Under the circumstances set forth, the cultivation of rice in the
Islands has fallen off considerably, to what extent may be partially
gathered from a glance at the enormous imports of this cereal, which
in the year 1901~ were 167,951 tons; in 1902, 285,473 tons; in 1903,
329,055 tons (one-third of the value of the total imports in that
year); and in 1904, 261,553 tons. The large increase of wages and
taxes and the high cost of living since the American advent (rice in
1904 cost about double the old price) have reduced the former margins
of profit on sugar and rice almost to the vanishing-point.

If all the land in use now, or until recently, for paddy-raising were
suitable for the cultivation of such crops as hemp, tobacco, cocoanuts,
etc., for which there is a steady demand abroad, the abandonment of
rice for another produce which would yield enough to enable one to
purchase rice, and even leave a margin of profit, would be rather an
advantage than otherwise. But this is not the case, and naturally a
native holds on to the land he possesses in the neighbourhood, where
he was perhaps born, rather than go on a peregrination in search
of new lands, with the risk of semi-starvation during the dilatory
process of procuring title-deeds for them when found.

Fortunately for the Filipinos, "Manila hemp" being a speciality
of this region as a fibre of unrivalled quality and utility, there
cannot be foreseen any difficulty in obtaining a price for it which
will compensate the producer to-day as well as it did in former
times. Seeing that buffaloes can be dispensed with in the cultivation
of hemp and coprah, which, moreover, are products requiring no
expensive and complicated machinery and are free of duty into the
United States, they are becoming the favourite crops of the future.

In 1905 there was considerable agitation in favour of establishing a
Government Agricultural Bank, which would lend money to the planters,
taking a first mortgage on the borrower's lands as guarantee. In
connexion with this scheme, the question was raised whether the
Government could, in justice, collect revenue from the people who had
no voice at all in the Government, and then lend it out to support
private enterprise. Moreover, without a law against usury (so common in
the Islands) there would be little to prevent a man borrowing from the
bank at, say, 6 per cent.--up to the mortgage value of his estate--to
lend it out to others at 60 per cen