| 1902 | $ 71,064.69 |
| 1903 | 527,228.10 |
| 1904 | 462,433.83 |
| 1905 | 486,475.56 |
| 1906 | 433,991.79 |
| 1907 | 433,458.58 |
| 1908 | 370,513.36 |
| 1909 | 598,917.69 |
| $3,384,083.60 |
The following table, taken from this same annual report of the Collector of Customs of the Philippines for 1910 (p. 22) shows the size (weight in kilograms), and value, of the annual Philippine hemp crop from 1899 to 1910, both inclusive. It gives in one set of columns the total exported to all countries, and in the other the part which comes to the United States:
| To All Countries. | To United States. | |||
| Kilos | Value | Kilos | Value | |
| 1899 | 59,840,368 | $ 6,185,293 | 23,066,248 | $ 2,436,169 |
| 1900 | 76,708,936 | 11,393,883 | 25,763,728 | 3,446,141 |
| 1901 | 112,215,168 | 14,453,110 | 18,157,952 | 2,402,867 |
| 1902 | 109,968,792 | 15,841,316 | 45,526,960 | 7,261,459 |
| 1903 | 132,241,594 | 21,701,575 | 71,654,416 | 12,314,312 |
| 1904 | 131,817,872 | 21,794,960 | 61,886,592 | 10,631,591 |
| 1905 | 130,621,024 | 22,146,241 | 73,351,136 | 12,954,515 |
| 1906 | 112,165,384 | 19,446,769 | 62,045,088 | 11,168,226 |
| 1907 | 114,701,320 | 21,085,081 | 58,388,504 | 11,326,864 |
| 1908 | 115,829,080 | 17,311,808 | 48,813,720 | 7,684,000 |
| 1909 | 149,991,866 | 15,883,577 | 79,210,362 | 8,534,288 |
| 1910 | 170,788,629 | 17,404,922 | 99,305,102 | 10,399,397 |
If you have the time and inclination, you can easily figure out the annual “rake-off” of the American hemp importers from the above table. For instance, take the last year, 1910: 99,305,102 kilos at 75 cents per 100 kilos is $744,788.26, which is more than 4% of $17,404,922, the total value of the hemp crop of the archipelago for that year. Add this $744,788.26 to the $3,384,183.60 shown by the above table of refundable duties collected from 1902 to 1909 inclusive, and you have over $4,000,000 rebates accruing to American importers of Manila hemp from 1902 to 1910 inclusive.
In his remarks on Section 13 of the Payne Law of 1909 (above set forth), in the House of Representatives, May 13, 1909,[16] Hon. Oscar W. Underwood said, in part:
When you put a tax on your people for engaging in export trade, to that extent you lessen their ability to successfully meet their foreign competitor and reduce the territory in which they can successfully dispose of their surplus products abroad. Our forefathers in writing the Constitution of the United States, recognizing the false principle on which an export tax was based, put it in the fundamental law of our land that the United States Government should not lay export taxes. If we enact this law, we write into the statute book for the Philippine Islands, legislation which is little short of barbarous, legislation that no government in the civilized world except Turkey, and Persia, and other second-class nations countenance to-day.
But the hemp interests won out and the section was adopted. In an argument for the repeal of the export tax, delivered in the House of Representatives August 19, 1911, the Philippine delegate, Hon. Manuel L. Quezon, said:
There is one section in the Philippine tariff law, approved August 5, 1909, which is seriously injuring the proper commercial development of the islands.
Of course the earnestness with which Mr. Quezon pleaded his cause may be imagined from the circumstance that, as he says, he is continually advised by letters from his people, and verily believes that if the export tax is not taken off soon the Philippine hemp industry will be entirely destroyed, and the hemp farmers will have to take to raising something else in lieu of hemp, because the present prices hardly permit them to live. In the course of his speech Mr. Quezon offered the following truly eloquent and absolutely unanswerable argument: