Personal and Unofficial

Swarms of little brown men and women chattered feverishly as the S. S. President Grant brought to Manila last week a representative extraordinary of "Big White President" Coolidge. Not only brown Filipinos but hundreds of Manila's 5,000 white U. S. residents were at the pier. The President's representative, Ohio iron-politico-businessman Carmi Thompson, strode down the gangplank with his wife and party amid a boisterous ovation.

Brown, guileful Politicians Manuel Quezon (President of the Senate) and Manuel Roxas (Speaker of the House), untiring apostles of Philippine independence, called promptly upon Mr. Thompson, blandly implied that they were ignorant of the President's voluminously expressed purpose in sending a personal representative to the Orient (TIME, April 12, THE PRESIDENCY) .

Would Mr. Thompson, they asked, be so good as to expand the topic of why he was in Manila?

Mr. Thompson, plump, obliging, expanded: ". . . I come without bias or prejudice, with the deep conviction that the United States is not only under obligation but owes a strict duty to its overseas people. . . .

"The President is expecting me to bring first-hand information of a personal and unofficial character to supplement his official reports. . . . "It is a pleasure and a satisfaction to occupy a position with at least the possibility of promoting the welfare of 12,000,000 people, whose happiness is dependent upon the prosperity of their own land. . . ."

The editor of El Debate, purposeful organ of Philippine independence, condensed. He distilled the essence of insinuations that Mr. Thompson's relations with great U. S. rubber and sugar firms are cordial. He extracted the kernel of a prediction that Mr. Thompson will be roused by the possibilities of commercial exploitation in the Philippines to a point at which he may lose interest in proximate Filipino independence. Allowing these explosive ingredients to simmer down, the editor of El Debate declared with brief irony: "As far as we Filipinos are concerned we are accustomed to these investigations. We welcome the occasion of another."

Colonial Comparison. The announced intention of Investigator Thompson to proceed from the Philippines to Java for a study of the very similar climatic and physical conditions there to be found, prompted a comparison last week of Dutch and U. S. methods of colonial administration.

The U. S. has forcibly introduced into the Philippines white-Nordic government, Christianity, and an uncertainty as to how long these blessings will be maintained, which has kept the Filipinos on edge for independence and has discouraged commercial development.

Her Netherlandic Majesty's regime in Java has been content to maintain a supremacy over the native governing bodies which are allowed to retain their customary usages and Islamic faith. No doubt is entertained that Dutch supremacy will be maintained at any cost. Commercial development has been rapid, productive, profitable. Only the moral scruples of Javan independence -touting humanitarians have suffered.