s landlords,
we are indifferent to our tenants; if as mere owners, then are we
careless of the future of our property. We have not assumed the
responsibilities involved with any national sense of responsibility;
we have neither declared nor formed any policy. But in this fact
lies the extraordinariness of the situation. Of the soundness of our
title to the Islands at international law there is not the shadow of a
doubt; the Islands are ours. What do we intend to do with them? Why
have we not, after fourteen years' possession, found an answer
to the question, or, in other words, declared a policy? Nations,
no less than individuals, must take an interest in their property,
and society demands as a right that any property of whatever nature
shall be adjusted in respect of relations to all other property. We
have followed this course as regards Cuba and Porto Rico; but,
apart from taking the Philippines and continuing to own them, we
have made no adjustment of their case. The property, as such, has
been administered, and, on the whole, well administered; the amount
of work done, indeed, is astonishing. But that is not the issue:
however good has been the official administration of the Archipelago,
whatever the progress under our tutelage of its peoples as a whole,
no one knows to-day what relation will be permanently established
between the Archipelago and the United States, what our policy is, or
is to be, in respect of the Islands. And yet upon our declaration of a
policy hangs their future. The matter in its interest and importance is
national; equally national is the indifference we have displayed with
respect to its settlement. Both the United States and the Philippines
are entitled to a decision.

II.

At the outset of any consideration of the question in hand, it is
obvious that we are not shut up _a priori_ to any one solution. Thus,
we may decide, to keep the Islands, or we may grant them immediate
independence, or independence at some future date; we may establish a
protectorate, or give a qualified independence, or even turn them over
to some other power--for example, England or Japan; or, finally, we
may secure an international agreement to neutralize the Islands, thus
ostensibly guarding them against the ambitions of powerful neighbors
of colonizing disposition. All of these solutions have at one time
or another been mentioned; not one of them has ever been officially
announced by the Government, or ratifi