The peon was given his keep, but the interest on his debt was added faster than he could earn. He was really a slave, except that he had sold himself rather than been sold by another. But his debts might be bought and sold, so that it amounted to the same thing in the end. Interest was sometimes as high as ten per cent a month, while fifty cents a month was allowed for his services. Worcester in his book tells of a man who borrowed $1.25, which he and his wife and children worked several years in the effort to repay; but by that time the amount had become $37.50! Spain had nominally abolished slavery long before, but it had continued in force in both the Christian and non-Christian provinces. The legislators themselves held peons. The law of Congress creating the Philippine Government prohibited slavery, but there are no penalties attached, so it could not be enforced. The Filipinos denied that slavery existed in the Islands. Worcester made a careful investigation, and an exhaustive report on both slavery and peonage. All but a few copies of this report were burned by a Filipino official. It was a subject which neither the Filipino politician nor their self-styled friends the anti-imperialists wished to see discussed in print. The Manila papers had been absolutely silent on the subject, and even the anti-slavery legislation which was finally forced through, after having been tabled again and again without so much as the briefest formality of discussion, passed unnoticed. It was a sore subject, and the Filipino method of treating a sore subject is not to heal it, but to refrain from discussing it. There is no question but we have given the Filipinos too much power for their own good. They now, under the Democratic Administration, have five members in the Commission, to America's four. They have to-day much power--only colonies such as Canada and Australia have more, while Egypt has been given less in a generation than the Filipinos have received in ten years. The present governor, Francis Burton Harrison, has been severely criticized. His party was pledged to a rapid Filipinization which has proved disastrous, for it was devised by men wholly ignorant of the situation. The destruction of the wonderful civil service system so carefully built up in the early days as an object lesson to Spanish-bred politicians, is only one of many changes which have been brought about. We have certainly lost prestige in the Islands under the Democratic Administration. Filipinos no longer remove their hats during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner on the Luneta, so Governor Harrison finally tried to discontinue the playing of the national anthem. The American community would not stand this, however, so it was resumed. In many other ways the Filipinos have become "cocky." This of course does not apply to the tao, who plods along regardless of politics.