The Social Cancer | Page 5

described with
the charming simplicity of the eyes that see clearly, the brain that
ponders deeply, and the heart that beats sympathetically. Through all
the pages of his account runs the quiet strain of peace and contentment,
of satisfaction with the existing order, for he had looked upon the
creation and saw that it was good. There is "neither haste, nor hate, nor

anger," but the deliberate recital of the facts warmed and illumined by
the geniality of a soul to whom age and experience had brought, not a
sour cynicism, but the mellowing influence of a ripened philosophy. He
was such an old man as may fondly be imagined walking through the
streets of Parañaque in stately benignity amid the fear and respect of
the brown people over whom he watched.
But in all his chronicle there is no suggestion of anything more to hope
for, anything beyond. Beautiful as the picture is, it is that of a system
which had reached maturity: a condition of stagnation, not of growth.
In less than a decade, the terrific convulsions in European politics made
themselves felt even in the remote Philippines, and then began the
gradual drawing away of the people from their rulers --blind gropings
and erratic wanderings at first, but nevertheless persistent and vigorous
tendencies.
The first notable influence was the admission of representatives for the
Philippines into the Spanish Cortes under the revolutionary
governments and the abolition of the trade monopoly with Mexico. The
last galleon reached Manila in 1815, and soon foreign commercial
interests were permitted, in a restricted way, to enter the country. Then
with the separation of Mexico and the other American colonies from
Spain a more marked change was brought about in that direct
communication was established with the mother country, and the
absolutism of the hagiarchy first questioned by the numbers of
Peninsular Spaniards who entered the islands to trade, some even to
settle and rear families there. These also affected the native population
in the larger centers by the spread of their ideas, which were not always
in conformity with those that for several centuries the friars had been
inculcating into their wards. Moreover, there was a not-inconsiderable
portion of the population, sprung from the friars themselves, who were
eager to adopt the customs and ideas of the Spanish immigrants.
The suppression of many of the monasteries in Spain in 1835 caused a
large influx of the disestablished monks into the Philippines in search
for a haven, and a home, thus bringing about a conflict with the native
clergy, who were displaced from their best holdings to provide berths
for the newcomers. At the same time, the increase of education among
the native priests brought the natural demand for more equitable
treatment by the Spanish friar, so insistent that it even broke out into

open rebellion in 1843 on the part of a young Tagalog who thought
himself aggrieved in this respect.
Thus the struggle went on, with stagnation above and some growth
below, so that the governors were ever getting further away from the
governed, and for such a movement there is in the course of nature but
one inevitable result, especially when outside influences are actively at
work penetrating the social system and making for better things.
Among these influences four cumulative ones may be noted: the spread
of journalism, the introduction of steamships into the Philippines, the
return of the Jesuits, and the opening of the Suez Canal.
The printing-press entered the islands with the conquest, but its use had
been strictly confined to religious works until about the middle of the
past century, when there was a sudden awakening and within a few
years five journals were being published. In 1848 appeared the first
regular newspaper of importance, El Diario de Manila, and about a
decade later the principal organ of the Spanish-Filipino population, El
Comercio, which, with varying vicissitudes, has continued down to the
present. While rigorously censored, both politically and religiously, and
accessible to only an infinitesimal portion of the people, they still
performed the service of letting a few rays of light into the Cimmerian
intellectual gloom of the time and place.
With the coming of steam navigation communication between the
different parts of the islands was facilitated and trade encouraged, with
all that such a change meant in the way of breaking up the old isolation
and tending to a common understanding. Spanish power, too, was for
the moment more firmly established, and Moro piracy in Luzon and the
Bisayan Islands, which had been so great a drawback to the
development of the country, was forever ended.
The return of the Jesuits produced two general results tending to
dissatisfaction with the existing order. To them was assigned the
missionary field of Mindanao, which meant the displacement