The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, May 19, 1919, Page 9

€ ® * National Industries in the Philippines ~ Island Legislature Operates Railroads, Coal Company, Bank and Cement ProductionfMove Forced by Profiteering Washington Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader. -] VER hear of the government- owned and government-operat- ed bank established by and for the people of the Philippine islands? Ever hear of the gov- ernment-owned and govern- ment-operated gailways in the Philippines and of their finan- cial success? Ever hear of the National Coal company, the National Cement com- pany, or the National Development company, es- tablished by the Philippine legislature, with the " approval and encouragement of the American gov- ernor general, during the war, to protect the people against profiteering ? The Philippine mission which has come to the United States to plead for national. independence for the Philippines, has brought to the outside world the first authentic story of these things. It . is telling about them because the Philippines are today being placed in a position of economic inde- pendence of Wall street and of all foreign exploit- ers. The struggle against big business in the islands is going hand in hand with the national agi- tation for political independence. The Filipinos realize, all too well, that it is foreign big business that will make the last-ditch fight in Washington to prevent the redemption of the pledge of our gov- ernment that the Filipino people shall be free. “Before the establishment of the Philippine na- tional bank,” said Maxime M. Kalaw, secretary of the independence mission, to the. Nonpartisan Leader correspondent, “the Filipinos were at a tre- mendous disadvantage, in that, having no bank of their own, they had to rely upon foreign banks, which favored the foreign as against the native borrower. Interest rates for our farmers were often as high as 20 per cent, and even at that price only a very little money was to be had. We were helpless when we wanted money for the develop- ment of our own- country. We established this government bank, with branches throughout the island of Luzon and elsewhere, in spite of the strongest opposition by the foreign banks. But in the Philippines we have this great advantage over your organized western farmers—for example, we have an overwhelming national sentiment which controls our political life, and the foreign bankers have no power to prevent our doing ‘what we wish with our own affairs. RESOURCES INCREASED MORE THAN TENFOLD “The growth of this bank has probably had no equal in history. From barely $10,000,000 of re- sources in 1916, it has grown by leaps and bounds until at the end of 1918 it had over $125,000,000 of resources. Money is now being furnished to our farmers and our small business men through this bank, at rates so low as to make it impossible that the old usurious rates will ever return. Development has been made possible, and our people are taking full advantage of this new opportunity to build up agriculture and the indus- tries.” 7 When. the °Philippine ‘government was organized on its present basis of home rule, it began imme- diately to . consider the quickest and soundest methods of getting away from the domination of foreign capital in the islands. Railroads were badly run by, the foreign- ers, and railroad develop- ment was at a standstill. Two years.ago the govern- ment took over the rail- road system. Better facili- ties and better service fol- lowed immediately. The roads are now run with an annual profit of $500,- 000 more than under pri- vate ownership. A new law provides for a big extension of the lines, When Columbus told folks he was go- ing to sail around the world, all the wiseacres said, “It can’t. be done.” When Robert Fulton built his first steamboat, they said again, “It can’t be done.” When Stephenson invented his steam railway engine, folks re- peated their old refrain: “It can’t be done.” When the North Dakota farm- ers planned their industrial and eco- nomic reforms, again rose up the cry, “It can’t be done.” North Dakota farmers are proving that prediction wrong, as Columbus, Fulton and Ste- phenson did before them. When the Philippine island legislature decided to nationalize its railways, establish banks and other industrial enterprises, it’s dollars to doughnuts there were plenty of reactionaries on the islands ready to raise up their voices in the prediction, “It can’t be done.” But the Filipinos have done it, and they’re not going to give up what they have owned. This article shows how the Philippine legislature did that thing that “couldn’t be done.” : so that within a few years they will reach every part of Luzon. Then there is the coal company. A coal problem in the tropics might seem fanciful, at first glance, but the islands have been importing coal at high cost to operate power plants and other enterprises in the cities. During the war the coal importers boosted their prices 300 or 400 and even 500 per cent. The legislature ¢reated the National Coal company, owned by the government, to develop coal mines in the islands and to market this coal to gov- ernmental institutions and to the public. The first mines have been opened, and the supplying of coal from the publicly owned coal beds to the publicly owned institutions and industries and to the mar- ket is only a matter of a little time. - With the cement company the story is the same. Native cement was privately manufactured, and war profiteering forced the government to estab- lish its own cement factories and selling agencies, with the usual reductions in cost to the public. Last and most significant of all, in this fight to protect the Filipinos against big business, is the National Development company. Its field is al- most identical with that of the industrial commis- sion of North Dakota. It is, as Mr. Kalaw points out, “organized to aid more effectively the economic In the Philippine islands, more than 5,000 schools have been opened, where the children are taught in the English language, and where they are being made fit for independence. There are 600,000 children under instruction in these schools, in which 12,000 teachers, many of them native women, are employed. PAGE NINE . development of the country, to suppress profiteer- ing and to aid and foster all legitimate business enterprises.” It was created by the last legislature, and is just now being organized and set to work. It will prob- ably go into the importing and exporting business. It may also drive oil wells, develop waterpowers, construct drainage and irrigation systems, or pro- vide ready-made farms to settlers, for the sake of orderly and economical settlement of various re- gions. While it is starting with a modest capital of $25,000,000, there is no reason why the Filipino people may not vastly increase its power as it shows the ability to safeguard them from the for- eign exploiter. Of course the Philippine islands are not an eco- nomic paradise. Twenty thousand working people paraded through Manila one day during the war, demanding that food prices be lowered. The gov- ernment abolished the tariff on rice, and appointed a rice dictator, who soon found ways of reducing the price and increasing the supply of this staple food. This protest gave evidence of the need for drastic action against the profiteers. Today the Philippine legislature and the Filipino people are ready to take any steps that may be found to their national advantage to build up industrial democ- racy and abolish exploitation. Since 96 per cent of the 1,500,000 farms in the islands are owned by Filipinos, the popular support of the government bank, coal mines, cement plants, railroads and fur- ther development program is bound to increase steadily. PHILIPPINES CIVILIZED FOR THREE CENTURIES Anecdotes typical of the fancies of Americans in regard to the Philippines are told by Secretary Kalaw of the mission. “There is deep-rooted fancy here in America that we are savages, living in the Philippine jungles and unable by any stretch of the imagination to control ourselves,” he said. “The fact is, however, that the 10,000,000 Filipinos and their ancestors have been’ civilized and Christians for more than 300 years; that the non-Christion population, ac- cording to the census of 1918, was only about 500,000. : “Another fancy is that not until the coming of the Americans were school buildings seen in the islands, roads built or substantial houses erected. - But the University of Santo Tomas was established 26 years before Harvard university, and in 1866, when the Philippines had a population of about 4,000,000, there were 841 schools for boys and 833 for girls. Eight years before the Americans came the islands had 2,137 schools. “Admiral Dewey considered the Philippines bet- ter fitted for self-government than Cuba, and the Philippine republie, established before the Amer- ican occupation, had the ap- proval of John Barrett, direc- - tor of the Pan-American union, who compared ~ it favorably with the Japanese govern- ment. “People have pictured an ig- norant mass of Filipinos, il- literate, poor, living a life of servitude for a few wealthy landowners and foreigners, with no houses and farms or property of their own. Seventy per cent of the people above 10 years of age can read and write. This percentage of lit- eracy is almost as high as some of the states of the Union. It is higher than in any country of South America, higher than the literacy of the Spanish people, and unquestionably above that of any of the new countries recognized in Europe. There are 1,500,000 farms in the Philippines, and 96 per cent of these farms are owned by Filipinos. These are facts which have just been cabled by Acting Governor General Charles Emmett Yeater to the war department from the re- cent census estimates.”