“No vessel on the sea,
But the house that’s mine for me,
And all the lands around which I’ve been used to see.”[1]
Indigo will render, according to De Mas, 100 per cent. Coffee, on the same authority, will double its capital in four years. Cocoa returns 90 per cent. Attempts to introduce mulberry cultivation for silk have had little success, though the specimens sent to Europe have obtained prizes for their excellent quality. The worms require a more continuous attention than the Indians are willing to give, and the same may be said of those spices, nutmegs, cinnamon, and any produce which demands unremitting care. The spontaneous productions of the Philippines do not easily obtain the benefit of a more enlightened mode of culture.
The rights of property require thorough investigation and recognition in a country which has not been surveyed or cadastred; where the foreign population is migratory and uncertain; where documentary titles are, for the most part, wanting, and appropriation of the soil has been little controlled by the supreme authorities; where there is no land-tax, and the religious bodies hold immense territories generally underlet to the natives. The smallness of estates necessarily adds to the cost of production, and it would not be easy to induce wealthy capitalists to settle unless facilities were given for the acquisition and cultivation of extensive properties. Such capitalists would introduce the improvements in agricultural science which are now wholly wanting; they would bring with them able heads and hands to conduct, and better instruments to give practical effect to superior knowledge. A desire is frequently expressed for the formation of agricultural societies, but these are rather the children than the parents of progress, and the numerous and respectable body which already exists in Manila, the “Sociedad Economica,” has not been instrumental in introducing any very important changes. There is in the Spanish mind too great a disposition to look to “authority” as the source and support of all reforms; but the best service of authority in almost all cases of productive industry is non-interference and inaction; it is not the meddling with, but the leaving matters alone, that is wanted; it is the removal of restrictions, the supersession of laws which profess to patronize and protect, but whose patronage and protection mean the sacrifice of the many to the few. Government, no doubt, can greatly assist the public weal by the knowledge it can collect and distribute. Nothing is more desirable than that the rich territorial capabilities of the Philippines should be thoroughly explored by efficient scientific inquiry. Geologists, chemists, mechanicians, botanists, would teach us much respecting the raw materials of these multitudinous islands, so inviting to the explorer, and so little explored. Mountains, forests, plains, lakes, rivers, solicit the investigation, which they could not fail to reward.
Of the indigenous productions found by the Spaniards the dry mountain rice seems to have been the principal article cultivated by the Indians for food, the arts of irrigation being little known, and the mode of culture of the simplest character. The missionaries taught the Indians to divide their lands, to improve their agriculture, to store their harvests, and generally to meliorate their condition by more knowledge and foresight. Maize and wheat were introduced from America, though for a long time the use of wheaten bread was confined to the service of the mass. There is now an adequate supply for the wants of the consumer. Melons, water-melons and various fruits, peas, pumpkins, onions, cucumbers, garlic and other vegetables, soon found their way from Mexico to the church gardens, and thence to more extensive cultivation. Coffee sprang up wild in the island of Luzon, ungathered by the natives. Tobacco was introduced under the patronage of the government, and is become the most important source of revenue. Pepper and cassia grew unnoticed, but the cocoa-nut tree and the plantain were among the most precious of the Indian’s possessions, and the areca was not less valued. Indigo was indigenous, and the wild cotton-tree was uncared for; nor can it be other than a subject of regret that to the present hour so inadequate an attention has been paid to the natural production of the islands, and means so little efficient taken for improving their quality or extending their cultivation. At the present time there are few large estates having the benefit of well-directed labour and sufficient capital. Of those possessed by the religious communities little can be expected in the way of agricultural improvement, but the cultivated lands are generally in the hands of small native proprietors. Where the labourer is hired, his daily pay is from a half rial to a rial and a half (3½d. to 10d.), varying in the different provinces.
The quiñon is the ordinary measure of land; it is divided into 10 baletas, these into 100 loanes, which represent 31,250 Castilian varas. Three labourers are supposed sufficient for the cultivation of a quiñon. In 1841 the Captain-General Urbiztondo published a decree encouraging the importation of Chinese agricultural labourers by landed proprietors, and with a special view to the cultivation of sugar, indigo and hemp. The decree was expected to produce a beneficial revolution—it has been a dead letter. Imported labour, subject to all sorts of restrictions, cannot in the long run compete with free indigenous labour. The question is a very grave one in its ramifications and influence on colonial interests, when they come into the field against the free trade and the free labour of the competing world. I doubt altogether the powers of the West Indies—dependent upon imported and costly immigrants—to rival the rich fields of the East, when capital and activity shall turn to account their feracious soil, more genial climate, and more economical means of production. Progress there is but the natural development of the elements which Providence has allotted to them, whereas in the West India colonies everything is forced and unnatural, purchased at an immense cost and maintained by constant sacrifices.
[1] Barco ninguno, casa la que vivas, tierras las que veas. [↑]