[23] A full account of this controversy, with the text of some of the official documents therein, may be found in Mas, ut supra, pp. 23–28. [↑]
[24] By a royal decree of January 12, 1777, it was ordained that the Indians should devote themselves to the cultivation of flax and hemp; this must have originated from a suggestion by Anda. [↑]
[25] Zúñiga thus relates the result of this experiment in the village of San Pedro Tunasan (Estadismo, i, pp. 29, 30): “The owner of these lands is the college of San José in Manila, which has there a good stone house, and a Spanish manager who attends to the collection of the rent from the tenants. The land is quite fertile; it produces abundance of mangas, cocoanuts, oranges, lemons, camias, balimbins, buyo, sugar, and various other kinds of trees and garden produce. Also there are a good many mulberry trees, and silk is made in the farm buildings. When the Economic Society was established in Manila, when Señor Basco was governor, the rector of the college gave orders that all the land adjoining the farm should be planted with mulberry trees; and, as this tree grows as easily as a weed in this country, in a short time were seen around the house extensive and beautiful plantations of these trees, which could produce an abundant harvest of excellent silk. Silkworms were imported from China, and it was seen that they multiplied readily. Not only on this estate, but in all directions, the promotion of this industry was taken up with ardor. A considerable quantity of silk was made; but on selling it the owners found that they lost money in cultivating this article. When a calculation was made of what the land which the mulberry trees occupied could produce, it was found that even when it was planted with nothing more than camotes it yielded them more than the silk did; add to this the care of the worms and the cost of manufacture, and it will be found that those who devote themselves to its culture must inevitably lose. In other days the promotion of the silk industry had been considered at Manila; and an old printed sermon has been found, written by an Augustinian father, who stated therein the measures which had been taken to introduce into the Filipinas islands an industry which could be very profitable for them. The father preacher exhorted the inhabitants to devote themselves to an occupation which could be so useful to the nation; but those who directed the Economic Society of Friends of the Country took good care to keep that quiet, so that the farmers might not be discouraged by seeing that in other days the cultivation of this product had been attempted, but had been abandoned because, without doubt, no benefit resulted to the producers. But, no matter how many precautions were taken, and efforts made to persuade those who might devote themselves to this industry that much profit could be obtained from it, every one abandoned it. The rector of San José alone continued to manufacture the silk that was yielded from the mulberry trees which he had planted, although at last he had to abandon his project. The silkworms multiply well in Filipinas, and are in a condition to make silk throughout the year; and, as the mulberry trees are always in leaf, silk is yielded all the time. There is practically not a month [in the year] when some silk cannot be obtained—very different from España, where it is necessary to stop gathering silk throughout the winter, as the trees have no leaves. Notwithstanding all these advantages, as we are so near China, which furnishes this commodity very cheaply, it cannot yield any profit in these islands—where, besides this, the daily wages which are paid to workmen are so large, and what they accomplish is so little, on account of their natural laziness, that it is not easy to push not only this but even any other industry in this country.” [↑]
[26] Acordado, literally, meaning “decision;” lo acordado, “decree of a tribunal enforcing the observance of prior proceedings.” Mas says that these magistrates were appointed in imitation of those who performed such functions in America. [↑]
[27] See Jagor’s note on this association (Reisen, pp. 307, 308). [↑]
[28] “Only one plant of those that were carried to the Filipinas Islands was introduced, and its cultivation directed, by the government; this was the tobacco. Perhaps there is no other which is more enjoyed by the natives, or more productive of revenue, than is this plant. So important for España is its utility that it alone, if his Majesty’s government promotes its maintenance intelligently, can become a greater resource than all the other incomes of the colony.” “Tobacco is the most important branch of the commerce of these islands; its leaves, which in all the provinces are of excellent quality, in some of them reach such perfection that they cannot be distinguished from those of Havana. The government has reserved to itself the right to sell tobacco; its manufacture is free only in the Visayas, but in all the island of Luzon this is subject to the vigilance of the government. Nevertheless, the proprietors or growers are permitted to cultivate it in Pampanga, Gapan, Nueva Ecija, and in the province of Cagayan; but the government buys from them the entire crop at contract prices.” “To the far-seeing policy of the captain-general Don José Basco is due the establishment of this revenue, one of the richest in the islands. Its direct result, a short time after it had been established, was that the obligations of the colony and its political existence, far from depending, as before, on an allotment made in its favor by the capital, were advantageously secured; and in the succeeding years this branch of the revenue displayed a very notable increase, with well-grounded indications of the greater one of which it was susceptible. In 1781 this income was established; and at the beginning of 1782 it was extended to the seventeen provinces into which the island of Luzon was then divided. It is easy to estimate the resistance which was encountered in establishing this revenue—not only through the effect of public opinion, which immediately characterized the project as foolhardy, but through the grievance which it must be to the natives and the obstacles continually arising from the contraband trade. Certainly it was hard to deprive the natives suddenly of the right (which they had enjoyed until then) of cultivating without restriction a plant to the use of which they had been accustomed from infancy, being regarded among them as almost of prime necessity. But there was no other means, if that worthy governor’s economic idea was to be realized, than the monopoly, which should prohibit simultaneously in the island of Luzon the sowing and cultivation of the said plant, reducing it to the narrow limits of certain districts, those which were most suitable for obtaining abundant and good crops. If to this be added the necessity imposed on the consumers of paying a higher price for a commodity which until then had been easily obtained, we must admit that the undertaking was exceedingly arduous and hazardous.” “At the outset, districts were set aside in which its cultivation was permitted: Gapan, in the province of Pampanga; some districts in Cagayan, and the little island of Marinduque—although in these last two places only an insignificant amount was harvested. Notwithstanding the difficulties which surround every new enterprise, from the year 1808 the net profits which the monopoly annually produced exceeded 500,000 dollars [duros].” (Buzeta and Bravo, Diccionario, i, pp. 51, 173, 438, 439.)
See Jagor’s interesting account of the tobacco monopoly (especially in the middle of the nineteenth century), in his Reisen, pp. 257–270. One of his notes (p. 256) states that the income from this monopoly was $8,418,939 in the year 1866–67; another (p. 259) cites authorities to show that tobacco was first introduced into southern China from the Philippines, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, “probably by way of Japan.”
The idea of establishing the tobacco monopoly had been urged by Viana in 1766 (see pp. 109, 110, post). [↑]
[29] The title given to him was “Conde de la Conquista de las islas Batanes” (“Count of the Conquest of the Batanes islands”); and the principal village in those islands bears the name of Basco. [↑]
[30] Regarding the Chinese in Filipinas, see (besides many documents in this series) the following works: Mallat, Les Philippines (Paris, 1846), ii, chapters xxii, xxvii, xxix; Jagor, Reisen, pp. 271–279; Rafael Comenge’s Cuestiones filipinas, part i, “Los Chinos” (Manila, 1894); F. W. Williams, “The problem of Chinese immigration in further Asia,” in Report, 1899, of American Historical Association (Washington, 1900), i, pp. 171–204; China en Filipinas (Manila, 1889), articles written mainly by Pablo Feced; Los Chinos en Filipinas (Manila, 1886). [↑]