II
Customhouse red tape.The customs inspection, and the many formalities which the native minor officials exercised without any consideration appear all the more wearisome to the new arrival when contrasted with the easy routine of the English free ports of the east he has just quitted. The guarantee of a respectable merchant obtained for me, as a particular favor, permission to disembark after a detention of sixteen hours; but even then I was not allowed to take the smallest article of luggage on shore with me.
Shelter for shipping.During the south-west monsoon and the stormy season that accompanies the change of monsoons, the roadstead is unsafe. Larger vessels are then obliged to seek protection in the port of Cavite, seven miles further down the coast; but during the north-east monsoons they can safely anchor half a league from the coast. All ships under three hundred tons burden pass the breakwater and enter the Pasig, where, as far as the bridge, they lie in serried rows, extending from the shore to the middle of the stream, and bear witness by their numbers, as well as by the bustle and stir going on amongst them, to the activity of the home trade.
Silting up of river mouth.In every rain-monsoon, the Pasig river sweeps such a quantity of sediment against the breakwater that just its removal keeps, as it seems, the dredging machine stationed there entirely occupied.
Few foreign vessels.The small number of the vessels in the roadstead, particularly of those of foreign countries, was the more remarkable as Manila was the only port in the Archipelago that had any commerce with foreign countries. It is true that since 1855 three other ports, to which a fourth may now be added, had gotten this privilege; but at the time of my arrival, in March, 1859, not one of them had ever been entered by a foreign vessel, and it was a few weeks after my visit that the first English ship sailed into Iloilo to take in a cargo of sugar for Australia.[1]
Antiquated restrictions on trade.The reason of this peculiarity laid partly in the feeble development of agriculture, in spite of the unexampled fertility of the soil, but chiefly in the antiquated and artificially limited conditions of trade. The customs duties were in themselves not very high. They were generally about seven per cent. upon merchandise conveyed under the Spanish flag, and about twice as much for that carried in foreign bottoms. When the cargo was of Spanish production, the duty was three per cent. if carried in national vessels, eight per cent. if in foreign ships. The latter were only allowed, as a rule, to enter the port in ballast.[2]
Discouragements for foreign ships.As, however, the principal wants of the colony were imported from England and abroad, these were either kept back till an opportunity occurred of sending them in Spanish vessels, which charged nearly a treble freight (from £4 to £5 instead of from £1½, to £2 per ton), and which only made their appearance in British ports at rare intervals, or they were sent to Singapore and Hongkong, where they were transferred to Spanish ships. Tonnage dues were levied, moreover, upon ships in ballast, and upon others which merely touched at Manila without unloading or taking in fresh cargo; and, if a vessel under such circumstances landed even the smallest parcel, it was no longer rated as a ship in ballast, but charged on the higher scale. Vessels were therefore forced to enter the port entirely devoid of cargo, or carrying sufficient to cover the expense of the increased harbor dues; almost an impossibility for foreign ships, on account of the differential customs rates, which acted almost as a complete prohibition. The result was that foreign vessels came there only in ballast, or when summoned for some particular object.
Export taxes.The exports of the colony were almost entirely limited to its raw produce, which was burdened with an export duty of three per cent. Exports leaving under the Spanish flag were only taxed to the amount of one per cent.; but, as scarcely any export trade existed with Spain, and as Spanish vessels, from their high rates of freight, were excluded from the carrying trade of the world, the boon to commerce was a delusive one.[3]
Laws drove away trade.These inept excise laws, hampered with a hundred suspicious forms, frightened away the whole carrying trade from the port; and its commission merchants were frequently unable to dispose of the local produce. So trifling was the carrying trade that the total yearly average of the harbor dues, calculated from the returns of ten years, barely reached $10,000.
Manila’s favorable location.The position of Manila, a central point betwixt Japan, China, Annam, the English and Dutch ports of the Archipelago and Australia, is in itself extremely favorable to the development of a world-wide trade.[4] At the time of the north-eastern monsoons, during our winter, when vessels for the sake of shelter pass through the Straits of Gilolo on their way from the Indian Archipelago to China, they are obliged to pass close to Manila. They would find it a most convenient station, for the Philippines, as we have already mentioned, are particularly favorably placed for the west coast of America.