NATIVE LABOR: DIFFICUI.TIES, PAST AND PRESENT. 



The necessary laborers for taking off a sugar crop are, excepting in 

 the rare instances where a sufficient number live on the hacienda, im- 

 ported each year, by contract for the season, from the neighboring 

 Islands of Panay and Cebu. They are all Visayans, those on the west 

 coast speaking the Panayano and on the east the Cebuano dialect. Labor 

 is paid for at an average rate of 25 centavos, Philippine currency, per 

 day, with rations furnished by the hacienda, and costing about 15 

 centavos extra per man each day. This is the commonly accepted wage 

 throughout the island, the extreme limits being 25 centavos without 

 rations and 50 centavos without rations. Complaint is universal over the 

 difficulty of obtaining a sufficiency of labor. This is occasioned largely 

 by the abnormal conditions prevailing in ISTegros during the milling 

 season, when, because each small planter has his own mill and grinds 

 his own cane, an excessive number of laborers is required for a few 

 months in the year only; during the remainder less than half this 

 number is necessary. As a result, the planter who can not afford to 

 keep on his plantation for the entire year men whom he only needs 

 for the grinding season is forced to arrange with labor contractors to 

 bring the necessary extra men in from other parts of the country, and 

 as an additional inducement to advance 10 to 25 pesos (5 to 13.50 

 dollars, United States currency) for each man desired. Breaches of 

 faith by contractors after receiving advance money are frequent, and 

 numerous instances are cited where out of twenty or thirty men report- 

 ing for work and receiving a month's wages in advance, half have 

 escaped within the week. The planters complain that it is almost 

 impossible legally to compel a man to work, even though payment for 

 his services has been given him in advance and under a written contract. 

 The man, if apprehended, admits the debt and declares his willingness to 

 repay it in cash as soon as he can secure the money, lamenting at the 

 same time his present inability to do so. Since imprisonment for debt 

 is no longer possible, he must be set at liberty to go to some other hacienda 

 and repeat the same process. On the other hand, the custom of giving 

 labqrers advance money is such a long-established one that the planter 

 who refuses to do so finds it extremely difficult to secure enough men 

 to carry him through the grinding season. This labor difficulty is so 

 serious throughout Negros, as several planters have informed me, that 

 they annually lose more money in this way than through all other 

 causes combined. Year by year, it is complained, as men find out that 

 they can break contracts and go unpimished, the practice is becoming 

 more prevalent. However, this ambition on the part of the native 

 laborer to obtain money without rendering its due equivalent has not 

 entirely been brought about by American influence, as is sometimes 

 insinuated ; this is shown by the fact that even in prosperous times under 



