part of the Archipelago is concerned, a grant of independence means the re-establishment of slavery, the recrudescence of piracy, [58] the reincarnation of barbarism.  How great a pity this would be may be inferred from the fact that Mindanao forms nearly one-third of the Archipelago in area, and exceeds Java in arable land.  Now, Java supports a population of over 25,000,000.

If we turn our attention to the other non-Christian elements of the Islands, the case is no better.  The Christianized Filipino fears and dreads the pagan mountaineers, the head-hunters who occupy so large a part of Luzon, the largest and most important island of the Archipelago.  He grudges every centavo spent under our direction for the betterment of these truly admirable wild men The governor, the Christian governor, of a province bordering on the wild men’s territory, had, indeed, no other idea of the way to treat his pagan neighbors, about 50,000 in number, than to kill them all.  His argument was that they were worse than useless, why spend any money on them, when, by exterminating them, all questions affecting them would be forever answered?  But, under our administration, some excellent work has been done, and is growing, to turn these as yet unspoiled peoples to account in the destinies of the Archipelago.  Independence would mean the end of this work, the restoration of the old order of rapine, murder, and all injustice as between Christians and pagans, and of internecine strife and warfare as between the communities of the pagans themselves.  That this result would follow is not even questioned by those who have acquired their knowledge at first hand.  Are we willing to shoulder the responsibility of such a result?

We have at our very doors an example of the danger of independence to a people unfilled for the burdens and responsibilities of self-government.  We have already since 1900 been compelled once to intervene in the affairs of Cuba:  the possibility of a fresh intervention continually stares our statesmen in the face.  But Cuba, let it be observed, in contrast with the Philippines, has but one language, one religion; it has no wild tribes, no Mohammedans; its provinces are not separated from one another by seas of difficult navigation, are bound together by suitable communications.  The curse of Cuba is personal politics:  have we any assurance that this same curse in a worse form would not come to blast the Philippines?