THE QUEZON QUESTION

That Manuel Quezon, leader of the Philippine Senate, who spoke at the Union on Monday evening, has already put in motion a plan of insular government that will remove every trace of American supervision, inspection and direction, is the substance of information released by the War Department at Washington on Tuesday. This change of authority is going forward with the consent of President Coolidge, thus showing that the visit of Quezon and his companion, Sergio Osmena, representing the politicos of the islands, has already begun to bear more fruit than the promises of the last five presidents, cited in his talk by Quezon, to give the Philippines self government as soon as they were ready.

Such a radical change from the policies of the late Governor-General Leonard Wood could not be expected to take place without grave question by the diplomatic circles of Washington. The British system of colonial government, which is the model of the present plan, allows the natives to elect their own Governor General, and would leave a high commissioner, with instructions to pilot the Philippine ship of state out of international storms, as the only American link with Island administration. The United States would then have what the opponents of the further progress of the plan call "responsibility without authority." And the fact that President Coolidge has yet to consult anyone connected with the Wood administration over the appointment of a new governor-general is regarded as significant of a changed executive point of view.

Whether or not the Philippine question is to rise from being a high school debating question to the dignity of a real issue in the coming presidential campaign is at present undeterminable. It is difficult to believe that Coolidge plans to bestow upon the islands the British system of colonial government without some assurance that General Wood's charges of corruption in the elementary forms of native government were untrue. The ideas of Manuel Quezon and Sergio Osmena are born of the same stuff as was the Declaration of Independence, but it is doubtful if their island is yet ready to essay a trial in government that may result in a Pacific embroglio.