Currency.—The List of the Library of Congress, under the heading Finance, cites a few Spanish and foreign treatises on Philippine currency prior to 1898, and the earlier American official reports on the subject. One will get more enlightenment upon the actual conditions prevailing during the last years of Spanish rule from memoranda and testimony in certain of these American reports than from any of the printed sources of date earlier than 1898. Nevertheless, the petition of the Manila Chamber of Commerce in 1895 reproduced in La Política de España en Filipinas, v, no. 105, brings out in part the highly unsatisfactory conditions produced by the Spanish government’s inaction and disregard of well-established economic principles. In ibid., vii, p. 217, is given the text of the decree of April 17, 1897, providing for the new Philippine silver peso which was beginning to circulate in the islands when American arms intervened, and which was proclaimed as a “settlement” of the Philippine currency evils, yet would obviously not have proved sufficient, unsupported as it was by provisions to sustain it in the face of the decline of silver. In much of the loose talk about economic depression in the Philippines since the wars of 1896–98 and 1899–1901, not enough attention has been paid to the fact that “hard times” had really begun before, during 1891–95 particularly, and that an unstable currency and exchange fluctuations had then played their part in producing these conditions; also that it was the Filipino laborer and small producer who was especially mulcted of his due by conditions produced in part officially and in part by governmental neglect.[38] In addition to the American documents listed by the Library of Congress, reference should be made, as regards currency and exchange evils before 1898, to the survey of the subject by the Schurman Commission (Report of the Philippine Commission, 1900, i, pp. 142–149), and the testimony of Manila bankers and business men in the same report (vol. ii); to magazine articles by Charles A. Conant printed as appendices in Report of the Commission on International Exchange (Washington, 1903); and, for a few details on previous conditions, with exchange tables, to the reports of E. W. Kemmerer, Chief of the Division of Currency, for 1904 and 1905.[39]
POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT—SPANISH ADMINISTRATION
Our object here being primarily the political progress of the Filipino people, we are concerned incidentally, as it were, with the subject of Spanish administration considered by itself alone. A good study of that subject, be it said, is lacking, and it may be recommended as an opportunity worth improving.
No one who has read even a little about the Philippines and Filipinos need be told that it is necessary to trace the political development of this people along two lines—unfortunately, it proved for Spain, lines that are divergent in considerable degree. Hence the subdivision of this heading, regarding, first, development under Spanish Administration and then the Filipino Propaganda, first of Reform and finally of Revolution. We are concerned in the first instance, that is, with reforms and progress realized in consequence of measures “from above.” It has already been said that very considerable progress had been made by the Spanish government from about 1860 onward, and was being made when the Tagálogs appealed to arms in 1896.[40] It is also true that the stimulus to the Filipino reform propaganda came in considerable degree from the movements toward betterment of the government itself, and from the agitations for reform in Spanish home politics.[41] But the development of the Filipino people, social, political, and economic, proceeded at last more rapidly, or less haltingly at least, than the progress in reform from above; the reform measures were only partial, often unpractical or ill-adapted to Philippine conditions; abuses of administration continued under so-called Liberal periods as well as in times of full clerical domination; in the action and reaction of Spanish politics, in which so often are party divisions merely nominal and superficial, the course of progress was so irregular and uncertain as to lend justification to the feeling of the Filipinos that they were being treated with insincerity; and all the while, in the midst of bitter partisan and religious controversy, conducted on both sides by writers most rabid and intemperate, the two peoples were constantly growing apart from each other, and were losing the mutual good-feeling of past years which, though always superficial in large part (as in any such domination of one race by another), had nevertheless had a foundation of genuine esteem.
The administrative organism.—For present purposes, it almost suffices to refer simply to the List of the Library of Congress under the headings Finance, Law, Political and Social Economy, and to Pardo de Tavera’s Biblioteca under the names of authors cited in the above List and the alphabetical headings Aranceles, Balanza, Boletín, Colección, Disposiciones, Exposición, Guía, Memoria, Proyectos (those of 1870 for all sorts of reforms proposed after the Spanish Revolution of 1868), and Reglamentos. The bibliography of Colonization published by the Library of Congress, besides these special works on the Philippines, lists also works on Spanish colonies and works on colonization in general.[42] Of the compilations, annuals, etc., listed in these bibliographies, special attention may be directed to those cited under the names of Rodriguez San Pedro (to 1869) and Rodriguez Berriz (to 1888). The most complete reference work on Spanish legislation, executive regulations, etc., is the Colección legislativa de España, and this work contains provisions enacted at Madrid with regard to the Philippines down to and including 1898. For the full official record, not only of enactments at Madrid, but of the forms under which these were carried into effect in the islands themselves, the Philippine governmental regulations, proclamations, etc., covering this entire period down to the end of Spanish rule, the official gazette of the Philippines (published under the name La Gaceta de Manila, 1860–1898) is the final source; but the writer knows of no full collection thereof in any library of the United States, though there is of course one in the archives at Manila. In this connection, it should be remarked that the governor-general had very wide, and in some respects not very exactly prescribed, powers, one of the most indefinite and sweeping of which was that requiring any general law or special provision of Madrid, before it actually acquired force in the Philippines, to be published with the governor-general’s “cúmplase” (“let it go into effect”). This might be, and usually was, a mere formality; but it was capable of being used so as at least to postpone the execution of a legislative decree or ministerial order which was distasteful to the chief authority of the Philippines, was violently opposed by the influential interests in the islands (particularly the ecclesiastical element), or, as happened in some cases, was manifestly inapplicable to Philippine conditions. Of course, the governor-general could readily be overruled, but even so, he could, if he desired, secure thus a delay and possible reconsideration of the matter, and the frequent changes of party administration in Spain encouraged delays of this and like sorts, not a few reform decrees remaining thus dead letters in the Philippines. It is often important, therefore, to discover not only what was the law or regulation provided for the Philippines in Madrid, but how it was put into force in the islands, or if it actually took effect at all. For this purpose, the Official Guide of the Philippines (Guía de forasteros to 1865, Guía oficial from 1879 to 1898) supplements in some respects the official gazette and the collection of Rodriguez Berriz.[43]
Of surveys and summaries of Spanish administration in the Philippines listed in the Bibliography may be mentioned Cabezas de Herrera’s Apuntes (1883) and Fabié’s Ensayo histórico (Madrid, 1896), also José de la Rosa’s La administración pública en Filipinas.[44] In the compilation by Jesuit fathers published at Washington in 1900 under the title El archipiélago filipino, there is to be found in vol. i, a survey of the governmental organization and the various activities of the government both under civil and ecclesiastical control. This is reproduced in English in vol. iv of Report of the Philippine Commission, 1900. In vol. i of this report of the Schurman Commission (part iv, chapter i, also pp. 122–123) is an abstract of the Spanish system of government which, so far as the framework of that government is concerned, serves the purpose for one who can not readily consult the Spanish official sources from which it was drawn.[45] The major portion of this abstract is occupied by a translation and summary of the law reforming the Philippine local governments in 1893, commonly called the “Maura Law” after the Colonial Minister who promulgated it.[46] As put in force by Governor-General Blanco, however, it was somewhat altered and revised, and many of its more promising provisions for local autonomy had in most towns remained in reality dead letters up to the time when revolt broke out in the Tagálog provinces in 1896; elections under the new law were suspended, and martial law established. For this law in its original text and as promulgated by Blanco, with regulations and model forms for the municipalities, see Felix M. Roxas’s Comentarios al reglamento provisional de las juntas provinciales (Manila, 1894).[47]
The administration in actual operation.—What most interests us is the actual working of this machine in Manila, the provinces and towns, and the works above cited will mostly provide for us only its skeleton on paper. To make it an effective machine, we must resort to personal testimony, occasional revelations thrown upon it by such of our writers as looked beyond mere routine, and perhaps most of all to the periodical literature of the times.[48] Few of the resident writers of the old régime thought it was quite patriotic, or would serve their personal interests, to discuss matters as frankly, for example, as did Sancianco y Goson.[49] Testimony before the Schurman Commission (vol. ii of its report) in 1899 brings out, here and there, revelations as to how the former government was actually administered.[50] Philippine government reports under American rule bring to light here and there revelations about the former administration, especially in fiscal and judicial matters. The customs collections benefited the treasury far less than they should have done; perhaps fully as much as was turned in was “absorbed” in one way and another.[51] Special surtaxes on the customs and port dues were collected at Manila for the improvement of its harbor from 1880 to 1898, amounting during the last five years alone to 3,500,000 pesos. Yet the work, when at last inaugurated, dragged along in desultory fashion and the value of the breakwater constructed and the equipment in hand in 1898 amounted to no more than $1,000,000 gold.[52]
Taxation.—No one of the works on administration just cited treats this subject in a comprehensive or satisfactory manner. The only special study of the subject that is known to the writer is Carl C. Plehn’s Taxation in the Philippines (Political Science Quarterly, xvi, pp. 680–711, and xvii, pp. 125–148), and the author of this excellent survey had to drag his data forth from the official records and compilations. This survey gives all the most necessary information as to kinds of taxes, their incidence, and amounts; but for the most part there lie outside of its scope the questions one wishes to have answered as to methods of collection and the working of the fiscal administration in general, the actual receipts and expenditures for government purposes, and particularly the special local revenues so far as separate from general revenues. Sancianco y Goson again helps to fill the gap, as regards the system of taxation prevailing before the abolition of the tobacco monopoly and the reform of the tribute and the corvee in 1884.[53] Anyone who has had experience with Spanish fiscal tables need not be told that they do not always show what they appear to show. It is thus that the writers who have reproduced in English since 1898 Philippine budgets for various years[54] have unwittingly misled their readers as to the real cost of government under Spain. The figures shown in these budgets were the totals of net collections (and expenditures), for ordinary purposes, for the central government of the islands alone. They did not include the purely local licenses and other taxes, the surcharges on general taxes for local government (to be expended under supervision of the central authorities), the percentages that went to collectors, the other fees forming part or all of the compensation of some judicial and other officials, special surcharges for port works and other purposes not covered in the ordinary budget, etc. Naturally, no estimate was included of the value of the forced-labor levy. The products of “squeeze” and “pickings,” in some cases so fully established as to be notorious, were of course not included; nevertheless, they represented part of the cost of government to the people. Finally, an ecclesiastical establishment, really a part of the government itself, drew support from the people in many ways beyond what would have been provided had not the power of government been behind it, under a system of voluntary contributions, for instance, apart from the communities which paid rent to the friars as landlords.[55]
The Spanish-Philippine debt of 40,000,000 pesos, incurred in 1897 in consequence of the insurrection, has not had sufficient notice as being originally the cause at Paris of the payment of $20,000,000 by the United States to Spain in connection with the clause of the treaty providing for the cession of the Philippines. Had the islands remained under Spanish sovereignty, they would have carried this their first public debt, expended wholly for war purposes, part of it being loaned for the payment of military operations in Cuba.[56]