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.

250 INDEPENDENCE CONGRESS PROCEEDINGS

twenty thousand young men who will come to legal age annually and the same number of young women. Deducting
those who should serve in our army and navy, we would have
left more than two hundred thousand young people of both
sexes who may be employed in all kinds of work of the State.
The work of two hundred thousand young people, in fulness
of life animated by patriotism, will bring many millions of
pesos annually to the nation.
Before adopting a political defensive of any kind, I believe
that we should take into account the following lessons taken
from the contemporary international history:
First: A weak country may be conquered by a powerful
nation, but cannot remain a subject without the consent of the
Great Powers. Shantung in China was taken by Japan from
Germany with the sacrifices of life and money, but it had to.
be abandoned on the pressure of the Powers.
Second: A country may not be conquered and yet be under
the sovereignty of another nation in accordance with the will
of the Powers. Example: The decrees after the world war.
In view of these lessons, personally I am of the opinion that
we should economize in all branches of the administration in
order to attend to the national defense; but it is not prudent
to load our country with heavy taxes and expose ourselves to
a sure bankruptcy organizing defensive forces superior to our
economic capacity; worse still to resort to loans which are a
sure pretext to a foreign intervention in our interior government as what happened in Haiti and China when the representatives of the creditor nations administered the custom houses.
We should devote ourselves to maintaining those forces of sea
and land sufficient to conserve the order and strictly execute
our laws. With the Stambouliski system we can easily in time
of peace put a police corps of about twenty-thousand men with
an expense not any greater than what actually we spend in the
constabulary. If this corps of insular police and and all the
municipal police receive instructions in military organization,
they would be able to serve as a nucleus around which the