Freedom with Ruin

Last week the Senate of the U. S., laboring to pass a tariff bill, paused to discuss, vote upon, and reject two proposals designed to secure independence for the Philippine Islands. After Senator William H. King of Utah had suggested immediate Philippine independence, Senator Broussard of Louisiana brought forward the same idea in modified form, together with a provision that Philippine imports should be subject to tariff duties. The King proposal was rejected; the Broussard proposal was overwhelmed.

That the issue of Philippine independence--an issue raised by the late William Jennings Bryan in 1900 and a Democratic ideal almost realized by the late, great Woodrow Wilson--should turn up as a by-product of a tariff debate might appear a matter of astonishment. But the Philippines and the Tariff have one thing in common--Sugar. Senator King's Utah is a great beet sugar State. Senator Broussard's Louisiana is a great cane-sugar State. The Senators did not argue about imperialism, about the rights of the Filipino, about the ethical or sentimental aspects of independence for the Philippines. They argued about Philippine sugar, vegetable oils and tobacco. Not free Filipinos but free trade was chief topic of debate.

Sugar Senator Broussard talked, of course, about "unjust: competition." By that he meant the fact that all Philippine products are admitted to the U. S. duty free. Under the Payne-Aldrich Tariff of 1909 free sugar imports from the Islands were limited to 300,000 tons yearly. Later this restriction was removed. During hearings on the present tariff bill an attempt was made to restore it. This movement was blocked through the influence of Secretary of State Stimson, who, a onetime (1927-29) Philippine governor, said that a tax on Philippine sugar would ruin the Islands. The sugar Senators, arguing chiefly to impress their sugar-growing constituents, assumed that if the Filipinos were made a free people as they have so long agitated to be, it would not bother the U. S. conscience whether they were ruined or not.