In Spanish times agricultural land was free of taxation. Now it pays a tax not exceeding .87 per cent. of the assessed value. The rate varies in different districts, according to local circumstances. For instance, in 1904 it was .87 per cent. in Baliuag (Bulacan) and in Viñan (La Laguna), and .68 per cent. in San Miguel de Mayumo (Bulacan). This tax is subdivided in its application to provincial and municipal general expenses and educational disbursements. The people make no demur at paying a tax on land-produce; but they complain of the system of taxation of capital generally, and particularly of its application to lands lying fallow for the causes already explained. The approximate yield of the land-tax in the fiscal year of 1905 was ₱2,000,000; it was then proposed to suspend the levy of this tax for three years in view of the agricultural depression.
The Manila Port Works (vide p. [344]), commenced in Spanish times, are now being carried on more vigorously under contract with the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific Company. Within the breakwater a thirty-foot deep harbour, measuring about 400 acres, is being dredged, the mud raised therefrom being thrown on to 168 acres of reclaimed land which is to form the new frontage. Also a new channel entrance to the Pasig River is to be maintained at a depth of 18 feet. The Americans maintain that there will be no finer harbour in the Far East when the work is completed. The reclaimed acreage will be covered with warehouses and wharves, enabling vessels to load and discharge at all seasons instead of lying idle for weeks in the typhoon season and bad weather, as they often do now. With these enlarged shipping facilities, freights to and from Manila must become lower, to the advantage of all concerned in import and export trade. The cost of these improvements up to completion is estimated at about one million sterling.
The port of Siassi (Tapul group), which was opened in recent years by the Spaniards, was discontinued (June 1, 1902) by the Americans, who opened the new coastwise ports of Cape Melville, Puerta Princesa, and Bongao (October 15, 1903) in order to assist the scheme for preventing smuggling between these extreme southern islands and Borneo. Hitherto there had been some excuse for this surreptitious trade, because inter-island vessels, trading from the other entry-ports, seldom, if ever, visited these out-of-the-way regions. In February, 1903, appropriations of $350,000 and $150,000 were made for harbour works in Cebú and Yloilo respectively, although in the latter port no increased facility for the entry of vessels into the harbour was apparent up to June, 1904. Zamboanga, the trade of which was almost nominal up to the year 1898, is now an active shipping centre of growing importance, where efforts are being made to foster direct trade with foreign eastern ports. An imposing Custom-house is to be erected on the new spacious jetty already built under American auspices. Arrangements have also been made for the Hong-Kong-Australia Steamship Company to make Zamboanga a port of call. Here, as in all the chief ports of the Archipelago, greater advantages for trade have been afforded by the administration, and one is struck with the appearance of activity and briskness as compared with former times. These changes are largely owing to the national character of the new rulers, for one can enter any official department, in any branch of public service, from that of the Gov.-General downwards, to procure information or clear up a little question “while you wait,” and, if necessary, interview the chief of the department. The tedious, dilatory time and money-wasting “come later on” procedure of times gone by no longer obtains.
A Roadside Scene in Bulacan Province
What is still most needed to give a stimulus to agriculture and the general material development of the Islands is the conversion of hundreds of miles of existing highways and mud-tracks into good hard roads, so as to facilitate communication between the planting-districts and the ports. The corallaceous stone abounding in the Islands is worthless for road-making, because it pulverizes in the course of one wet season, and, unfortunately, what little hard stone exists lies chiefly in inaccessible places—hence its extraction and transport would be more costly than the supply of an equal quantity of broken granite brought over in sailing-ships from the Chinese coast, where it is procurable at little over the quarrymanʼs labour. From the days of the Romans the most successful colonizing nations have regarded road-making as a work of primary importance and a civilizing factor.
Among the many existing projects, there is one for the construction of railroads (1) from Manila (or some point on the existing railway) northward through the rich tobacco-growing valleys of Isabela and Cagayán, as far as the port of Aparri, at the mouth of the Cagayán River—distance, 260 miles; (2) from Dagúpan (Pangasinán) to Laoag (Ilocos Norte), through 168 miles of comparatively well-populated country; (3) from San Fabian (Pangasinán) to Báguio (Benguet), 55 miles; and three other lines in Luzon Island and one in each of the islands of Negros, Panay, Cebú, Leyte, and Sámar. A railway line from Manila to Batangas, via Calamba (a distance of about 70 miles), and thence on to Albay Province, was under consideration for many years prior to the American advent; but the poor financial result of the only (120 miles) line in the Colony has not served to stimulate further enterprise in this direction, except an endeavour of that same company to recuperate by feeder branches, two of which are built, and another (narrow gauge) is in course of construction from Manila to Antipolo, via Pasig and Mariquina (vide Railways, p. [265]).
Since February, 1905, a Congress Act, known as the “Cooper Bill,” offers certain inducements to railway companies. It authorizes the Insular Government to guarantee 4 per cent, annual interest on railway undertakings, provided that the total of such contingent liability shall not exceed $1,200,000—that is to say, 4 per cent, could be guaranteed on a maximum capital of $30,000,000. The Insular Government is further empowered under this Act to admit, at its discretion, the entry of railway material free of duty. As yet, no railway construction has been started by American capitalists. Projects ad infinitum might be suggested for the development of trade and traffic—for instance, a ship-canal connecting the Laguna de Bay with the Pacific Ocean; another from Laguimanoc to Atimonan (Tayabas); an artificial entry-port in Negros Island, connected by railway with two-thirds of the coast, etc.
Up to the present the bulk of the export and import trade is handled by Europeans, who, together with native capitalists, own the most considerable commercial and industrial productive “going concerns” in the Islands. In 1904 there were one important and several smaller American trading-firms (exclusive of shopkeepers) in the capital, and a few American planters and successful prospectors in the provinces. There are hundreds of Americans about the Islands, searching for minerals and other natural products with more hopeful prospects than tangible results. It is perhaps due to the disturbed condition of the Islands and the “Philippines for the Filipinos” policy that the anticipated flow of private American capital has not yet been seen, although there is evidently a desire in this direction. There is, at least, no lack of the American enterprising spirit, and, since the close of the War of Independence, several joint-stock companies have started with considerable cash capital, principally for the exploitation of the agricultural, forestal, and mineral wealth of the Islands. Whatever the return on capital may be, concerns of this kind, which operate at the natural productive sources, are obviously as beneficial to the Colony as trading can be in Manila—the emporium of wealth produced elsewhere.
There are, besides, many minor concerns with American capital, established only for the purpose of selling to the inhabitants goods which are not an essential need, and therefore not contributing to the development of the Colony.