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.

10 INDEPENDENCE CONGRESS PROCEEDINGS

ognized as free nations. This accounts for the establishment
by the Versailles Peace Conference, of small independent nations
from the once powerful German, Austrian, Russian and Turkish
empires.
This spirit of rebellious self-determination has set aflame
hitherto inert subject races. Nationalist Turkey has turned
against European exploitation; nationalist Egypt has won independence; nationalist Persia and Afghanistan have cast off
British shackles; and Central and South American republics
are building up strong barriers to check the invasion of American politico-economic imperialism. Abyssinia manifested such
a vigorous spirit of independence that she was able to eliminate
any contingency of intervention on the part of the British,
French and Italian nations.
But the work of the forces of nationalism is not yet complete. India is still under the yoke of Great Britain, although
Indian nationalism has assumed gigantic proportion. Java's
patriots are beginning to realize the necessity of freeing their
country from the control of a nation whose population is much
smaller than that of their own. China is resorting to such
effective weapons as boycott and her young patriots are stirring
the people to solidarity and action in order to suppress extraterritorial rights enjoyed by foreign nations. Even the backward Arabs have been stirred by this new trend of nationalism.
A number of them, especially those who have been educated
abroad and the officers who served in the great war, have
shown a fiery spirit of nationalism. And coming to our own
Philippines, we have become more insistent than ever in our
pleas for independence. All are responding to the nationalistic
and democratic sentiments which have given Europe and
America their seemingly impregnable world-mastery.
Nationalism is not entirely without its foes. Material
forces, inventions, devices, appliances and methods, all seem to
demand political and economic rearrangement far beyond the
scale of national boundaries and nationalist limitations. The
new inventions have abolished distance and are likely to abolish
frontiers. This stupendous progress has set dreamers to
idealize on world peace, world organization, world civiliza