The Several Systems of Labor.
In the north the co-operative principle of labor is largely employed, each tenant being provided with the necessary buffaloes and implements, and attending to the cane as if it were his own. He provides the hands for cane-crushing and sugar-making, while the land-owner supplies other necessaries, and has to take the risk of typhoons, droughts, locusts, and the like. The tenants receive, as their share, from a third to a half of the crop, according to the bargain made. Nevertheless, they are generally in debt to the owner and are looked upon as his servants.
Cane-stalk Yard, Tanduay; Drying Crushed Cane for Fuel.
In the south the plantations are worked on the wage system. Here great vigilance is needed to keep the men properly to their tasks, overseers being employed, who have an interest in the crop. The overseer in some instances provides his own capital, and receives two-thirds of the yield as his share. In 1877 a British company, with large capital, organized, to buy the cane-juice and to extract from it highly-refined sugar. Every preparation was made, but from the first the enterprise was a failure, and the concern wound up in 1880, the stockholders suffering severely for their faith. Yet fortunes have been made in Philippine sugar, and until 1883 the crop could usually be depended on to pay a good profit to the capitalist and leave something for the borrower. The custom introduced in Europe, in 1884, of paying subsidies to the beet-root cultivator, proved ruinous to the islanders, and interest on capital is now the only return to be looked for.