Image provided by the Yale Club & Scholarship Foundation of Hartford, Inc.
About Yale Alumni Magazine | View Entire Issue (Oct. 4, 1899)
YALE ALUMNI WHEHEKLY PRESIDENT SCHURMAN’S VIEWS His Address to Cornell Students on the Philippine Question. President Schurman of Cornell, who served as Chairman of the Philippine Commission and who has just returned to his work at Ithaca, delivered his annual address to the students of the University on Thursday, September. 28. The audience filled the Armory. He began by announcing that the University would observe Friday and Saturday as Dewey days. He then spoke of the great satisfaction it afforded him to be again at Cornell and to take up once more the work of education. Absence had but strengthened his belief that the noblest work a man can undertake was the work of education, the “making of men.” ; President Schurman then discussed at great length the Philippine question. His views are the views of an educator, who is a man of affairs also. Some ex- tracts from the very complete report of the address in the Cornell Alumni News will give its main drift. These are some of the sentences of the speech: “Now what lesson may be drawn from the colonial history of Europe? The most obvious, but also the most funda- mental, is a warning. Let no ruling race ever treat its colonies or dependencies as tts possessions. * * “The next lesson I draw from the his- . tory of colonization is cognate to the first. The government of colonies or depen- dencies is not a money-making enter- prise for the sovereign power or its citi- zens. This follows as a corollary from the proposition that subordinate states are not the property of the power which exercises sOvereignity over them. But the confusion in the popular mind be- tween. ownership and government is so deep-rooted and so universal that the point demands special emphasis. In a commercial age it is easy to associate the extension of trade with the founda- tion of colonies. But there is no in- stance in history of the successful government of a colony where profit to the parent state or its citizens has been a leading consideration. On the other hand there are many examples of disas- ters and rebellions from such unworthy greed and exploitation. * * * “This leads me to a paradox. You know that we never find happiness by seeking it. But if we perform our daily tasks and strive to do our duty, Provi- dence adds happiness as an inseparable gift. The man who deliberately aims at happiness, the spendthrift, the sen- sualist, the aestheticist or the religionist. always misses it. Now I find an anal- agous paradox in the attitude which colonizing powers assume towards their dependencies. There is a nemesis in economics and politics as well as in ethics. Let a nation seek to enrich itself or its citizens at the expense of its colonists and it impoverishes all. But let a nation in all its dealings with its colonies take as its sole criterion of judgment and standard of conduct -the welfare of the colonists, and it will re- sult, as history everywhere demon- strates, that the enriched dependencies become the most profitable traders with the ruling country. Take India and Egypt as examples. You know that India was conquered, and, till the reign of Queen Victoria, held by a trading company. Was England enriched by their exploitation? Why we have the evidence of McCulloch that in 1881 the trade between England and India was utterly insignificant, of little more im- portance than that between England and the Isle of Man. In 1858 the govern- ment of India was transferred to the Crown and in her proclamation the Queen said: ‘We hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territories by the same obligations of duty which bind us to all our other subjects.’ And what is now the condition of trade be- tween England and India? Is it stil] to be compared with the trade between England and the Isle of: Man? The very thought of such a comparison’ is ridiculous. Why, England sends more of her exports to India than to any other country except the United States, and she imports more from India than from any other country except the United States and France. What a splendid economic compensation to Eng- land for single-hearted devotion to the welfare of her great dependency and scrupulous impartiality in administering the trust of government. In the same way while English rule in Egypt—with an open door and no favors—has more than doubled the consuming and pur- chasing power of the Egyptian, England gets three-fifths of all Egyptian exports and furnishes two-fifths of all Egyptian imports. I have not time to give fur- ther illustrations. But I lay it down as a cardinal principle that the way to get profit from colonies is not to seek it at their expense. On the contrary, a colonizing power should aim at nothing but the welfare of its colonies. And by far the largest element in their welfare is good government. “There is another principle of coloni- zation, which is complementary to the last. Colonies and dependencies should be self-supporting. If the ruling power gets nothing from them neither should it be called upon to give anything to them. It might have been supposed that this principle, being in line with their own interests, would always have com- mended itself to colonizing powers. But the history of colonization disap- points such an expectation. It would rather appear that the great colonial powers when not animated by sordid rapacity, which, however, was their habitual condition, indulged in fruitless prodigality towards their dependencies. Both practices were pernicious; for if exploitation improverishes a_ people, coddling weakens and undermines its moral fibre. Financial independence is the golden mean which lies between x these vicious extremes. * “T will now mention a fourth prin- ciple of sound colonial policy, which, though less obvious than the foregoing, has been not less conclusively demon- strated by experience. To authorities established. in the colonies and depen- dencies the sovereign power should dele- gate all the functions of government. eo ee “Now it is different with dependencies peopled by alien races incapable of gov- erning themselves. Here the reason why the sovereign state divests itself of the right to govern directly is not the same as that which leads to colonial autonomy; but the policy of delegating authority is equally imperative. And we can easily see why. Government must be adapted to the governed. An unsuitable government may be as bad in its effects as an oppressive one. And rulers must take account, not only of the ideally good, but also of the needs and peculiarities of the people, their cus- toms, traditions, sentiments, aspirations, and even their prejudices and aversions. Clearly no one but men on the spot can form a judgment worth anything as to the machinery of government for, say, an Asiatic people or still less, of the manner in which that machinery should work from day to day and year to year. Spain and Portugal and France gov- erned their subject peoples from Madrid, and Paris, and Lisbon; and the loss of their empires is the condemnation of the policy. On the other hand, the sov- ereignty of Great Britain has extended and still extends at a wonderful rate over the alien races of Asia and Africa; but alike in India, Hong Kong, the Malayan States and in Egypt it is exer- cised by resident and native officials,— the Crown, Parliament, and Courts of Great Britain having most or quite as little to do with it as they have with the government of Canada or Australia. The practice in all cases is to pass an act of parliament instituting the govern- ment of a dependency, and then stand aside while the properly constituted au- thorities in the dependency administer, in the full light of local experience, the great trust committed to them. There is a simple but very effective method of supervision in two cabinet offices—the Secretaryship for India and that for the colonies. And these are the only or- ganic filaments that connect England with its Empire beyond the seas. Was ever world-empire held by so slight an attachment? Yet that is the secret of success. Decentralization, home-rule, hand-off: these are the magical words. “The fifth principle calls for men to run the machinery of government. To colonies and dependencies not capable of complete self-government the sovereign power “must send some or all of the higher officials; but the number of this ruling class should be small and the character, ability, and aptitude of each official not only above the average, but exceptionally high; and in order to at- tract and retain stich men, salaries should be high and positions permanent. I have endeavored to compress into a single sentence the nature of the demand and the conditions essential to secure the supply. The end to be attained is a good, efficient, permanent, and economi- cal government for the dependency. The great majority of the offices may and should be filled by natives. But the initiative and the directing power be- long to the sovereign nation and must be exercised by her representatives. A few will suffice. Of course there must be one responsible head. But with an organizing genius at the helm it is simply astonishing how much can be got out of the natives. The English offi- cials of India are but a drop in the ocean of population about them; but what able governors-general the coun- try has had in men like Hastings and Marquis Wellesley and Lawrence and Dufferin. Singapore and the Malayan States are in large part the work of Sir Stamford Raffles and Sir Andrew Clark. And in our own day Lord Cromer, with less than 200 English officials, has made and rules the Egypt we know. “After all, your government will de- pend upon the men who administer it. Spain used her empire to give official positions to Spaniards; and the rulers exploited the people they ruled. The whirligig of time -has brought its re- venge. I was often asked in the Philip- pines if our Civil Service was better than that of Spain? Here is a point where the Filipinos suspect and fear us. We must allay their anxiety and suspicion by a splendid Philippine Civil Service. I believe we shall. It is absolutely necessary. But there will be no harder task in connection with our government of the Archipelago. I repeat, however, that the success of our administration in the Philippines will depend upon the men we send out to conduct it much. more than upon Acts of Congress or any other circumstance. “Lastly, what is the end of Coloniza- tion? Every undertaking, and especially one of stich magnitude, should be guided by an ideal or controlled by a purpose. What then is the subject of national expansion? Why should we extend our sovereignty over remote countries and alien peoples. I answer that the only justifiable object of such expansion is the establishment of good government in the teritory annexed, the elevation of its people in civilization, and the training of them in progressive self- government with a view to ultimate in- dependence whether by partnership in, or separation from, the sovereign state. sect ae: | : “In the Philippine Islands our own mission is to educate and elevate the Filipinos and aid them in governing themselves. We shall not adopt the policy of scuttle, nor, although American sovereignty must be established even by force, shall we ever dream of the policy of extermination? Not oppression, nor ‘yet abandonment and desertion; no, not these, but honest and fraternal codpera- tion with the Filipinos for the establish- ment of a just and stable government in which the natives shall have ever increas- ing participation in proportion to the development of their political capacities, the growth of their political experience, the progress of the masses in education and civilization, and the evolution of the idea and sentiment of nationality,—a sentiment and idea which will be nour- . ished and developed by the habit of common action, the improvement of the means of communication, the freer in- termingling of the tribes and races, and hearty native codperation with the Americans whose best political traditions are but the realization of the dearest ideals of the Filipino <peoples.” LL» m AB Game Patrons Will Walk. The work which was begun on the improvement of the Derby Avenue ap- proaches to Yale Field is still in pro- gress, but may be completed in time for the big game, Nov. 25. The much needed bridge has been built over West tiver, wide and strong enough to carry the cars of the street railway, and dou- ble car tracks have been laid across it. But at the present writing it looks as though the patrons of the football games would be obliged to walk from _ the bridge to the gates of the Field as be- fore. Two years ago the Fair Haven & Westville Street Railway said that they were willing to lay tracks and run their cars to the gates of Yale Field if a bridge were built of sufficient strength to carry the weight of their heavy cars. This Summer a substantial iron bridge was built in place of the old wooden one, by the city, at the cost of $40,000. When the railway officials had received permission from the State to extend their tracks to the Field, the New Haven Court of Common Council de- cided that the company should pay $1,000 for crossing the bridge and should be bound to pay $300 each year for the partial maintenance of the bridge, a not unfair demand. ‘The street railway offi- cials, however, say that they will not pay a cent of taxation imposed by the Court, and there the matter stands, while the game patrons walk. A macadamized road from the bridge to the Field gates will make that mode of progress easier than last year. A SHARP POINT can be kept on Dixon’s American Graphite Pencils without breaking off every minute. They come in 11 degrees of hardness and are unequalled for uniformity of grading. Can be bought at the Yale Co-op. and all stationers. JOSEPH DIXON CRUCIBLE C0., Jersey City, N. J Geiecee oan = CHUCERE TEE Burns Loose Carbide GAS LAMP. ALWAYS KEEPS COOL MANUFACTURERS, THE MATTHEWS & WILLARD MFG. CO. 40 Murray STREET, New York. Waterbury, Conn New this Fall 4% The “Revolving”... “Search-Light.” Ask your dealer | o—_— Pee) Gear caer An Innovation, The = Wishbone” Bracket BRIDGEPORT BRASS CO.., presen — ; = a qT) _ J ew 0m q I CS area MU FSS a | - Bridgeport, Conn.
