The Several Systems of Labor.
In the north the co-operative principle of labor is largely employed, each tenant being provided with the necessary buffaloes and implements, and attending to the cane as if it were his own. He provides the hands for cane-crushing and sugar-making, while the land-owner supplies other necessaries, and has to take the risk of typhoons, droughts, locusts, and the like. The tenants receive, as their share, from a third to a half of the crop, according to the bargain made. Nevertheless, they are generally in debt to the owner and are looked upon as his servants.
Cane-stalk Yard, Tanduay; Drying Crushed Cane for Fuel.
In the south the plantations are worked on the wage system. Here great vigilance is needed to keep the men properly to their tasks, overseers being employed, who have an interest in the crop. The overseer in some instances provides his own capital, and receives two-thirds of the yield as his share. In 1877 a British company, with large capital, organized, to buy the cane-juice and to extract from it highly-refined sugar. Every preparation was made, but from the first the enterprise was a failure, and the concern wound up in 1880, the stockholders suffering severely for their faith. Yet fortunes have been made in Philippine sugar, and until 1883 the crop could usually be depended on to pay a good profit to the capitalist and leave something for the borrower. The custom introduced in Europe, in 1884, of paying subsidies to the beet-root cultivator, proved ruinous to the islanders, and interest on capital is now the only return to be looked for.
The Rice Crop.
Turning now from the sugar to the rice crop, I may say that it is the staple food of the people, the crop upon which the very existence of the people depends. It is grown in every province, rice-cultivation being the only branch of agriculture that the people thoroughly understand, and into which they enter with the zest of evident enjoyment. Rice, a native plant of the East, has from time immemorial been the leading food-product of all the nations of Eastern Asia. The wild plant, from which all the cultivated varieties have been derived, is still plentiful in the marshy, tropical countries of southern Asia and northern Australia; while the people of India, China, and the islands of the ocean live very largely on this nutritive grain. It is known by as many as 1,300 different local names, and it is said that Bengal alone has displayed 4,000 distinct forms of rice. These differences are in color, shape, and size, and may be all referred to a few well-marked varieties of Oryza sativa, the rice plant. In India and the Philippines rice in the husk is called paddy, and this word comes constantly into play in speaking of the cultivation of the plant.
Formerly, rice was the main crop of the Philippines; a considerable quantity being exported. Twenty years ago Sual was an important port for the shipment of rice to China. It has now declined to an insignificant village. In fact, the extension of sugar culture has so reduced that of rice, that not enough is now produced for use, and large quantities are imported from Siam, Burmah, and China. Pangasinan is still a large rice-growing province, but all its product is consumed within the country. Sugar is a much better-paying crop, its minimum profit being equal to the maximum profit on rice. Rice-planting, in fact, is not profitable, and few carry it on largely; yet, inasmuch as it is necessary for the subsistence of the populace, some degree of attention compels its culture.