Such is the descent down which the peoples are precipitated. In
proportion as they are bathed in blood and drenched in tears and gall,
the colony, if it has any vitality, learns how to struggle and perfect
itself in fighting, while the mother country, whose colonial life
depends upon peace and the submission of the subjects, is constantly
weakened, and, even though she make heroic efforts, as her number is
less and she has only a fictitious existence, she finally perishes. She
is like the rich voluptuary accustomed to be waited upon by a crowd of
servants toiling and planting for him, and who, on the day his slaves
refuse him obedience, as he does not live by his own efforts, must die.
Reprisals, wrongs and suspicions on one part and on the other
the sentiment of patriotism and liberty, which is aroused in these
incessant conflicts, insurrections and uprisings, operate to generalize
the movement and one of the two peoples must succumb. The struggle
will be brief, for it will amount to a slavery much more cruel than
death for the people and to a dishonorable loss of prestige for the
dominator. One of the peoples must succumb.
Spain, from the number of her inhabitants, from the condition of her
army and navy, from the distance she is situated from the Islands,
from her scanty knowledge of them, and from struggling against a people
whose love and good will she has alienated, will necessarily have to
give way, if she does not wish to risk not only her other possessions
and her future in Africa, but also her very independence in Europe. All
this at the cost of bloodshed and crime, after mortal conflicts,
murders, conflagrations, military executions, famine and misery.
The Spaniard is gallant and patriotic, and sacrifices everything,
in favorable moments, for his country's good. He has the intrepidity
of his bull. The Filipino loves his country no less, and although he
is quieter, more peaceful, and with difficulty stirred up, when he
is once aroused he does not hesitate and for him the struggle means
death to one or the other combatant. He has all the meekness and all
the tenacity and ferocity of his carabao. Climate affects bipeds in
the same way that it does quadrupeds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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