Agriculture—The Chief Industry.
The land is the mainstay of the Philippines, and farming is the native occupation. Manufacture is a diversion to which the natives do not take kindly. The only industrial art that has made any progress is the rolling of tobacco into cigars and cigarettes. Many thousands of people are engaged in this occupation at Manila, but, otherwise, manufacture is almost at a standstill. A little cordage is made; some straw or split-bamboo hats are fashioned and shipped; in some provinces split-cane and Neto hats and straw mats are made. Iloilo yields a rough cloth,—sinamay, made from selected hemp fibre. Piña muslin, made of pure pine-leaf fibre, and husi, of mixed pine-leaf and hemp, are fabricated. Those, with a few other articles, make up the native manufactured products. They do not occupy the attention of the people, the greater part of the population getting their livelihood from the fields.
Weaving the Beautiful Piña Cloth.
Plantation life is the industrial unit of the islands. The soil is divided up into plantations, large and small, according to the capital and enterprise of the planter. As a rule, the planters are of the Malay race, and the work of the fields is done by other Malays, as many as five or six hundred being employed on large plantations. The laborers live in little bamboo houses, the planters furnishing them both food and clothing. The food consists of rice and fish,—very cheap provender in the Philippines,—and the clothing is of a primitive character, that costs little. Yet, at the end of the season, the laborer has usually exhausted his wages and may be in debt to the planter.
On the other hand, though the planter holds the land, he is generally obliged to borrow the capital to work it. This he obtains from a middleman, who stands between him and the great merchants, the exporters of the island-produce. The middlemen are generally mestizos. They contract for the crop in advance, on behalf of the rich exporters, from whom they obtain the money lent to the planters. This capital is lent at an interest-rate of from ten to twelve per cent. They, in turn, lend it to the planters at a considerable advance,—say, twenty to thirty, and often as much as fifty, per cent. I have heard of even one hundred per cent. being demanded. Thus the planter is ground between the upper and nether millstone,—the exporter and the middlemen. They alone make any money, the producer being normally in debt, as his laborers are likewise to him.