Spain's colonial failure in a nutshell. But their collapse in the Philippines is not only shameful to the civil and military officers of Spain. It is unspeakably discreditable to their clergy, and through them to the Church of Rome. One fact dominates the whole history of the Spaniards in the Philippines. It is that they made good their footing by the help of the preaching friars, and have held it by their exer tions. The early Spanish conquerors, Legazpi and others, were men of the stamp of the Pizarros and Almagro, daring adventurers in search of a quick fortune to be gained by the sword. To find an Inca, and to plunder him, was their ideal. They were hardly landed in the Philippines before one of them was petitioning for the king's leave to set out for the conquest of China, which he would, no doubt, have been prepared to attempt with 150 men and 20 harquebusses. There never was any real settlement, and if Spanish rule was accepted, the friars are chiefly entitled to the credit. We must not exaggerate the extent of their dominion, nor the ease with which it has been held. Much Much even of the great northern island of Luzon, on which Manila stands, has never been properly brought under control. The lesser islands to the south have been touched later, even less effectually and sometimes not at all. Rebellions have been common, and occasionally successful in securing local independence. Some of the very mixed races of the archipelago

are free savages now as they were in the sixteenth centurythe Negritos, who are a remnant of the aborigines, a small negroid and withering race, incapable of civilisation. The Igarrotes and other tribes, even in Luzon, are practically free in the mountain and bush. In the most southerly islands, the mixed Malay race, called by the Spaniards Moors, who are corrupt Mohammedans, have never been tamed. The real possessions of the ruling Power have always been in the island of Luzon in the tobacco-growing valleys of the country to the north of Manila, and the rich land of the provinces of Cavite, Laguna, and Bulacan to the south. Malay piracy was rampant among all the islands till it was stopped, less by the exertions of the Spaniards than by the invention of steam. "James Watt killed piracy." But such as the Spanish dominion has been it has been the work of the friar rather than of the soldier. When in the early seventeenth century the Council of Castile would have resigned the islands to the Dutch, it was the Jesuits who caused the idea to be given up, and it was they who provided for the defence of Manila. Again, when we took the town at the end of the Seven Years' War, the friars supported one Simon Anda, a Spaniard, who with a native following played against us the game which Aguinaldo is now carrying on against the Americans.

As the friars had to win in the first place by persuasion, their victory may be allowed

resistance, not because they feared to lose what they held, but because they thought that a settlement of titles would put a stop to their power of expansion at the expense of lay owners. As it was, no man who opposed them could be sure that he would not be robbed by the chicanery of the judges, who were bribed or overawed by the friars. In short, the Orders were hated in the Philippines for much those reasons which brought about the revolt of Protestant Europe in the sixteenth century -or for that matter, the violent attack made upon them in Catholic Spain itself little more than half a century ago. Where it has the power, the Church of Rome never fails to show that it has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. If such power as this was to last, it ought to have been carefully excluded from all outside influence. This was impossible, partly because of the action of the Spanish Government itself. Revolutions at home had some effect even on this remote colony. The power of the religious Orders had been limited in theory. If it was little reduced in practice, the reason is to be found in the constant intrigues of the chiefs of the Orders at Madrid. Yet it was being steadily undermined. Bad as the administration was, it did not prevent native Filipinos from acquiring wealth by trade. They sought to secure education for their sons, and found it in the Jesuit school at Manila. The Society has never recovered the vast estates it held before it was suppressed

in the last century, but since its reconstruction it has been allowed to reopen its schools. Mr Worcester speaks of the Jesuits as the most educated men he met in the Philippines. Perhaps because they do not own land they have escaped sharing the unpopularity of other Orders. The Spanish Government has encouraged, or even compelled, its colonists to send their sons te the university at Madrid, in the hope that they would be trained into sound sentiments. As a matter of fact, the result was to bring them into contact with modern "Liberalism." ." The young Filipinos who came to Madrid in search of a diploma as doctor or lawyer not infrequently wandered on to Paris and Brussels. Colonel Monteverde says, and no doubt with truth, that they took their models everywhere from the men who " were discontented with the government under which they lived." We can believe him, for we know the educated baboo. Of course these civilised Filipinos came back with their heads full of Liberalism, and of vague aspirations after "rights" which were perfectly incompatible with "the government under which they lived." An example of this class was the José Rizal, a pupil of the Jesuits, an M.D. of Madrid, a student at Paris and Brussels, and also an oculist of some reputation, who was finally shot by the Spaniards. Just when the ground had been well prepared in this fashion, came the Spanish revolution of 1868. The amazingly feather-headed persons whom it brought to the

helm at Madrid thought fit to permit the meeting of a "reforming assembly" at Manila. Of course this body had nothing more pressing to do than to set about reforming the Spanish administration out of existence. A trifling knowledge of the histories of revolutions will enable any reader to tell the rest of the story for himself. The friars were angered, and Government frightened at the fire it had raised in the heather. There was reaction, suppression, and coercion-and there was also hidden discontent and secret agitation. It would seem, however, that the Filipinos were not as yet resolute or prepared. The futile conspiracy of 1872 was easily stopped, and rather more than twenty years passed before anything dangerous happened. During that last interval of peaceful corruption Spanish governors robbed and their subordinates pilfered as before; a swarm of legal officials hampered all industry, to the injury of their own countrymen engaged in trade, as well as the natives. The religious Orders were restless, possessed with a fear of "Fracmasones," Freemasons, and therefore ever more severe in exercising their authority. The Spanish Government, with all the foresight it displayed in Cuba, allowed its garrison to sink to fifteen hundred men. This handful of white troops, and a few thousand native soldiers, formed all the force it had to control seven or eight millions of discontented subjects ripening for rebellion.

The friars were so far right that there was a secret society,

VOL. CLXV.-NO. MIV

It

the Katipunan, or League. This organisation was probably imitated less from the Freemasons, Carbonari, or any other European body known to the educated Filipinos, than from the familiar Chinese model. In the matter of secret societies the Chinamen who swarm at Manila have nothing to learn from anybody. The Katipunan included all ranks-and not a few of the native troops. Its members made an incision on the leg, and signed with their blood. The scar was the mark of the brotherhood. During the years preceding the outbreak of the rebellion in 1896 the Katipunan had practically organised an unseen army. was divided into districts and sub-districts, each with its own chief. There was a regular hierarchy of leaders, and a head centre. Nothing was wanting but an opportunity, and that was supplied when the vices of Spanish administration allowed the rebellion in Cuba to become formidable. Then the Filipinos saw their opportunity. Mr Forman says that they sent a numerously signed petition to the Mikado, and that the Japanese Government communicated it, names and all, to the Spaniards. One may entertain some doubt how far this story is well founded, and yet it is perfectly consistent with Spanish methods that the doomed Government at Madrid should have had the warning, and still should have taken no effectual measures to meet the danger. Certain it is that when the revolt broke out it found Don Ramon Blanco,

3 U

the Captain General, with 1500 Spanish soldiers and 6000 native troops, of whom numbers belonged to the Katipunan-and this was all there was to meet a whole population in arms.

With all their weaknesses and vices there is still a foundation of manhood in the Spaniards. Therefore, though taken at a terrible disadvantage, by their own fault, they yet stood and fought. It was little they could do except keep their hold on Manila till help came. For once the old saying, Socorro de España ó tarde llega, ó nunca, Help from Spain comes late, or never, was falsified. Though terribly hampered by the demands of Cuba, the Spanish Government poured out troops to the number of 26,000 or 27,000. It also sent out a new Generalthe Don Camilo de Polavieja, who has been already introduced to the readers of 'Maga.' Don Camilo is the very model of that hombre de pan y palo, the man with bread and a rod or in other words, rewards for his friends, and blows for his enemies who continues to be the Spaniard's true ideal of a governing person. He is a High Churchman, and therefore sure of the support of the friars. Under the direction of Polavieja the neighbourhood of Manila was swept of the rebels by the end of 1896. Then in the dry months, which begin in January and last until June, the new Captain-General carried out the campaign described in the too eloquent but instructive pages of Colonel Monteverde.

The rebels had concentrated in the province of Cavite, on the south side of the bay of Manila. The island of Luzon runs north and south, with a projecting peninsula, or rather bunch of peninsulas, at the south-eastern corner. Manila lies on the western side, near the southern end. Here the land is narrowed by the great sweep of the bay. In the centre of this narrow part, and south-west of the capital, is the large Laguna de Bay, or Lake Bay. The space between the lake and the western sea is the province of Cavite. The border on the south is a range of hills running east and west, which separate Cavite from the province of Batangas. From these hills the land slopes gradually down to the north till it sinks into the bay of Manila. This cockpit, of some forty kilometres from north to south, and forty-four from east to west, was the scene of the campaign of 1897 and of much of the late fighting imposed on the Americans. It seems a small space for an irregular force which has to face disciplined troops; but the difficulty of a country is not in proportion to its size. Cavite is harder to overrun than hundreds of miles of open desert. The rainy season-from June till near the end of the year— turns the soil into a full sponge. Innumerable streams rise in the southern hills of Tagaytay and run to the bay of Manila. In the rains they cut deep courses, which in the dry season become what the Spaniards call barrancas — sandy river - beds