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The Philippine Lumber Situation 



Much has been said and written of the unexploited timber 

 wealth of the Philippines, and, although the world has an unsatis- 

 fied appetite for a diet of hardwood, it is only lately that the 

 virgin forests in our island possessions have echoed blows from 

 the lumberman's axe and the mufSed hum of the mills' saws. 



For fear that organized capital, — a power decidedly necessary 



AN AMERICAN HARDWOOD SAWMII.I. YAItD iX THE PHILIPPINES 



in this progressive 

 age for the ))rofit- 

 ajble promotion of 

 any project, would 

 acquire harmful 

 control of the 

 fields, probably to 

 the detriment of 

 the natives, the 

 government of the 

 islands for nearly a 

 decade made log- 

 g i n g concessions 

 of any magnitude 

 difficult to secure. 

 Lumbering inter- 

 ests, however, 

 knocked so persist- 

 ently at the doors 

 of the Philippine 

 preserves that the 

 Forestry Bureau fi- 

 nally opened up the niarvelously rich for- 

 ests to modern methods of lumbering. As 

 a result American commercial organiza- 

 tions, so long held in check by adverse 

 governmental restrictions, arc now invad- 

 ing the unworked fields just as prospec- 

 tors rush into the domain of new gold dis- 

 coveries. The limit of each concession is 

 defined by the bureau and usually covers 

 a period of twenty 5'ears, at the end of 

 which time it is proposed to put the con- 

 cessions up at auction for sale to the high- 

 est bidder. 



In Spanish times little or no effort was 

 made to work the vast timber resources 

 of the archipelago. The ambitions of the 

 ruling power and of the natives them- 

 selves ended when enough lumber was 

 taken out for domestic purposes, such as 

 house building. Little, if any, exports 



—24— 



PHILIPPINE LOU TRAIN AND NATIVE LABORERS. SHOWING CHARACTER OP SAWLOGS. 



were made, although some small shipments of a certain kind of 

 wood were sent to China, where, it is said, a particular variety 

 brought its weight in >ilver. 



In olden days getting out a single log by felling it far off from 

 the regular roads and dragging it by perhaps a dozen yoke of 

 carabaos often required days of the most tiresome toil for man 

 and beast. Then again, sawing a single 

 I log as hard as adamant by hand process 

 into boards under the very best of condi- 

 tions took fully as much time as getting 

 the raw product in from hills, often longer. 

 Resident Chinese were among the first 

 to take advantage of the Spanish delay 

 ill using more etficieut methods in reaping 

 the bountiful harvest, by building mills 

 in the larger cities, principally at Manila. 

 These mills, while insignificant compared 

 to our monster mills in the West, were, 

 nevertheless, a decided advance over the 

 primitive means of making lumber at that 

 time. By working night and day they 

 could not so much as meet the demand for 

 lumber in the cities where they were lo- 

 cated. Hence, the old hand-sawing meth- 

 ods were still pop- 

 ular w h e n the 

 .\mericans came. 



A n o t h e r draw- 

 buck to the opera- 

 tors of these plants 

 was their inability 

 to get logs. The 

 Chinese were smart 

 enough to build 

 mills, but they were 

 unequal to the task 

 of taking out timber 

 after the American 

 way. In sjiite of 

 these things the 

 mills were so proa- 

 jierous as to be an 

 object lesson to ob- 

 serving .-Vmoricans 

 as to what results 

 miglit be obtained 



SHOWING MODERN CHARACTER OF PHILIPPINE LOGGING OPERATION. 



