Over a year ago Congress overrode President Hoover's veto and passed a bill granting independence to the Philippines. This bill was valid pending ratification by the Philippine legislature, and they turned it down because of certain conditions attached to their autonomy. The chief premise of their refusal was the sugar tariffs which would naturally be set up against the Philippines as a foreign nation. This economic possibility had won the votes of the American sugar interests, both the Louisiana cane bloc and the Western beet growers headed by Smoot. They had already established a low quota and a high tariff against Cuba and they objected to Philippine free trade in this commodity. There is no question that they were perfectly justified in wishing to end the competition of American and Philippine sugar production. But American capital had previously overdeveloped cane plantations in Cuba; and the depression coming pari passu with high tariff was the cause of the present unrest. From the consumer's point of view these tariffs against Cuban sugar are unfortunate; the American growers cannot satisfactorily supply the market demand, and Cuban sugar is cheaper and of a higher grade. If the Philippine production could be cut out of the market, there would be consumption adequate to support both the American and the Cuban planter. Therefore our antiquated imperialism over the Philippines is economically unjustified.

President Roosevelt recognized this situation when he brought before Congress a lowered tariff and an increased quota for Cuba, and at the same time attempted to decrease the sugar beet production. But the howls of the Smoot coalition were not needed to remind him that the Philippine competition was the nigger in his economic woodpile.

The only other valid objection which the Philippine legislature raised against the bill granting them independence last year was the clause which reserved for the United States the right to hold its naval bases on those islands. They quite rightly pointed out that if we did hold armed control over any part of their soil, in the eyes of other nations they would still be under the colonial wing of the U.S.A., that complete autonomy necessarily gave to them sole military powers over their own territories.

When President Roosevelt urged Congress yesterday to relinquish the naval bases in the Philippine Islands, he was taking the first step towards granting them a satisfactory independence. The sugar tariffs imminent on autonomy will probably raise protest from Philippine capital, but there is no possible doubt that if they are to leave our control, they must accept the same treatment as any other foreign nation. Imperialists in this country will decry the losing of our Far East naval bases. They will claim that such action makes a possible Japanese attack probable. While there is some truth in their fears, the effect on the whole would be to withdraw the United States from the tangled intrigues of Oriental diplomacy, at once lessening the chance of war. As for the moral trembling lest any other green-eyed dragon should possess herself of these territories, there is the material satisfaction that if they attempted to do so, the United States would not have to go to war on the other side of the Pacific about the situation. Japanese capital will undoubtedly develop Philippine markets in the future, and the islands will turn more and more towards that nation. But what is meat for Japan is not necessarily meat for us, and the loss of the Philippines will certainly prove justifiable economically by the stimulation it will give to our own sugar production and that of Cuba.