The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commericial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century; [Vol. 1, no. 51]

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THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

[Vol. 5I

order to give at the same time a great impulse to commerce. This is not a paradox, for the use of tobacco
is of so prime necessity for the Indians that the same
calculation can be made for that object that would be
made for the use of bread in Espafia. [Bernaldez
considers the injurious effects of enforcing this monopoly in only a part of the islands -" although more
than half the population is today subject to the monopoly, its income is only one-tenth of what, at a reasonable estimate, it ought to be "-and those of its
careless and negligent administration. He makes the
following suggestions:] That the collection of the
tributes from the Indians of Filipinas be made compulsory in money, as soon as the colonial money can
be placed in circulation in their provinces. That the
monopoly of tobacco in Filipinas be extended to all
the [now] exempt provinces, without exception; and
the government there will succeed much better in
establishing it therein by sagacity than by authority
or force. That the examination and appraisal of the
leaf tobacco which the monopoly purchases from the
growers be made before a board which the government there shall appoint annually, composed of officials from the capital who are most trustworthy and
intelligent in that branch of administration, such tobacco as proves to be unfit for use being burned in
their presence. That all the tobacco which can be
collected in Filipinas be conveyed to Espafia, by
means of contracts with private persons for the
freighting of ships; and with it the amount which
can be remitted from the [different] branches of the
royal exchequer, and the annual surplus of their
funds.