There are large tracts of vacant friar lands which cannot be sold for years to come, if subject to existing restrictions, either because they are situated in very sparsely inhabited regions where there is no demand for them on the part of would-be small landowners, or because the price as fixed by law is materially in excess of that of equally good, adjacent, unoccupied public lands which can be had subject to identical conditions as to areas purchasable. As the Philippines are “land poor,” the inadvisability of such a policy would seem to be sufficiently evident. The argument against large estates is without force, both because the amount of land concerned is relatively insignificant, and because there are already in the islands so many large estates, owned in many instances by Filipinos, that the addition of a few new ones more or less would not perceptibly change the existing situation.
The question might well be raised as to the authority of the secretary of war to suspend by an executive order the operation of a law duly enacted by the Philippine legislature pursuant to powers conferred by Congress, especially as Congress has power, and has had opportunity, to disapprove it. I think it possible that the director of lands could be compelled by mandamus to sell vacant friar lands in any quantity to an individual applicant.
The facts as regards forest lands are set forth in sufficient detail in the chapter on the Philippine forests.
The existing legislation relative to mineral lands is defective, or objectionable, in several minor particulars, but on the whole is reasonably satisfactory except for the provision that a person may locate but one claim on a given vein or lode. Such a provision would have very greatly hampered the development of the mining industry in the United States and it greatly hampers it in the Philippines.
Recommendations that Congress amend the law relative to mining claims have been persistently made by the commission and have been persistently ignored, probably for the reason that Congress is too busy with other matters to give much attention to such requests from the Philippines.
We now come to the subject of public agricultural lands. I have already called attention to the fact that little advantage has been taken of the liberal provision of the Public Land Act relative to free patents and homesteads. There has been some agitation in favour of a homestead of one hundred sixty acres instead of the forty acres now allowed. Personally I do not attach great importance to this matter. Five acres is as much as the average Filipino will cultivate[2] and if he has forty there is abundant room for him so to distribute his cultivated area as to let much of his land “rest,” which he is very fond of doing. To increase the size of the homestead would help a very limited number of Americans, but a better way of accomplishing this would be to allow them to buy what they require, within reasonable limits.
No one who has not travelled widely in the Philippines can be adequately impressed with the insignificance of the areas now under cultivation as compared with those which would richly repay it. The country is failing to produce food enough for eight millions of people, yet if advantage were taken of the opportunities which nature so bountifully affords it could readily feed eighty millions.
Under such conditions the present restrictions on the sale of public lands, which make it impossible for an individual to buy more than forty acres, or for a corporation or association of individuals to buy more than twenty-five hundred acres, are simply absurd. What we want is not the indefinite preservation of our present vast trackless wastes of the richest public agricultural land, but productive farms.
Every opportunity should be extended to each native of these islands who desires to obtain land and cultivate it with his own hands.
The same statement holds for persons who wish to secure land and to employ others as labourers. Large estates on which modern machinery and modern agricultural methods are employed are greatly needed. The methods employed by Filipino owners of such estates are primitive. The natives believe what they see, and learn far better by example than in any other way. Absolutely no harm has resulted from the establishment of large sugar plantations on the San José Estate in Mindoro and the Calamba Estate in Luzón. On the contrary, both of these great farms have supplied abundant labour at increased wages to a very large number of needy people; have taught labourers much about sanitary living, and have given them very valuable object lessons in agriculture. Both are frequently visited by intelligent agriculturists glad of the opportunity to acquire the practical knowledge which can there be so easily obtained by observation.