ng from the compulsory inoculation; but this
has not sufficed to stamp out the disease, which is still prevalent.

Another calamity, common in British India, but unknown in these
Islands before the American advent, is _Surra_, a glandular disease
affecting horses and ponies, which has made fatal ravages in the pony
stock--to the extent, it is estimated, of 60 per cent. The pony which
fully recovers from this disease is an exceptional animal. Again,
the mortality among the field hands, as a consequence of the war,
was supplemented by an outbreak of _Cholera morbus_ (_vide_ p. 197),
a disease which recurs periodically in these Islands, and which was,
on the occasion following the war, of unusually long duration. Together
with these misfortunes, a visitation of myriads of locusts (_vide_
p. 341) and drought completed the devastation.

Consequent on the total loss of capital invested in live-stock, and
the fear of rinderpest felt by the minority who have the wherewithal
to replace their lost herds, there is an inclination among the
agriculturists to raise those crops which need little or no animal
labour. Hence sugar-cane and rice-paddy are being partially abandoned,
whilst all who possess hemp or cocoanut plantations are directing
their special attention to these branches of land-produce. Due to these
circumstances, the increased cost of labour and living in the Islands
since the American advent, the want of a duty-free entry for Philippine
sugar into the United States, the prospective loss of the Japanese
market, [293] the ever-accumulating capital indebtedness, and the
need of costly machinery, it is possible to believe that sugar will,
in time, cease to be one of the leading staple products of the Islands.

With regard to the duty levied in the United States on Philippine
sugar imports, shippers in these Islands point out how little it
would affect either the United States' revenue or the sugar trade if
the duty were remitted in view of the extremely small proportion of
Philippine sugar to the total consumption in America. For instance,
taking the average of the five years 1899-1903, the proportion was
.313 per cent., so that if in consequence of the remission of duty
this Philippine industry were stimulated to the extent of being able
to ship to America threefold, it would not amount to 1 per cent,
of the total consumption in that country.

At the close of the 1903 sugar season the planters were more deeply
in debt