The principal part of the cotton comes from the province of Ylocos, where large quantities of stuffs are manufactured. The brown cotton, for which a prize was offered in 1818 by the Society of Arts, grows in great quantities, and is manufactured into durable cloths and blankets. The prices of agricultural labour vary from 1 rial[63] per day near Manila to ¾ and ½ rial in the provinces—a plough with two buffaloes and a man, 2½ rials. The workmen, like day labourers in all countries, are often “looking for sunset;” but when allowed task work, are willing and industrious. A plough will go over rather more than a loan[64] of ground in a day—about a quinion in three months.
Of the produce of any given cultivation, it is difficult to speak with any degree of correctness: calculations of this kind are difficult to make amongst a people labouring each for himself, and all for the wants of the day: for, unaccustomed to generalize, each gives his own as the average, and hence the discrepancy which every person must have remarked who has had occasion to make inquiries of this description in half civilized countries, where a main point, the value of the labourer’s time, and of that of his animals, is invariably left out, as is also the difference of work for himself and for a master. The tables given at the conclusion of Comyn’s work are, as far as regards the vicinity of the capital, very erroneous. They are also very deficient in many points.[67] The following is a much nearer approximation.
A quinion of land requires four ploughings and three harrowings, say six ploughings in all.
| Ds. | Rs. | |
| Now as 1 Quinion will occupy a hired labourer about 90 days at 2½ Rials = 28 Dollars 1 Rial, which for six times is | 168 | 6 |
| Fencing, 12 Ds.; Grubbing, &c., 15; Cane Slips, 25; Planting, 18; Weeding and Hoeing, 30; Carriage, 18; Manufacture, 45; Pilones, &c., 12 | 175 | 0 |
| Cost | 343 | 6 |
| Produce at low average, 150 Pilones,[68] salable at 3½ Ds. | 487 | 4 |
| Profit | 143 | 6 |
This supposes the proprietor of the cane to be possessed of a mill, buffaloes, &c. for the wear of which no estimate is made.
The 150 pilones of sugar, each weighing about 150 lbs. gross, will produce the refiner who has purchased them about 100 piculs of sugar, of which
| S. | Ds. | |
| 80 1st sort, worth 6¼ Dollars | 500 | 0 |
| 20 2d ditto, and Molasses, &c. 3¾ | 75 | 0 |
| 575 | 0 | |
| They have cost him about | 487 | 4 |
| Refiner’s allowance on 100 Pilones, S. Ds. | 47 | 8 |
The profits of the refiner would appear high; and they have been so; but are far from what this statement appears to give, from various reasons, of which the chief are, the heavy capital sunk in buildings, interest on advances, &c. and from a want of knowledge, the enormous waste of labour in the process. A glance at this may give an idea of what trade is at these antipodes of commercial knowledge.
I have termed the process “refining;” it should rather be called claying and sorting—and it is as clumsily managed as the ingenuity of man could well devise. The trade is principally in the hands of three or four capitalists; advances are made by these to brokers, the provincial merchants, who annually bring their produce to the capital in small vessels,[69] and to the masters of coasting traders, in which the sugar merchants have shares. These are made to a large amount, 80 to 100,000 dollars; and as the interest of this must at least run for six months at 9 per cent. it forms a heavy item. Losses and defaulters form another, say ½ per cent. in all 5 per cent.
The pilones are delivered from November to May and June, and are received into extensive warehouses, which are provided with large court-yards and terraced roofs. Here the upper part of the pilone is cut off, and a quantity of manufactured sugar being pressed down on the top of it, a thin layer of the river mud is put on it; this is watered from time to time and changed once or twice, the pilone standing on a small foot, with the small hole at its apex left open, through which the molasses slowly drains, leaving the upper and broader part of the pilone of a fine white, gradually decreasing in goodness to the bottom, where it is little more than molasses—the pilone is then cut in two; the darker part is put by as second quality (or reboiled), and the whiter portion as firsts, of the sugar, the care taken in the process, the kind of mud used, &c. About two piculs of sugar from three pilones is a fair average, when these are of a good size. That from the province of Pampanga is by far the best; it is produced from a small red cane[70] about four feet high, and of the thickness of a good walking stick.