For instead, as was supposed, of its falling upon the exporting foreign merchants, and on those who bought their cargoes of Manilla produce from them at the port of discharge, the tax fell upon the native agriculturists, inasmuch as they had to reduce the former prices of all their produce which paid the tax, and to equalise them to the rates at which similar merchandise was procurable in other markets, where no tax of the sort existed;—and this, of course, compelled the cultivators of these articles in the Philippines to sell the produce of their farms for less money than they formerly obtained for the same goods. By so doing, it was equivalent to reducing the former wages of their labour, or of the produce of their land—the effects of which were speedily felt and comprehended by them, although some of the officials, who imposed it, might scoff at the causes they assigned, and reiterate their crude and erroneous notions of political economy, to prove that it could not affect them, but must be paid by the great merchants, or by the consumers of their produce in Europe. They quite forgot that these could be supplied with the same things from other places, where they were not subjected to the tax, and of course were procurable cheaper.
Owners of vessels suitable for the coasting trade, who reside in Manilla, have one advantage over the provincial ship-builders; namely, that when the government service gives employment to shipping, they are in a better position for offering for it, than persons at a distance from the capital can be.
The freight of tobacco, for instance, gives a good deal of employment to ships, and as government rates are in general rather better than any charters obtainable from private merchants, the procuring of a government contract for carrying any of the articles which they monopolize, of which the above-mentioned is one, is an object of some competition. These freights are usually settled by tenders, sealed and delivered to an officer appointed to receive them, by the Yntendente, or officer at the head of the Finance Department. I was acquainted with a gentleman, who, having several idle vessels suitable for this carrying trade, was of course most anxious to get the contract, to give employment to his ships; and having found out who the other contractors for it were, and all of them happening to be cautious men, not likely to offer for it at a losing price, he resolved to play a bold game, and made his tender for the conveyance of it out in some such words as these: “I offer freight for the tobacco, at one cuarto less than any body else will take it at,” and signed his name; a cuarto being the very smallest copper coin current at Manilla. Of course he got the contract; which—as he anticipated from knowing the men who offered for it—turned out to be a very good one; and, as the Yntendente of the time was an intimate friend of his, he ran little risk of being taken advantage of, by a lower sum being named to him as the lowest tender than what was actually the case.
Nearly all the tobacco collected in Cagayan is yearly brought to Manilla during the north-east monsoon. The contracts for this purpose generally embrace a term of three or four years, during which the rate paid by Government to the person who engages to bring all the bales (or cases) of it which they may require at one fixed freight, never fluctuates, even although the amount shipped by them is very much in excess of the usual quantity, and he may be forced to charter vessels from his neighbours at a much higher rate than the Government pay him, in order to fulfil the conditions of his contract. Considerable care is requisite in loading this tobacco, as, should there be a mistake made even of one bale, the contractor is forced to account for it to Government at the price they sell it at, which is about three times as much as they pay for it; and this regulation is no doubt found to be very requisite, in order to prevent fraud.
After the tobacco has been manufactured into cigars, the contractor has to deliver it at various stations throughout the islands, these places being generally the head-quarters of the fiscal or estanco department of the different maritime provinces from which the other are supplied. Besides the coasting trade from the provinces to Manilla, and that in the government service, there is a trade carried on by various provinces between themselves, such as conveying rice or paddy from the grain-districts to other provinces where less of it is grown, from the attention of the natives being directed to some other agricultural produce more suitable than paddy to their soil and climate, as from Antique to Mindora or Zamboanga, or from the island of Samar to that of Negros, or to Mesamis. Thus in the hemp provinces, little paddy is planted, as it is more profitable for them to make hemp, or to weave Sinamais cloths, &c., than to do so. This commerce, however, is not of any great extent; the principal—indeed the only great—market of the country being Manilla, where traders from all parts of the Archipelago meet to buy and sell.
It has been mentioned elsewhere that foreign men, as well as foreign ships, are at present excluded from engaging in the provincial trade; which is about as illiberal and unwise an act as any country could be guilty of, and should be changed, not for the benefit of foreign traders, but for the good of the country.
In connexion with the province trade, the naval school ought to be mentioned, as it is a most useful institution, where arithmetic, geometry, and navigation are taught gratuitously, at an expense to Government of nearly 2,400 dollars a-year.
The President of the Chamber of Commerce is also President of the school, and the members of that body have the privilege of admitting the pupils—a right which I believe they exercise liberally. At this place, boys are very well trained up in the scientific and theoretical part of their profession; but unfortunately, from some cause or other, their education afterwards as practical seamen does not keep pace with it, and they generally are as much behind our British or American shipmasters in all relating to the sea, as can be well conceived, although they are not unfrequently superior to them, and at least are equal, in their theoretical attainments.
At this school, many of the Creoles and Mestizos of Manilla have shown to the world that they did not want the ability to learn, when they had good masters to instruct them; but good heads and hands are seldom found together. In fact, I rather think that the lads educated here are taught too much (if that be possible), and by being so, have their ideas raised above their stations; for many of them are, by a great deal, much more like gentlemen than a number of the merchant skippers or mates in our British ships, whose horny fists and tar-stained dress make few pretensions to outward gentility.
Among the province-trading vessels lying at anchor in Manilla river, there are at all times to be seen some curious specimens of ship-building, few of them being insurable.