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.

LABOR SECTION

301

together. Political or economic conditions may improve.
Wars and famine may come and go. Immigration into the
Philippines will always follow in the wake of these forces and
will fluctuate accordingly. When political persecutions in Germany and Ireland stopped, migration from these countries to
the United States ceased. When economic prosperity began
to reign in Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, and Switzerland emigration from those countries to the United States
also commenced to decline. When we began our agitation
against Japanese in Davao and Japan started her industrialization movement, the Japanese were only too willing to leave for
the home country where their labors and services were needed.
Examples may be indefinitely multiplied to show that immigration tides are not limitless and unending, and it is to the
inexorable law of population, rather than to moral or physical
defense, that we may pin our hope against Chinese immigration into the Philippines.
Agriculturally speaking, China has struck the Malthusian
limit in her congested districts; but P. M. Rocby, in an article
in the Geographical Review for January, 1925, maintained
that China could support a still larger population by improving the means of communication in the vast interior of China,
by a proper redistribution of the population, and by scientific
and proper schemes of irrigation, water control, and afforestation. There is still another means by which China can stem
the tide of her emigration to other countries-the possibilities
of industrialization. Professor J. B. Roorbach of Harvard
University said:
"To the minerals hoarded in these mountains she has
paid little attention, never dreaming of the vast potential
wealth locked far beneath her soils, awaiting but the magic
touch of modern industry to release it. To her present
agricultural industries these resources of coal and metals,
once developed, will supply new raw materials and mechanical power, which ultimately will make possible, in
the hands of her enormous population, the development
of a manufacturing industry of almost inconceivable magnitude, and will lay the foundation of a world-wide commerce."