694: 



PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 



were for the naval force, $6,042,449 for the army, 

 $2 198,350 for government, $1,393,184 for the in- 

 terior, $1,896,277 for justice, $615,198 for educa- 

 tion, $74,000 for fo.reign affairs, and $1,507,900 

 for the debt. The Spanish Government issued 

 $40,000,000 of bonds in 1897, which were guaran- 

 teed on the customs. 



Commerce and Production. The soil of the 

 islands is of unsurpassed fertility, and agricul- 

 ture is the main occupation of the people, yet 

 only a ninth part of the available land is culti- 

 vated. The principal products are rice, maize, 

 hemp sugar, tobacco, cocoanuts, and cacao. Cof- 

 fee was once a valuable crop, but insects have 

 destroyed the trees. Cotton was also much grown 

 formerly, and woven into cloth for domestic use 

 until the British factory-made cloths were sent 

 in at prices so low as to drive out hand-woven 

 fabrics. Rice and corn are grown in Luzon and 

 Mindoro in barely sufficient quantities to feed 

 the people of the islands. The rice crop is about 

 765,000 tons, in addition to which 45,000 tons 

 were imported from Tonquin and the Straits Set- 

 tlements in 1894. There were also imported 8,669 

 tons of flour, two thirds from China and the rest 

 mostly from the United States. Cacao is culti- 

 vated in Mindanao and other southern islands. 

 The Visayas, comprising Cebu, Panay, Samar, 

 Negros, Leyte, and Bohol, produce most of the 

 sugar, of which 3,233,483 piculs of 140 pounds 

 were exported in 1897, two thirds of it to China 

 and Japan, the rest mainly to Great Britain and 

 Australia. About a tenth of the crop is con- 

 sumed in the islands. The export of hemp in 

 1897 was 1,804,576 piculs, of which nearly 44 

 per cent, went to the United States, 40 per cent. 

 to Great Britain, and the rest to China and Japan, 

 Australia, and the Continent of Europe. Hemp is 

 grown in southern Luzon, Mindoro, the Visayas, 

 and Mindanao, and is exported in bales from 

 Manila. Tobacco is raised in all the islands, but 

 the southern part of Luzon produces the greatest 

 quantity and the finest grades. It is used in 

 great quantities by the people, both men and 

 women being smokers, but the best quality is 

 reserved for export. During the rebellion in 1897, 

 when the tobacco factories of Manila were short 

 of hands, the exports of leaf tobacco were much 

 larger than usual; those of cigars smaller. Of 

 leaf 309,585 quintals were exported, of which 245,- 

 436 quintals went to Continental ports of Eu- 

 rope, principally to Spain, and 51,635 to Great 

 Britain, nine tenths of it to be exported in a 

 manufactured form to Sweden and other coun- 

 tries. The number of cigars shipped abroad in 

 1897 was 169,465,000, of which 58,420,000 went to 

 China and Japan, 37,310,000 to India and the 

 Straits Settlements, 30,500,000 to Continental Eu- 

 rope, 24,290,000 to Great Britain, 16,300,000 to 

 Australia, 2,643,000 to the United States and 

 Canada. Cocoanuts are grown mostly in south- 

 ern Luzon. Copra is exported, and many uses 

 are found for the various products of the cocoa- 

 nut palm. Exports of hemp, sugar, tobacco, 

 cigars, and sapan wood declined in 1898, but not 

 so much as might have been anticipated from the 

 disturbed state of the islands. China and Japan 

 took more than half the sugar, Great Britain 

 about a fourth, and the United States less than 

 a sixth, the total quantity having been 177,695 

 tons, the bulk of which was shipped from Iloilo. 

 The export of hemp was 794,206 bales, going 

 mostly from Iloilo since the blockade of Manila, 

 less than half to England, nearly the whole of 

 the remainder to the United States. The import 

 trade was not reduced in volume by the hostili- 

 ties. The preferential tariff enjoyed by Spanish 



goods having been abolished, the monopoly that 

 Barcelona manufacturers were acquiring cm -<!, 

 and English, American, and German goods came 

 in. The blockade of Manila led to a great in- 

 crease in the trade of the port of Cebu, mostly 

 with Hong-Kong. The mineral wealth of the 

 islands is supposed to be great, but nothing has 

 been done to develop it on a commercial scale. 

 There are deposits of coal, petroleum, iron, lead, 

 sulphur, copper, gold, and platinum. The pearl 

 fisheries of the Sulu Islands are valuable. 



The value of hemp exports in 1897 was $18,040,- 

 760 in silver; exports of sugar, $12,928,000; of 

 copra, $4,462,920; of leaf tobacco, $2,786,200; of 

 cigars, $1,694,600; of native fabrics, etc., $1,000,- 

 000; of indigo, $107,000; of coffee, $96,100; of 

 rope, $63,400; of dyewoods, $49,100; of gums, 

 $47,500; of skins, $38,900; of pearl shells, $27,- 

 800. The exports of coffee formerly amounted 

 to $4,000,000 a year. The imports consist of cot- 

 ton goods, hardware, coal, kerosene, flour, and 

 other foodstuffs. The foreign trade has been 

 conducted mainly by British, German, American, 

 and Belgian merchants. The currency of the 

 country consists of Mexican dollars, of which 

 the amount in circulation is estimated at 

 000.000, not including $0,000,000 in lighter dollars 

 coined by the Spanish Government in 1897. There 

 is about $10,000,000 in subsidiary coins, and 1 1n- 

 Philippine Bank has $2,500,000 of notes in circula- 

 tion. Since the occupation by the United States 

 army American gold has been introduced. 



The railroad running north from Manila to 

 Dagupnn has a length of 120 miles. The rable> 

 from Manila to Hong-Kong and Iloilo and the 

 land and submarine lines connecting the various 

 islands have a length of 1,592 miles. The num- 

 ber of telegraph messages in 1894 was 157,573. 

 The number of letters and postal cards in the 

 internal service was 4,684.006 ; in the foreign serv- 

 ice, 2,544,581. The commercial prospects of the 

 archipelago are thus depicted in the preliminary 

 report of the Philippine Commission: 



" Rich in agricultural and forest products, an 

 well as in mineral wealth, commanding in geo- 

 graphical position, the Philippine Islands should 

 soon become one of the great trade centers of 

 the East. New steamship lines, established since 

 the American occupation, already connect Manila 

 with Australia, India, and Japan. She will be- 

 come the natural terminus of many other lines 

 when a ship canal connects the Atlantic with 

 the Pacific, and yet others will inevitably be at- 

 tracted by the deVelopment of the Philippine coal 

 deposits. The building of a short railway has 

 recently developed the rice crop of the archipel- 

 ago. It can not be doubted that under an effi- 

 cient administration of domestic affairs commerce 

 will greatly increase, and the United Slates will 

 reap a large share in this. Manila, with the im- 

 munity which it has thus far enjoyed from that 

 terrible pest, the bubonic plague, should become 

 a distributing center for China, Siam. the Straits 

 Settlements, Tonquin, Annam. and- Australia. 

 Our control means to the inhabitants of the 

 Philippines internal peace and order, a guarantee 

 against foreign aggression and against the <li-- 

 memberment of their country, commercial and 

 industrial prosperity, and as~ large a s"han of 

 the affairs of government as they shall prove 

 fit to take." 



The Filipino Hostilities. An insurrection 

 against the Spaniards had broken out pre\i>us 

 to the departure of Admiral Dewey's fleet from 

 Hong-Kong for Manila, and Emilio Aguinaldo, 

 the leader in the rebellion of 1890, was taken to 

 Cavite on board the McCulloch arid allowed to 



