by this body, and to be ratified soon by the Spanish Government; they are Americans, and since they have fired upon the flag they are rebels. That is the law of the situation as we see it and possibly as the world sees it.

Now, considering the fact, which can not be denied —for our consul reported the fact as far back as February, 1898, before Dewey sailed into Manila Baythat there was a rebellion against Spain; that the Filipino army was lying outside of the city of Manila and hostilities were active; considering the fact that they organized a government as far back as last June; considering the fact that they have been actively engaged in collecting munitions of war and have recruited their army until, as this officer told me, they have not less than 40,000 men outside of Manila today, we are brought face to face with the consideration as to whether it was not wise and proper and the best thing from their point of view for the Filipinos to make the attack which they did, or which it is said they did, on Saturday night last.

If they went to war with the United States before the United States had a title to those islands in law, what is their legal status in international law? They can not be called rebels to us except from the extreme standpoint of legal technicality. We had no right in Manila so far as they were concerned; we only had rights there so far as Spain was concerned; and if, after they had their representative here pleading and begging for some word of comfort, some promise as to our policy, or some dim outline even as to the purpose of recognizing their right to local self-government, they grew desperate at last and fired upon our troops, the firing upon those troops before we had any legal title must give them the right of belligerents

in war, although they are subjects of Spain, because by the cession to us we simply fall heir to Spain's residuary title in those islands.

We may say they are rebels, and in strict legal interpretation they may be rebels, but let this war terminate how it will, history will declare that they are to-day patriots striving for what we fought for in our struggle with Great Britain in the last century; and we can not escape from the condition at least of doubt as to the course we ought to follow when we consider this fact. They were fighting for their freedom against Spanish tyranny two years ago, and they continued to fight up to the time when Aguinaldo left the islands and went to Singapore; they continued the fight, as our own consul said, after he left; they never did cease, some of them; there never was peace; and now the question which addresses itself to every American who loves his flag and loves his great country and loves the great principle upon which that flag rests and that country is founded is this: Are we to take the place of Spain as their taskmasters and tyrants?

I have looked back down the vista of what history I have read, and I appeal to any Senator here who may be versed in history to correct me if I am wrong when I say there never has been in the history of time a precedent for the existing condition now at Manila between the United States and the Filipino insurgents. The transition or transfer of the legal title. to the islands during the period of their rebellion against one government and their effort to throw off the yoke and establish an independent government has never, so far as I recall, occurred before in the history of the world.

I say the present situation in Manila is unique,

it is sui generis, it is the first one of the kind that has ever existed in the history of the world where. a colony of another nation at war with that nation for its freedom has been sold in the meantime to another power and their allegiance or sovereignty transferred.

We can look at it from our side and then look at it from theirs. I have just presented a few of the ideas which have occurred to me as having actuated the Filipinos in firing upon the American flag, as they did last Saturday, and that was that they desired to obtain in the eye of international law the rights of belligerents and not become rebels after the cession, as would have occurred if they had fired yesterday evening or this morning, after we had ratified the treaty.

Senators will recall the fact that some twenty years ago the South African Republic, known as the Transvaal, inhabited by the Boers, was annexed to the British Crown by proclamation. A British diplomatic agent had gone into that country to spy out the land, so to speak, to feel the temper of the people. Having notified his Government that it was advisable to do so, a proclamation was issued, simply reaching out and swallowing the whole Republic, putting them under the British, flag, and sending a British governor, accompanied by a regiment of soldiers, to take possession of the cities, towns, and forts, and lo, the thing was done; the Transvaal was a part of the British Empire!

The Boers, a sturdy Dutch stock, who had fled from Natal and from the Orange Free State to get rid of the Englishmen, numbering only about 50,000 souls all told, met in mass meeting and in assembly time and again. They protested, they supplicated,

they negotiated, they begged. In the meantime, while these proceedings were going on, there was a transfer of power in England from the wily, brilliant, but unscrupulous Disraeli to that grandest of English statesman of this century, William Ewart Gladstone. But even Mr. Gladstone, though he felt that the incorporation of the Boers under the British flag and into the British Empire was wrong, did not feel called upon to say so officially; and in the Queen's address to the Commons, written, of course, by the prime minister, it was stated that their request could not be granted.

They were put under the British yoke in 1877. In December, 1880, three years afterwards, the machinery of the Government had begun to move, and the British tax-gatherer came around and levied on a wagon belonging to one of the Boers who had refused to pay taxes. He put it up for sale, but, instead of selling it, several Boers rode in on horseback, took charge of the wagon, and gave this British official notice to get out, and in a week's time the entire province was in rebellion against the British Crown, but struggling for that inherent right of man-selfgovernment.

The British troops began to move; re-enforcements were rushed from Cape Town, from the adjoining territory belonging to England. The Boers were. farmers who had never drilled, but the best riflemen in the world. The result was that in the conflicts. with the British regulars these undrilled farmers whipped the redcoats, although they were officered by trained soldiers; and under the lead of one of their number, whose name was Joubert, they won some notable victories. Reading the history of his brilliant military deeds last night, I came to think that possibly

under similar conditions, extended a thousandfold as to this man Aguinaldo, who is now called an upstart and an organizer of a "tin-horn government" in Manila, in the Philippines, it may come to pass that under his inspiration and leadership a similar result will happen in those islands.

The last conflict between these Dutch farmers-half civilized if you choose to term them so—and the British army was at Majuba Hill, where a thousand picked British regulars had taken an impregnable position, as they thought, in the cup of an extinct volcano, a natural fortification with a rim around it. The Boers surrounded them, crawled up to the rim of the cup, and shot to death over half their number, put the rest to flight-those they did not capture-and "all the world wondered." Of course the British bulldog barked and the British lion roared. The demand from the rabble was, "Rush more re-enforcements down there and shoot those rebels to death."

What did Gladstone say and what did Gladstone do? Realizing that a continuation of the war involved the loss to Great Britain of many soldiers, realizing that his predecessor in office had committed a grave. wrong, he sent a negotiator, Gen. Sir Evelyn Wood, with instructions to bring about an honorable peace by the restoration to those people of their republic, reserving only to the Queen of England the right of suzerain and the right to control the foreign policy of the republic.

What more do we want in the Philippines than the right of a protectorate, which will give us the control of their foreign policy, will keep away from those islands any outside interloper, or land-grabber, or robber who might desire to gobble them up and enslave the people? What right, or what advantage