In English India all the civil and military employes know the language of the country. That extreme, however advantageous it be, and is, in fact could be brought about here only with difficulty. It would have been easy if one of the dialects of the islands had been established from the beginning as the language of the government and of the courts; for a Visayan learns Tagálog very quickly, and any other idiom of the country, and the same thing is true of the other natives.
[If that had been done] all would at this moment show well or poorly the dominant language, just as in Cataluña, Valencia, the Baleares Islands, and the Basque provinces, Castilian is known. But this is not a matter which can be remedied in a brief time. Consequently, if an alcalde who is beginning to administer justice in Cagayan has to go immediately to Cebú, he will surely arrive there without knowing the language, although he had given himself to the study of it from the very beginning. But if this is an evil, this evil is now being endured, for the alcaldes arrive from España, and since they know that they have to return in six years, they do not take the least trouble to learn the language, and they leave the government in this regard just as when they entered it.
In the capital and its suburbs, justice is administered by means of two lay alcaldes, who are appointed annually by the ayuntamiento from the citizens of the city. When the appointees are men of wealth, they resign, for this charge alone occasions them ill-humor and serious occupations which distract them from their business. Those who accept or desire it, can have no other stimulus than that of vile interest, tolerating prohibited games, etc. It is, then, necessary to appoint two lawyers with suitable pay to be judges of first instance.
Everyone knows what the Leyes de Indias are, the epoch in which they were made, and the distinct regions for which they were dictated. It is, then, indispensable and peremptory to make the civil codes of legal processes, of criminal instruction, and of commerce especially for the country.
In India there is a commission of the government composed of four votes and a president, charged with making and revising the laws of India. For the same purpose, in my opinion, three persons who had studied or should study the country would be sufficient here. In such case I would be of the opinion that they be not allowed to do their work together, but that each one work alone and present his results. Another commission ought to be appointed immediately (there would be no harm in those same men forming it) to examine the codes and present a résumé of the points in which they differed essentially. These would be few and in regard to them the government could take the best resolution.
[1] Alcalde de monterilla: An ironical and descriptive qualification of petty judges (Dominguez’s Diccionario).
[2] As appears from a note by Mas, the alcaldes paid a certain sum for the privilege of trading. Their salaries in 1840 were variously for the sums of 300, 600, and 1,000 (one instance) pesos. The trading privilege cost from 40 to 300 pesos.
[3] This is the famous philosophical treatise on political science, which was published by Charles de Secondat, baron de la Brède de Montesquieu, in 1748, and was the product of twenty years’ work.
[4] Jeremy Bentham, the English jurist and philosopher who lived in the years 1748–1832.