THE ALCOHOL INDUSTRY. PART II. PAl 
not accustomed to it find in the liquor a disagreeable odor and taste. After 
a time it causes terrible harm to them, producing premature old age, 
disorders of their physic, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, dropsy, boils, 
vomiting, loss of intellectual faculty and they become stupid, are seized 
with trembling, show lack of memory and finally insanity results. These 
shameful sicknesses are also caused by European wine and alcohol although 
more slowly.” 
Monopolies of the distilled spirits industries were common under the 
Spanish rule. It is reported” that, “Such spirits as were distilled in this 
country from the coco and nipa palms were monopolized in 1712 by Don 
Martin de Urzua, Governor of these islands, upon request of the municipal 
council, by reason of the abuse which the natives made of the same, being 
then farmed out for the sum of 10,000” pesos. In 1714 and 1720, royal 
orders were received wherein it was provided that under no pretext should 
manufacture or sale of alcohol, made from the sugar cane, be permitted or 
consented to. * * * Later on, by royal order dated 1725, the monopoly 
was abolished, and the municipal council again prayed for it as a punish- 
ment for drunkenness.” * * * 
“Tn 1862 the alcohol monopoly was finally done away with, and two years 
later the trade and manufacture of all kinds of alcohol was declared free.” 
Jagor,“ who traveled in the Philippines in 1859-60, states concerning 
the traffic under the Spanish rule in liquors distilled from sugar—containing 
saps, and molasses: 
“The proceeds of this monopoly (wines and liquors) were rated at 
1,622,810 dollars in the colonial budget for 1861; but its collection was so 
difficult, and so disproportionately expensive, that it nearly swallowed up 
the whole profit. It caused espionage, robberies of all sorts, embezzlement, 
and bribery on a large scale. The retail of the brandy by officials, who are 
paid by a percentage on the consumption, did a good deal to injure the 
popular respect for the government. Moreover, the imposition of this 
improper tax on the most important industry of the country, not only 
crippled the free trade in palms, but also the manufacture of raw sugar; 
for the government, to favor their own monopoly, had forbidden the sugar 
manufacturers to make rum from their molasses, which became in con- 
sequence so valueless, that in Manila they were given to the horses. The 
complaints of the manufacturers at last stirred up the administration to 
allow the manufacture of rum; but the palm-brandy monopoly. remained 
intact. The Indians now drank nothing but rum, so at last, in self-defense, 
the government entirely abandoned the monopoly (January, 1864). Since 
that, the rum manufacturers pay taxes according to the amount of their 
sales, but not upon the amount of their raw produce. * * * The 
practice of drinking brandy has naturally much increased; it is, however, 
a very old habit.” 
° Rep. Coll. Int. Rev., Rep. Phil. Comm. (1905), pt. 4, 187. Editorial 
from El Mercantil. 
1? We have been unable to find the references to the particular document 
relating to this case. James A. Robertson of the Philippines Library, whose 
aid was solicited, writes: “I do not find this specific instance, but there are 
many others in the history of the Philippine’ Islands, most of them for more 
than this amount and all annually.” 
“Travels in the Philippines. London (1875), 74. 
