For population statistics, all practical purposes are served by the tables and comparisons of the American census of 1903.[22] Here one may find also the best data for reconstructing before his eyes the social and economic status of the Philippines and its inhabitants at the close of Spanish rule. The Spanish civil census of 1896 was unfortunately never published, nor completed in some provinces. The civil census of 1887, though published in very condensed form, merits attention.[23] Certain of the more notable statistical works of private individuals will require notice in connection with agriculture, industry, and commerce; here the student may be referred to the Bibliography under the names of Agustín de la Cavada, J. F. del Pan, and José Jimeno Agius.[24]
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Using, as throughout these notes, the Bibliography as a starting point, the student is referred to the first part of that work, viz., the List of the Library of Congress, under the headings Agriculture, Commerce, Finance, and Political and Social Economy; and to Pardo de Tavera’s Biblioteca under the alphabetical lists of Aranceles, Balanzas, Boletín, Estatutos, Exposición, Guía, Instrucción, Memoria, and Reglamentos. Some of the works therein cited are obviously indispensable, and occasional biographical and bibliographical notes are also afforded, especially by Pardo de Tavera under the names of authors cited, which will help in forming an opinion on the value of their works.[25] It is in point here to designate among these works those most useful as references in a general way upon Philippine economic matters, to add some not listed in the Bibliography, and to give some special references under the particular headings of Agriculture, Commerce, and Industry.
General.—Jagor’s book, already noted as the best introduction to the study of this period, is again mentioned here as affording data on the tobacco monopoly (which lasted until 1884, before its affairs were wound up), the attitude of the Spaniards toward the entry of foreign traders, and the part these foreigners played in developing the culture of abaká and sugar. Cavada’s Historia geográfica, geológica y estadística de Filipinas (Manila, 1876) has a good arsenal of data drawn chiefly from the civil statistical inquiries of 1870, though, like almost all such works in Spanish, it is without a topical index and is put together in a disorderly manner most exasperating to the searcher for facts or figures on a specific point of inquiry. Of the works of José Jimeno y Agius, his Memoria sobre el desestanco del tabaco (Binondo, 1871) and Población y comercio de las islas Filipinas (Madrid, 1884) should be especially mentioned. Gregorio Sancianco y Goson’s El progreso de Filipinas (Madrid, 1881), especially valuable on administrative matters just prior to the revision of the fiscal régime in connection with the abolition of the government tobacco monopoly, has also many data on land, commerce, and industry. Scattered through the eight volumes of the fortnightly La Política de España en Filipinas (Madrid, 1891–98) are useful items on Philippine currency and exchange, trade, etc., with occasional studies of these questions and those of Chinese and European immigration, in most cases hasty, unreliable pieces of work, often even fantastic for their utter disregard of the fundamentals of political economy. Foreman’s book has already been characterized; nevertheless, checked up with Sawyer’s, it is of use in this connection. Of the consular and other official reports, those of the British Foreign Office[26] are the most valuable as a series, though the comprehensive reports of the French Consul, M. de Bérard, covering the years 1888–92, merit first place as individual treatises.[27]
The testimony and memoranda presented before the American Peace Commission in Paris in 1898, together with some magazine articles on the Philippines, form appendices to Senate Document no. 62, 55th Congress, 3rd session; only the memorandum of General F. V. Greene (pp. 404–440) and Max L. Tornow’s Sketch of the Economic Conditions of the Philippines require any consideration in this connection.[28] The reports on civil affairs (1899–1901) of the United States military government in the Philippines and the reports of the Philippine Commission have much retrospective value in connection with the previous economic and fiscal régime, and merit a general perusal in that light; some of their more especially pertinent revelations will be hereinafter cited. The Report on Certain Economic Questions in the English and Dutch Colonies in the Orient (Washington, 1902) by Jeremiah W. Jenks, special commissioner of the United States government, is of course of comparative value primarily, but contains some general remarks on Philippine conditions as regards currency, labor, land, and taxation. In many respects the best economic study ever made of the Philippines is Victor S. Clark’s Labor Conditions in the Philippines (Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor no. 58, Washington, May, 1905); though discussing the labor question, and that under American occupation, it has been written with a view constantly to past conditions in the Philippines, social and political as well as economic.[29]
Agriculture, Land, etc.—Beyond the general references given, no special work can be recommended on the subject of Philippine agriculture. The reports and bulletins of the present Philippine Bureau of Agriculture (1902 to date) shed much light incidentally on past conditions and methods of cultivation. Numerous official provisions and some private treatises on the Spanish land laws are cited by Pardo de Tavera; but these remained for the most part dead letters, and for all practical purposes a little compilation in English[30] by the present Philippine Forestry Bureau suffices. In a report on the establishment of land banks in the Philippines, José Cabezas de Herrera provided a historical review and abstract of landed property in those islands.[31] In connection with his arguments in behalf of a tax on landed property as just and as also necessary in order to support a really efficient government in the Philippines, Sancianco y Goson gives considerable information on conditions of land tenure and cultivation down to 1881.[32]
Chinese.—Discussion of the Chinese in the Philippines is related more particularly to questions of industry and retail trade. Nevertheless, the Spanish government maintained almost to the end the theory—it was hardly more than an empty theory—that the Chinese immigration was being so regulated as to constitute a stimulus to agriculture. The subject also falls into place here because, from about 1886, when a campaign for the exclusion of the Chinese was started by Spanish merchants and newspaper men, a program for fostering the immigration of Spaniards into the Philippines, and especially into the undeveloped areas of Mindanao and Palawan, was quite regularly coupled with the arguments for Chinese exclusion. This program was usually presented without regard for the climatic and economic considerations involved; that it was a “patriotic” scheme was sufficient for some of these writers, who never stopped to ask themselves if their plans were practical.[33] Among the pamphlets on the Chinese in the Philippines cited by Pardo de Tavera, those of Del Pan and Jordana y Morera deserve attention. A good survey of the subject, though not accurate in its statistics, is G. García Ageo’s Memorandum on the Chinese in the Philippines in Report of the Philippine Commission, 1900, ii, pp. 432–445.[34]
Industries.—The general references already cited must be relied upon, and it is a rather wearisome task to uncover the data for a study of Philippine industries from statistical tables, treatises and pamphlets which have given the subject a cursory or fragmentary treatment. The British and French consular reports may, however, be especially remarked. Also, the reports of the Chief of the Bureau of Internal Revenue in the reports of the Philippine Commission since 1904, when a new scheme of internal taxation was adopted, contain much information on industrial conditions, past and present.
Commerce, Internal Trade, Navigation, etc.—The Spanish statistical annuals, tariff regulations, etc., are fully listed by the Library of Congress and Pardo de Tavera, under the headings above noted for general references on economic matters. The most comprehensive survey of trade statistics, and one which almost serves the purpose by itself alone, is contained in the Monthly Summary of Commerce of the Philippine Islands, for December, 1904, published at Washington by the Bureau of Insular Affairs. It presents classified tables covering Philippine imports and exports for the fifty years 1855–1904; they were prepared from the best available Spanish trade statistics, reduced to terms of American gold currency at the average rate of exchange for each year, and, so far as the writer has checked these figures, they are the most reliable that are presented anywhere.[35] Among the very few Spanish writings, Azcárraga’s Libertad de Comercio (Madrid, 1872) and Jimeno Agius’s Población y comercio (1884) deserve special mention, also once more the useful little book of Sancianco y Goson, for brief but useful data for 1868–80 in its appendices.[36] For 1891–98, La Política de España en Filipinas has some scattering figures on trade and commerce, year by year, highly unsatisfactory for the most part. Besides the general references upon the Spanish customs tariffs, one will find in Senate Document no. 134, 57th Congress, 1st session (Washington, 1902), in its Exhibit D, a comparison of the 1901 tariff with the Spanish tariff of 1891.[37]