15 



tremendous drop in the value of silver, then the currency basis of the 

 Islands, were influenced to call in their loans. Russell, Sturgis & Co. 

 were not prepared to meet the demand and were forced into bankruptcy. 

 The planters who had depended upon them for financial assistance were 

 deprived of their support and thus obliged to restrict their operations. 

 The depression in the value of silver placed a heavy burden of exchange 

 on the commerce of the Islands by reducing the market value of all 

 the export products and increasing the cost of foreign goods. The 

 result was clearly evidenced in a falling off in the exports of sugar for 

 1894 of nearly 70,000 tons, which is equal to 33 per cent of the crop 

 of the previous year. 



The Philippine sugar planter, deprived of the linancial assistance 

 upon which it had been his custom to rely, was unable to procure the 

 expensive equipment necessary to enable him to produce sugar of the 

 higher grades demanded by the markets and readily obtainable from 

 Cuba, Hawaii, Java, and from the beet-sugar factories of Europe and 

 the United States, and so he was compelled to fall behind in the 

 march of the sugar industry. 



The outbreak of the revolution against Spain in 1896 disrupted 

 conditions pertaining to labor and internal affairs throughout the Is- 

 lands, and before the country had an opportunity to become tran- 

 quillized, the insurrection of 1899 against American authority began 

 and for several years operated to keep the Islands in a stage of ferment 

 that stifled nearly all industrial activity. Then there followed an 

 epizootic of rinderpest which lasted through two years and killed a 

 large percentage of the work cattle and carabaos on the farms and left 

 the people without the necessary draft animals for tilling the soil. 

 This disease has existed to a greater or less extent in parts of the 

 Philippines for more than twenty years and still persists in limited 

 sections where it continues an occasional danger to all branches of 

 agriculture. It has in past years levied heavy tolls on tlie sugar planters 

 in the Island of ISTegros, but about the middle of the year 1910 it was 

 eradicated in the Province of Occidental Negros where one-third of 

 the Philippine sugar crop is produced. 



One of the most important factors in keeping the sugar industry 

 in the Philippines from reaching a condition comparable with that 

 in other cane growing countries has been the very antiquated mills 

 and manufacturing facilities available on the plantations. The ma- 

 chinery in use consists mainly of very small three-roller mills driven 

 by animal, steam, or water power, and a battery of open kettles set 

 in a rock furnace and heated by direct firing. There are still in use 

 a few of the native wooden mills and quite a number of the old Chinese 

 stone mills having two vertical rollers with wooden bearings and gearing. 



