now invoke. New conditions never contemplated by the judges who voiced these general expressions have suddenly arisen. Those expressions may be respected as applicable to the cases in which they were used, but they will hardly control the judgment of the judges who shall be called upon to decide the weighty questions involved in the government of remote island dependencies.

When those questions arise for settlement it will be possible to hold, with entire loyalty to the constitution, and respect for judicial decisions, that all dependencies, except the District of Columbia, are governed under the general power given to Congress "to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States;" that this power is limited only by the provision prohibiting slavery within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction; that no decision of the Supreme Court holds that any other limit is placed upon the powers of Congress over the territories; and that such dicta as may be found to the contrary are either wholly discredited or resolve themselves into a mere statement of constitutional or political theory.

THE GOVERNMENT OF DEPENDENCIES.

A. LAWRENCE LOWELL, ESQ., Harvard University.

One whose knowledge of our new possessions is derived entirely from books must speak upon the problem of their government with diffidence. The only thing of which he can be absolutely sure is the defectiveness of his own information, its insufficiency as a basis for conclusive inductions, and all that he can do is to offer suggestions derived from the experience of other countries under conditions that have at least a considerable similarity with those we are called upon to face. Our policy must at first be tentative, and no doubt we shall make mistakes; but we certainly want to approach the problem with such light as can be drawn from the successes and failures of other nations, and all that the writer ventures to hope is that the few suggestions that can be offered in a paper of this length will contribute something toward setting forth the questions which our government must solve.

In this discussion I shall make two assumptions. First, that our primary aim is to be the welfare of the dependencies. Such an attitude is alone worthy of an enlightened nation, and the history of colonization shows that it is almost, if not quite, impossible to make colonies a permanent benefit to the dominant country on any other basis. The dependencies ought eventually to be self-supporting, but we have no right to expect them to be a source of public revenue. The second assumption is that the provisions of the Constitution of the United States do not apply to our new possessions in such a way as to interfere seriously with the establishment of the most desirable form of administration. This assumption is, is, I believe, well founded, but the subject is a large one, and cannot be treated in the space to which this paper must necessarily be confined.

Within a year we have acquired three groups of islands, all within the tropic of Cancer, but differing from one another radically in the character of their people and in the nature of the problems they present. In one of them, Hawaii, there is a considerable element of Anglo-Saxon

origin, which is, indeed, small as compared with the total population, but is to-day, and is apparently destined to remain, the ruling class in the island. It is not improbable, therefore, that our institutions can be immediately applied to the Sandwich Islands without modification, and such is the recommendation of the commissioners appointed to consider the subject. They have reported, in effect, in favor of a territorial government copied from the pattern that has proved successful in the West.

The other annexations present problems which are not only more difficult, but are as unlike each other as either of them is to that of Hawaii. There is, in fact, a vital difference between Porto Rico and the Philippines. Civilization in Porto Rico, as in the United States, is essentially European, and hence our aim must be to develop the people in the lines of our own life. Their condition is not so far from ours, and their climate is not so far tropical, as to set up an impassable barrier; and if it is possible to bring them into accord with our political, social and economic standards, every consideration of their welfare and our own should lead us to do so.

In the Philippines, on the other hand, which are strictly tropical in climate, the civilization, like that of India, of the Malay Peninsula and of Borneo, is mainly indigenous, and hence we ought to endeavor, as the English have done, to promote social evolution along the natural lines of the We should not try to impress our ideas in upon them in a flood, but help them to advance in their own way. In other words, our object must be to make them not Americans but civilized Malays.

race.

The two problems are quite distinct, and each presents its peculiar difficulties. One is that of a subtropical island whose inhabitants, although foreigners, are largely of European blood. The other is that of a tropical country, peopled almost entirely by Asiatics. The English have shown in India, and in the still closer parallel of the Malay Peninsula, that the Philippine problem can be solved. They have shown that peoples not unlike the Tagals, the Visayans and the Moros can be ruled successfully; and our difficulty lies in the fact that we have yet to learn the art, and must display the self-restraint required to practice it. The difficulty here is not so much to find out how the thing ought to be done, as to do it; while in Porto Rico the opposite is true.

There historical examples are of negative rather than of positive value. In the cases most nearly analogous there were conditions that simplified matters, and England adopted, as I shall try to show, a solution that is hardly open to us. The Philippinos are utterly incapable of ruling themselves in a civilized way, so that there need be no question about the need of obtaining the consent of the governed, to distract us in the pursuit of their welfare; but in Porto Rico the political aspirations of the people cannot be disregarded, and it will probably not be easy to reconcile these with our views of the best policy for the island. The difference is like that of managing a small child and a halfgrown man. A wise parent does what is best for the child, and makes him obey; but the lad must be allowed a pass-key, and yet is not given control of his property.

If we are constrained to undertake the management of Cuba, the problem will be like that of Porto Rico and will present similar difficulties.

THE PHILIPPINES.

The task here is that of ruling a tropical colony, where the proportion of white men must always remain insignificant, and where the natives, except in the case of selected individuals, will be incapable of taking part in the government for an indefinite period. The most important requisites for the administration of such a colony are justice, a consistent policy, and a thorough knowledge of the native character. The first of these will probably be best attained by the methods pursued in all English-speaking countries, the methods which the English have generally adopted in ruling Asiatics, that of placing alongside the higher administrative officials independent judicial tribunals. It must inevitably happen that local officials are sometimes given judicial powers, but in such cases there ought to be an appeal to the supreme court of the colony, so composed that one or more of the members shall be versed in the common law and others thoroughly familiar with the native customs. Such

a court cannot be created in a day, but with care it could be brought to perfection before long.

Not less indispensable are a consistent policy, and knowledge of native character. The need of the last of these is self-evident, and in regard to the former it is clear that nothing will destroy the confidence and respect of the native

Now

more quickly than any appearance of vacillation. England, the greatest of all colonizing powers, and Holland, the next most successful, have both sought to attain these objects by treating their colonial officials as a distinct permanent service, and offering an assured career to every man who entered it, and it is hard to see how the result can be reached in any other way. A knowledge of the native character and conditions is not one of those things that comes from Yankee shrewdness, or skill in operating the political machine. It requires long residence on the spot. France has made the mistake of selecting her colonial officials from the home administrative service, and sending them to the colonies as a step in the line of their promotion. Leroy-Beaulieu, the first of French authorities on colonies, laments this practice of his countrymen, and it has certainly been one of the causes of their lack of success. We must remember, also, that service in the tropics is far from healthy, and if the proper kind of man is to be secured the pay must be liberal, and the incumbent must be able to look forward to a pension that will enable him to spend the rest of his life comfortably at home after devoting his best years to the work of the colony. Entrance into the service ought, of course, to be conditioned upon proof of qualification. The English make their examinations for the Indian civil service of such a nature as to admit only men of liberal education, and encourage the successful candidates to spend their two years of probation at one of the universities. They have felt the great importance of bringing to bear upon colonial administration the highest and broadest culture that the mother country can produce -certainly an excellent method of making European civilization a potent influence in the East. Probably the best way of recruiting our colonial service would be to establish an academy like West Point or Annapolis. The system has proved most admirable for the army and navy, and ought to be equally good for another technical occupation. It has shown itself in harmony with our institutions. It gives sufficient play to the American love of patronage, by the mode of selecting the candidates for admission, while it produces a service strongly imbued with the best professional traditions. West Point and Annapolis have been both popular and efficient, and good sense would suggest an extension of the principle.