Proceedings of the first Independence congress : held in the city of Manila, Philippine islands, February 22-26, 1930 / Published under the direction of Dean maximo M. Kalaw, executive secretary, University of the Philippines.

ECONOMIC SECTION

79

at reasonable cost in its own territory, and when industries
predominate over the other activities and they are in a position
-to compete without protection with the products of other
countries, the nation inclines itself to free trade. Inasmuch as
there are no countries that are exclusively agricultural or exclusively industrial, it is not possible to have a tariff that will
be entirely satisfactory to everybody in the community, all
tariffs being the result of compromises tending to find the
greatest benefit for the greatest number, without unduly oppressing the minority. For many years to come, the Philippines
will undoubtedly be a country preeminently agricultural, since
the change to the industrial stage cannot be realized until the
population has considerably increased to three or four times the
present number of its inhabitants.
Returning to the theme under discussion, if the trade
relations now binding us to the United States were to be cut
off abruptly, the immediate effect would be a temporary increase in the revenue from import duties. The law of momentum will make us, at the beginning, continue consuming more
or less what we are now consuming, and when many of the
products come not from America and free from duties, but
from Europe or Asia, subject to duties, they will bring additional revenue. However, at the end of a certain period of
time, once the acquisitive power of the people is diminished
by credit stringency and by the decrease in the value of our
principal exports (decrease which will automatically take place
upon the closing to us of the doors of the protected American
market), imports will be on a decline until they reach the level
of our purchasing ability. Statistics corresponding to the last
decade reveal that the value of imports increases or decreases
in relation to the value of the exports during the preceding
year, except in 1920 when we were swept off our feet by that
wave of optimism and we decided to buy to excess, convinced
that the value of our exports would remain at the high figures
then prevailing. From 1908 to 1918, import duties brought
to the public coffers, revenue varying from ten to fifteen million
pesos annually; from 1918 to 1928, they yielded to the Government between eleven to nineteen million pesos. Probably,
once the economic readjustment consequent upon our political