After the opening of the port of Yloilo, three years elapsed before a cargo of produce sailed thence to a foreign port. Since then it has gradually become the shipping centre for the crops (chiefly sugar and sapanwood) raised in the islands of Panay and Negros. From about the year 1882 to 1897 it attracted a portion of what was formerly the Cebú trade. Since then the importance of Yloilo has diminished. Its development as a port was entirely due to foreigners, and considerably aided agriculture in the Visayas Islands. Heretofore the small output of sugar (which had never reached 1,000 tons in any year) had to be sent up to Manila. The expense of local freight, brokerages, and double loading and discharging left so little profit to the planters that the results were then quite discouraging. None but wooden sugar-cane mills were employed at that time, but since then many small steam-power factories have been erected (vide Sugar). The produce shipped in Yloilo[14] was principally carried to the United States in American sailing-ships.
For figures relating to Chief Exports from the various ports, vide Chap. [xxxi]., “Trade Statistics.”
Most of the carrying Import trade was in the hands of subsidized Spanish steamer-owners, whilst the larger portion of the Exports was conveyed in foreign vessels, which arrived in ballast from Eastern ports where they had left cargoes.
Smuggling was carried on to a considerable extent for years, and in 1891 a fresh stimulus was given to contraband by the introduction of a Protectionist Tariff, which came into force on April 1 of that year, and under which Spanish goods brought in Spanish ships were allowed to enter free of duty.[15]
In order to evade the payment of the Manila Port Works Tax (q.v.), for which no value was given, large quantities of piece-goods for Manila were shipped from Europe to Yloilo, passed through the Custom-house there and re-shipped in inter-island steamers to Manila. In 1890 some two-thirds of the Yloilo foreign imports were for re-shipment.
The circumstances which directly led to the opening of Zamboanga (in 1831) as a commercial port are interesting when it is remembered that Mindanao Island is still quasi-independent in the interior—inhabited by races unconquered by the Spaniards, and where agriculture by civilized settlers is as yet nascent. It appears that the Port of Joló (Sulu Is.) had been, for a long time, frequented by foreign ships, whose owners or officers (chiefly British) unscrupulously supplied the Sulus with sundry manufactured goods, including arms of warfare, much to the detriment of Spanish interests there, in exchange for mother-of-pearl, pearls, gums, etc. The Spaniards claimed suzerain rights over the island, but were not strong enough to establish and protect a Custom-house, so they imposed the regulation that ships loading in Joló should put in at Zamboanga for clearance to foreign ports. The foreigners who carried on this illicit traffic protested against a sailing-ship being required to go out of her homeward course about one hundred and twenty miles for the mere formality of customs clearance. A British ship (and perhaps many before her) sailed straight away from Joló, in defiance of the Spaniards, and the matter was then brought to the notice of the British Government, who intimated that either Joló must be declared a free port or a Custom-house must be established there. The former alternative was chosen by the Spaniards, but Zamboanga remained an open port for foreign trade which very rarely came.
The supreme control of merchant shipping and naval forces was vested in the same high official. No foreigner was permitted to own a vessel trading between Spain and her colonies, or between one Spanish colony and another, or doing a coasting trade within the Colony. This difficulty was however readily overcome, and reduced to a mere ineffective formality, by foreigners employing Spaniards to become nominal owners of their vessels. Thus a very large portion of the inter-island steamer carrying-trade was virtually conducted by foreigners, chiefly British.
Mail-steamers, subsidized by the Government, left the capital every fortnight for the different islands, and there was a quarterly Pacific Mail Service to the Ladrone Islands.[16] Regular mails arrived from, and left for, Europe every fortnight, but as there were intermediate opportunities of remitting and receiving correspondence, really about three mails were received and three despatched every month. The mail-route for Europe is viâ Singapore, but there were some seven or eight sailings of steamers per month between Manila and Hong-Kong (the nearest foreign colony—640 miles), whence mails were forwarded to Europe, Australia, Japan, the United States, etc.
Between the capital and several ports in the adjacent provinces there was a daily service of passenger and light cargo-steamers.
Between Yloilo and the adjoining Province of Antique, the District of Concepcion and the Islands of Negros and Cebú, there were some half-dozen small steamers, belonging to Filipinos and Spaniards, running regularly with passengers and merchandise, whilst in the sugar-producing season—from January to May—they were fully freighted with cargoes of this staple article.