The enormous change which road construction has produced in ease of travel, and in reduced cost of transporting farm products, cannot be appreciated by one unfamiliar with conditions in Spanish days. Then the ordinary country road was a narrow ditch sloping in on both sides toward the bottom, this condition being brought about by failure to provide proper drainage so that there was tremendous erosion during the rainy season, at which time these so-called roads became converted into deep quagmires by the action of very narrow-tired solid wooden cart wheels, most of which were fixed upon their axles. It was not unusual to see carts in mud up to their bodies, seeming to float on it while being pulled by floundering carabaos. Many of the roads were so bad that wheeled vehicles could not be used even during the dry season, and their place was taken by so-called cangas, or bamboo sledges, which also caused rapid road destruction. When all else failed, the Filipino mounted his faithful carabao, which could swim the unbridged streams if the current was not too swift, and could successfully negotiate deep quagmires, and thus he journeyed from place to place, leaving the transportation of his products until the coming of the dry season.
The use on improved roads of cangas, and of carts with narrow-tired wheels or with wheels fixed on their axles, is now forbidden by law. The carts permitted to be used have broad tires that help to smooth the roads instead of cutting them to pieces.
As already stated, this road system is supplemented in the wilder parts of the archipelago, so far at least as the special government provinces are concerned, by a trail system which is rapidly being extended. The trails, which are at first built only wide enough to permit the passage of horses, are on grades such that they can be converted into roads by widening and surfacing, and are gradually widened in connection with the maintenance work so as to permit the passage, first of narrow-tired carts, and later of carts of ordinary width. Indeed one such trail extending from Baguio, in Benguet, to Naguilian, in the lowlands of the neighbouring province of Union, has already been sufficiently widened to permit the passage of automobiles, and the same thing can be done with any of the others when occasion requires.
It has been most interesting to note to what an extent the construction of good roads and trails and the cultivation of the land in their vicinity have gone hand in hand. The prosperity of the country has been enormously increased by the carrying out of the present sensible road policy for which Governor-General W. Cameron Forbes is primarily responsible.
The policy of the Forbes administration contemplated the steady continuance of road and bridge construction and maintenance until a complete system, which had been carefully worked out for the entire archipelago, should have been finished.
What would result if road and bridge work were turned over to a Filipino government? Judging from their absolute failure to maintain any roads until the insular government assumed control in 1907, and from the present neglect of municipalities to care for the sections of road for which they are responsible, we are justified in saying that new construction would promptly cease; maintenance would be neglected; existing roads would be destroyed; bridges would be left up in the air by the destruction of their approaches, and would ultimately go to pieces, and the whole system would come to rack and ruin.
To be sure, the Filipino politicians loudly assert that they are heartily in sympathy with the present road policy of the government, but this is largely because the securing of government aid for roads in their respective provinces increases their popularity with the people, and the probability that they will be reëlected. If it were left for them to determine whether money should be expended for this purpose or for some other which would more immediately inure to their private benefit, there can be no two opinions as to the result.
The continuance of American control for the present is absolutely essential, if proper means of communication and aids to navigation are to be established and maintained in the Philippine Islands.
[1] First year for which statistics are available.