If the results obtained by these splendid men, who amid lonely surroundings and in the face of manifold discouragements, bravely and effectively carried on their country's work, are to be permanent results, then I hold that the price has not been too dear, but if they are to be destroyed by the premature withdrawal of American control these sacrifices are pathetic indeed. All of the territory in Northern Mindanao east of Dapitan and north of the eighth parallel of latitude was at the outset divided between the provinces of Surigao and Misamis. It is generally conceded that these provinces had been worse governed under American rule by their Filipino officials than have any others, and it was to be anticipated that, under such circumstances, their very numerous non-Christian inhabitants would prove to have been very badly mistreated. Sinister rumours reached me from time to time as to what was occurring, but I had no competent persons whom I could send to make investigations on the ground, and intended to defer action until I could go myself. Matters were finally brought to a crisis by reports from Catholic priests, school-teachers and other reliable persons setting forth a condition of affairs which seemed to demand immediate remedial action. The commission had previously made a liberal sum available for work among the Bukidnon people of Misamis, and I had endeavoured to bring about the prosecution of this work by the Filipino provincial officials, but my efforts had been fruitless. Not one centavo of the funds appropriated had ever been expended. No Filipino provincial official had so much as visited the main Bukidnon country, the borders of which were distant less than three hours' ride from the provincial capital. The Bukidnon people are industrious. They raise a large part of the coffee, hemp and cacao exported from Cagayan, the capital and the principal port of Misamis. They were being robbed when they sold their produce. A common procedure was to instruct them that they must sell to certain individuals at absurdly low prices, and if they did not promptly obey, to bring charges of sedition against them and throw them into jail. As a matter of fact, they hardly knew the meaning of the word sedition. Depredations upon them were by no means confined to the town of Cagayan de Misamis. Filipinos from the coast invaded their territory, debauching them with vino and purchasing their property when they were drunk; getting them into crooked gambling games and cheating them, or swaggering around armed with revolvers and so terrorizing them that they surrendered their belongings. It was common for a Filipino to go into the Bukidnon country with nothing but the clothes on his back, and soon to return with three or four carabaos heavily laden with hemp, coffee, cacao, or gutta percha.