Proceedings of the first Independence congress : held in the city of Manila, Philippine islands, February 22-26, 1930 / Published under the direction of Dean maximo M. Kalaw, executive secretary, University of the Philippines.

248 INDEPENDENCE CONGRESS PROCEEDINGS

Bulgaria, and Albany in Europe; that I think have no better
right than we have to enjoy a free existence and they have
remained independent up to the present.
One of those small nations, Bulgaria, gives us an example
which I offer to present to the consideration of our country
advocating strongly for its adoption if at some time we become
independent.
Bulgaria is actually a small kingdom which has five million
inhabitants. For more than four hundred years it had been
under the dominion of the Turks. Less than fifty years ago,
with the Treaty of Berlin there was established the tributary
princedom of Turkey, and only since 1903 after the war of
the Balkans, did it obtain its complete freedom, forming itself
into a kingdom. During the world war it sided with Germany sacrificing more than three hundred thousand lives and
all its resources. After the war it found itself completely exhausted and reduced to poverty, having to pay, besides, its own
share of the indemnities and reparations. The Bulgarians,
far from being discouraged, decided to devote all their energy
to the progress and prosperity of their country. One of its
great statesmen, Stambouliski, thought of a plan: from the
fifty thousand and more young men that annually come to
legal age are taken the necessary number to serve the small army.
The rest are divided into brigades and are employed for eight
or ten months in the construction of roads, railroad tracks,
national and municipal buildings, urbanization and indemnification of cities and towns, construction of irrigation system
and cultivation of uncultivated lands to increase production
exploitation of mines, work in factories of arms and ammunitions and in all other enterprises that are needed for the
aggrandizement of the nation. The fifty thousand and.nore
women who also reach annually the age of sixteen are obliged
to serve for six months in work adecuate to their sex. They
work in factories where they weave goods for the soldiers' and
workers' uniforms. They enter in shops where these uniforms
are made. They prepare the food and wait on people in hospitals, and in schools and they render some other services that
are in accord with their capacities.