Innovations, costing immense sums to introduce, are forced upon the people, not at all in harmony with their real wants, their instincts, or their character. What is good for America is not necessarily good for the Philippines. One could more readily conceive the feasibility of "assimilation" with the Japanese than with the Anglo-Saxon. To rule and to assimilate are two very different propositions: the latter requires the existence of much in common between the parties. No legislation, example, or tuition will remould a people's life in direct opposition to their natural environment. Even the descendants of whites in the Philippines tend to merge into, rather than alter, the conditions of the surrounding race, and _vice versa_. It is quite impossible for a race born and living in the Tropics to adopt the characteristics and thought of a Temperate Zone people. The Filipinos are not an industrious, thrifty people, or lovers of work, and no power on earth will make them so. The Colony's resources are, consequently, not a quarter developed, and are not likely to be by a strict application of the theory of the "Philippines for the Filipinos." But why worry about their lethargy, if, with it, they are on the way to "perfect contentment"?--that summit of human happiness which no one attains. Ideal government may reach a point where its exactions tend to make life a burden; practical government stops this side of that point. White men will not be found willing to develop a policy which offers them no hope of bettering themselves; and as to labour--other willing Asiatics are always close at hand. Uncertainty of legislation, constantly changing laws, new regulations, the fear of a tax on capital, and general prospective insecurity make large investors pause. Democratic principles have been too suddenly sprung upon the masses. The autonomy granted to the provinces needs more control than the civil government originally intended, and ends in an appeal on almost every conceivable question being made to one man--the Gov.-General: this excessive concentration makes efficient administration too dependent on the abilities of one person. There are many who still think, and not without reason, that ten years of military rule would have been better for the people themselves. Even now military government might be advantageously re-established in Samar Island, where the common people are not anxious for the franchise, or care much about political rights. A reasonable amount of personal freedom, with justice, would suffice for them; whilst the trading class would welcome any effective and continuous protection, rather than have to shift for themselves with the risk of being persecuted for having given succour to the _pulajanes_ to save their own lives and property.