At Manilla a labourer's pay is a quarter of a dollar a-day, or a little
more than a shilling, which is enough to keep him supplied with food
of as good quality and quantity as he needs to eat for about two or
three days, so that if a labourer or coolie, who has only himself to
support, work two days out of the seven, he has enough to supply all
his necessities, and can enjoy what is to him a high degree of pleasure
and amusement,--the training of a cock for the cockpit, sleeping
a long siesta, gossiping with his neighbour, and chewing _buyos_,
or smoking cigarillos, quite at his ease, during the rest of the time.
They have all a strong dislike to settling down to any employment
demanding the exercise of much bodily exertion, even when it is well
remunerated; and the consequence is, that the extreme difficulty of
procuring labour forms the greatest drawback there is to a planter
settling in the Philippines, and not unfrequently causes the one or two
people who have now got plantations there on a small scale, to suffer
the utmost inconvenience in the management of their estates; and this
operates to so great an extent, as virtually to prevent any one but a
very bold and speculative man investing money in sugar plantations,
or otherwise locking it up in agriculture. Government has long been
sensible of this, and the present Captain-General has issued an order,
containing a permission for persons engaging in plantations to import
Chinese labourers, to whom, if actually engaged in tilling the soil,
are conceded certain privileges which they have not hitherto enjoyed,
being subject to less tribute than what is paid by the rest of their
countrymen who are engaged in other avocations.
This decree had been lying ready for years in the desks of the
Government officials, no Governor till recently having had the courage
to publish an order so greatly in advance of their general policy. As
it is, this is one of the greatest steps they have ever taken in
the right direction; and I trust it may be attended with the best
effects, although some of the restrictions on the China labourers
may tell against it; and I fear that the large outlay necessary to
import labour from China, while they have a supply, although it is
a very uncertain one, at their doors, without incurring the expense
and risk of doing so, may hinder the success of the scheme.
There are very few people in the colony who are possessed of the
capital necessary to start a plantation on a large scale. And the
existing laws prevent or check foreigners doing so, unless they
get married to a Spanish or native woman, which, from their general
character, few British would like to do; or by abjuring their religion,
and getting naturalized, which is a measure equally or more repugnant
to the human breast, unless self-interest is the beacon which directs
the path, or is the motive for doing so.
However, should plantations on a large scale ever be carried on
in these islands with an equal degree of facility, science, care,
and attention, and with the improved machinery now employed in sugar
estates in Jamaica and elsewhere, there can be little doubt that the
productions of the islands will be greatly increased, and it will do
good so far; but whether it would tend to improve the condition, or
increase the comforts of the people, now so independent of care for
a livelihood, appears to be more than doubtful; in other respects,
it would do them good, by stimulating their energies.
At present there are no large plantations on the islands, although
two or three of small size exist, none of which are understood to be
sufficiently remunerating to offer any inducement to invest money in
a similar manner.
At Jalajala, M. Vidie, an hospitable old Frenchman, has an estate;
but I understand that the most unceasing efforts, and the greatest
economy, care, and attention, have been necessary to make it answer,
both on his part and on that of its former owner, an Anglo-American,
and a person of great ingenuity, who got so much disgusted with the
incessant battle he had to fight with the soil, and those who tilled
it, that after overcoming the greatest difficulties, he sold the
estate, and was glad to be quit of it.
The whole of the productions of the islands are raised by the poor
Indian cultivators, each from his own small patch of land, which they
till with very simple, though efficient implements of agriculture.
With the existing high prices of labour, there is, however, probably
nearly as much surplus produce available for exportation as there
would be for years to come, under the system of large plantations and
dear labour. Because the present occupiers of the land--employing
no hired labour, but only directing the industry of the farmer and
that of his family, to the small patch on which they were born, and,
of course, have some affection for--are certain to expend far more
labour on their own land, and to bring it to a much higher degree of
cultivation, than it would suit the purpose of a large planter to do;
who, like the Australian or Canadian colonist, would probably find it
most for his interest to cultivate a large surface of land imperfectly,
as under high wages of labour, and comparatively cheap land, it would
be likely to yield him a better return than if he cultivated only a
small surface of ground highly.
For this seems to be the only policy, where the elements to be combined
are dear labour and cheap land; just as when they are dear land and
cheap labour, the contrary would be the case, as it is in Britain.
Now, when I call a quarter of a dollar per diem a high rate of labour,
I may be misunderstood if it is not stated that this rate, when paid
to the slow and careless Indian labourer, is fully equivalent to
three times that sum to a white or British labourer working at home;
as an able-bodied man at home would do about three times as much work,
and would perform it in a highly superior manner.
These reasons make me loath to see the present system of small holdings
changed, which would sever old and respectable ties, and would force
the present independent Indian cottage-farmer to seek employment from
the extensive cultivator, and, without getting more work out of him
in the course of a year, would lower him in self-respect, and in the
many virtues which that teaches, without deriving any correspondent
advantage to society.
In a tropical climate the elements of society are varied, and
quite different from those of a country with a climate like that of
Great Britain. A native Indian, under a tropical sun, could scarcely
support a system of really _hard_ labour for six days of the week for
any length of time; and their indolent habits are, in some degree,
necessary to their existence, perhaps as much as his night's rest
is to the British labourer; for without days of relaxation to supply
the stamina which they have lost during exposure to the sun and hard
labour under it, it is my decided opinion that the men so exposed,
and exhausted, would, after a very few years, knock themselves up,
and become unfit to work, thereby rendering themselves an unproductive
class, and burdens on their friends and on society.
The present cultivators, who show a high degree of intelligence
in many of their operations, in cultivating their staple, rice,
for example, actually expend more labour on their land, and work
much more constantly than any hirelings would do; as at Jalajala,
out of upwards of a hundred labourers in the village who had no other
employment or source of revenue but their labour, not above a third
of the able-bodied men mustered in the fields when the labours of
the day began in the morning; and I understood from the owner of the
estate, that under no circumstances could he prevail on the whole
body of labourers to muster, nor, so long as their rice lasts, will
they work; it is only when that fails, and they will starve if they
do not exert themselves, that they will undergo hard labour in the
fields under the broiling sun.