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

83

manufacturers. This would not be so with our sugar, embroidery, and coconut oil exports. It is very probable that
these important Philippine industries would be greatly crippled. Our exports of tobacco, particularly cigars, would also
suffer a big reduction at least for a number of years. For our
other exports, there would undoubtedly be also material reductions in the American field, the extent of the decline to be
determined by the amount of the tariff restriction that the
United States would impose on them.
We can make only a rough indication, of course, of the probable extent of Philippine-American trade that would subsist in
the event of independence and the abolition of the free trade.
The actual results of such a contingency could be accurately
measured only after it has happened and the new movements
of the trade subsequent thereto have been observed. There are,
however, strong reasons for expecting that a substantial volume
of trade between the two countries would continue to exist.
The United States is in great need of many of our principal
products. American manufacturers have always looked to the
Philippines for supplies of the raw materials they must have
in their factories. The entire history of Philippine-American
trade relations bears witness to this fact. From the first years
of Philippine-American commercial intercourse long before the
American occupation of the Philippines, these Islands have
always been more important to the United States as a source
of raw materials and other imports than as a market for American goods. Our exports to America have almost invariably
exceeded our imports from her. Even before the establishment
of American rule in the Islands, Philippine exports to the
United States exceeded the imports from the United States 13.
to 1. This permanent condition of our trade indicates clearly
the strong need of the United States for our products. To
say, therefore, that our exports to America would practically
be wiped out with the grant of independence and the abolition
of free trade is to close one's eyes to the fact that Philippine
products are in such a strong demand in that market that
even the imposition of some tariff restrictions would not completely stop their flow.