Chapter 13.

[149] "The merchants and even all the residents of Manila during the epoch of the Acapulco (trade), firmly believed that the interruption of its voyages would be the infallible and total ruin of the colony, and that upon them depended even the maintenance of the inhabitants of the farms. However, experience has demonstrated the error in which they were." (Mas, Ibid., pp. 2-3.)

After giving a table of imports and exports for 1810, Mas says: "From this statement it is seen that at that epoch the commerce of the Philippines was reduced mostly to receiving funds from New Spain, and, in return, remitting articles of China and India; that the importation of foreign goods consumed in the Philippines amounted to 900,000 pesos, and the exportation of the products of the country, such as sugar, indigo, hide, etc., did not amount to 500,000 pesos. The gains, therefore, from that traffic, for which Manila was only a port of exchange, were divided between the merchants who had the monopoly of the galleon, but the wealth of the territory received but small advantages from it." (Ibid.)

[150] Mas, Ibid., p. 4.

[151] Azcarraga, p. 18.

[152] An item in the memoir published by the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País (Manila, 1860), containing a list of its achievements, is to the effect that on August 8, 1834, "abacá" was exported for the first time. (See Bl. and Rb., Vol. 52, p. 317.)

Azcarraga (p. 19) gives the following figures for hemp:

Piculs exported.

1840 83,790 1845 102,490 1850 123,410 1853 221,518 1857 327,574 1858 412,502

[153] Azcarraga (p. 167) gives the following figures for Iloilo:

Foreign Countries. Manila. Piculs of Sugar. Piculs of sugar.

1859 9,344 77,488 1860 40,176 72,592 1861 44,256 29,312 1862 102,464 98,912 1863 170,832 80,000

[154] Azcarraga, pp. 168-169.

[155] Jagor, (Spanish edition, Madrid, 1874), p. 255.

[156] "From these dates (referring to the opening of the ports) the prosperity of the Philippines advanced steadily and rapidly without interruption until the outbreak of the Philippine revolution six years ago. To this period is due the propagation of the hemp fields of Ambos Camarines, Albay, and Sorsogon; the planting of the innumerable coconut groves; the sugar haciendas of Pampanga and Negros; the tobacco fields of Cagayan and the Ilocos provinces; the coffee of Batangas, and the utilization everywhere of the specially adapted soils for the production of these admirable articles of trade. One thing is to be noticed, and is important in estimating the future development of the islands. The money that was invested here was not brought in by capitalists but was made here. Haciendas arose from small beginnings, and this continued prosperity apparently suffered no diminution or check until it was interrupted by the ravages and desolation of warfare. * * *" (Barrows, Census of the Philippine Islands (1903), Vol. 1, p. 446.)

[157] Bowring, p. 410.

"The Filipinos gave a proof of their intelligence and of their aspirations by sending their children to Manila to be educated, buying furniture, mirrors, articles of luxury for their homes and persons; buying pianos, carriages, objects imported from the United States and Europe which came their way, owing to foreign trade. These articles caused a revelation which produced a revolution in the social mind, thanks to that veritable revolution of an economic character which permitted the only possible development--the material development." (Tavera, Ibid.)

[158] Jagor, ibid., p. 256.

[159] "The needs of commerce, demanded not by the poor but by the powerful, were attended to; for that reason roads were made, bridges were built, new highways of communication were opened, public safety was organized in a more efficient manner, the abuses of the dominators had greater publicity and, therefore, were fewer and more combated, the mail service was improved, Spaniards and other Europeans penetrated into the provinces, the natives themselves were permitted to go from one pueblo to another and change their residence, and the Filipinos were able to place themselves in contact with the civilized world, emerging from their prolonged and harmful sequestration, thanks to the workings of economic forces." (Tavera, Ibid.)

[160] "During the previous epoch the so-called natural resources constituting the extractive industries--consisting of the collection of the spontaneous products of nature--were exploited: whereas freedom of trade brought about the development of agriculture which had already been initiated by the Real Compañía. In Ilocos, indigo was made, in Batangas, Pampanga, Bulacan, Laguna and the Visayas, sugar-cane was cultivated and sugar made; in Albay abaca was produced. Bigan, Taal, Balayan, Batangas, Albay, Nueva Caceres, Cebu, Molo, Jaro, Iloilo began to be covered with solidly constructed buildings; their wealthy citizens would come to Manila, make purchases, become acquainted with the great merchants, who entertained them in their quality as customers whose trade they needed; they visited the Governor-General, who would receive them according to the position that their money gave them; they came to know the justices of the Supreme Court, the provincials of the religious orders; they brushed up, as a result of their contact with the people of the capital and, on returning to their pueblo, they took in their hearts and minds the germ of what was subsequently called, "subversive ideas" and, later still, "filibusterismo."

"The opening of the Suez Canal brought us nearer to Europe, and, carried along by the current of economical nature, came the ideas and principles of a political character which did no less than to revolutionize the ideas predominant in a country which had existed so completely separated from the nations of the modern world. Already the "brutes loaded with gold" dared to discuss with their curate, complain against the alcalde, defend their homes against the misconduct of the lieutenant or sergeant of the police force; such people were starting to emancipate themselves insensibly as a consequence of their economic independence. Their money permitted them effectively to defend questions involving money first, then, those of a moral character--they were becoming actually "insolent" according to the expression of the dominators: in reality, they were beginning to learn to defend their rights." (Tavera, Ibid.)

[161] For a good discussion of the growth of population since Spanish conquest down to 1903, see Census of the Philippine Islands, Vol. 1, pp. 442-445.

[162] This principle is stated as follows: "The beginnings of social evolution * * * are always to be found in a bountiful environment. Moreover, density of population follows abundance of food, whether the supplies are obtained from the soil directly, or indirectly, in exchange for manufactures; and other things being equal, the activity and the progress of society depend, within limits, on the density of population.

A sparse population, scattered over a poor soil, can carry on production only by primitive methods and on a small scale. It can have only the most rudimentary division of labor; it cannot have manufacturing industries, or good roads, or a rapid interchange of intelligence; all of which, together with a highly developed industrial organization and a perfect utilization of capital, are possible to the populations that are relatively dense.

A highly developed political life, too, is found only where population is compact. Civil liberty means discussion, and discussion is dependent on the frequent meeting of considerable bodies of men who have varied interests and who look at life from different points of view. Movements for the increase of popular freedom have usually started in towns.

Education, religion, art, science, and literature are all dependent on a certain density of population. Schools, universities, churches, the daily newspaper, great publishing houses, libraries, and museums come only when the population per square mile is expressed by more than one unit, and their decay is one of the first symptoms that population is declining. * * *."--Franklin H. Giddings, The Principles of Sociology, (New York, 1911), pp. 366-367.

[163] "These changes show how important it was to establish at different points, extending over two hundred miles of the Archipelago, commercial centers, where it was desirable that foreigners should settle. Without these latter, and the facilities afforded to credit which hereby ensued, the sudden rise and prosperity of Iloilo would not have been possible, inasmuch as the mercantile houses in that capital would have been debarred from trading with unknown planters in distant provinces, otherwise than for ready money." Jagor, Travels in the Philippines. (London, 1875), p. 304.

Azcarraga, pp. 168-177; 197-198.

Le Roy, Bibliographical Notes, 1860-1898.--Bl. and Rb., Vol. 52, pp. 112-114.

[164] Jagor gives credit to the two American houses in the Philippines for the development of the abacá into an important article of export. These American houses in the first years sank large sums of money in advance loans, and were only able to get the business on a paying basis when, in 1863, they were permitted to establish warehouses and presses in the provinces at the principal points where the crop was produced, and to deal directly with the producers. Jagor (Spanish edition, p. 264); Le Roy, The Americans in the Philippines, Vol. 1, pp. 33-34.

For an interesting discussion of the struggle between England and the United States for supremacy in the Philippines, and the role played by the English banks in that struggle, see a pamphlet entitled Commercial Progress in the Philippine Islands, by Antonio M. Regidor and J. Warren T. Mason, (1905).

[165] This prefix does not seem, however, to be genuine in the language, so that the Chinese have mistaken the first syllable Ta for their own word (adjective preposed) ta "great", and dropped it with their usual contempt for foreign nations. But all this is conjectural.

[166] apparently Sanskrit ... some such sound as ... Vaisadja.--Parker (China, London, 1901.)--C.

End of Project Gutenberg's Philippine Progress Prior to 1898, by Various