THE PHILIPPINES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 200, 7 January 1942, Page 2

THE PHILIPPINES

CINDERELLA COLONY

JAPANESE INFILT RATION

Ever since the Spanish-American war of 1898, when Theodore Roosevelt, then Assistant-Secretary of the Navy, ordered Admiral Dewey to 'seize the Philippines for the United States, one of the major problem* of successive United States Administrations has been what to. do with the colony on the other side of the Pacific.

The Philippines were lirst treated

as a start of an American overseas empire, but later, with the development of the policy of aloofness to all affairs but those of the Western Hemisphere, they became a United States Cinderella. Development of

the territory, while beneficial so far as it went, was but half-hearted, and toKlay American investment is. but a third of American investment in

Japan

The United States, it is said, Inn always been suspicious of the peoples of the dependency, and the United States Immigration Act permits the entry of only fifty Filipinos a year. They now total about 75,000 of whom 30,000 live in California State. White American civilians in the Philippines number about 10,000 in addition to the naval, mulclitary and air force personnel.

In recent years the United States States Congress has considered the status of the Philippines on several

occasions, and some years ago passed an Act by which independence would pass to the Filipinos in 1946. Japanese foreign policy has, however, caused considerable modification of the. views which facilitated the Act's passing, and there was lately claimed to be a majority viewin A,merica, as well as a change ot mind among one section of Filipinos, against its implementation.

Sugar interests in the United States favour the independence status, as it would the menace of -competition in the States' internal market. Under independence Filipino sugar would have to face a high lariil'. In Jamiaiw, 1939, President Roosevelt recommended Congress to defer the implementation of the Act till 39(51. The sugar question is of particular interest. Both the hemp and sugar industries, in ihe Philippines have long since been dominated by the Japanese settlers. Prevented by local laws from owning the land, the Japanese have used dummies and now have ousted the easy-going Filipinos. Japanese manage to produce three times as much an acre as their predecessors.

The chief Japanese colony is in Davao, a town on a first-class naval harbour on the south facing the Netherland East Indies. Japan, through its consul on the spot, subsidises its nationals. When the Filipinos allowed the Chinese, who owned 80 per cent of the storey, to institute a Japanese boycott soon aftei the beginning of Japanese aggression in China, the Japanese Government financed its nationals; into the

store business

Filipino Fighters

The attitude of the Filipinos toward, the Japanese has undergone some change in recent years, and in 1939 they moved to open the Philippines to Japanese immigration under quota, without removing the bar on the ownership of land, which, after all, is a law through which the proverbial cart and horse were driven daily. Chinese were also favoured as immigrants, for the Filiponis regard both races as fellow

Orientals

The Filipinos are fine fighters. The best of them are the Moslem Moros. A "West Point" of the Philippines is run on the strict lines of Us United Gtates counterpart, and the officers produced are of high quality. The army is conscript, and in the past j r ear or so, with the Pacific situation growing steadily worse, its numbers have be.cn greatly increased. It is estimated that it is now a force in the region of 10,000, with more in various stages of training. I

Civil defence in the islands is, however, little prepared. Recently the Filipino President, Manuel Quezon, complained of this condition, and the air raids which have gone on almost continuously during the last l'ew nights have: caused very heavy loss. Air raid shelters were practically non-existent a few months ago, except for several very primitive dug-outs which have lately been prepared near the administrative buildings in Manila.