nts, apportioned _pro rata_ to
their respective populations as shown by the census of 1903; 15 per
cent. for the several municipal governments, provided that of this
sum one-third shall be utilized solely for the maintenance of free
public primary schools and expenditure appertaining thereto. In the
aforesaid distribution Manila City ranks as a municipality and a
province, and receives apportionment under this law on the basis of
25 per cent. (Art. XVII., sec. 150).

From the first announcement of the projected law up to its promulgation
the public clamoured loudly against it. For months the public
organs, issued in Spanish and dialect, persistently denounced it as a
harbinger of ruin to the Colony. Chambers of Commerce, corporations and
private firms, foreign and native, at meetings specially convened to
discuss the new law, predicted a collapse of Philippine industry and
commerce. At a public conference, held before the Civil Commission on
June 24, 1904, it was stated that one distillery alone would have to
pay a yearly tax of P744,000, and that a certain cigar-factory would
be required to pay annually P557,425. Petitions against the coming
law were sent by all the representative trading-bodies to the Insular
Government praying for its withdrawal. When the Commissioners retired
to their hill-station at Baguio (Benguet) they were followed up by
protests against the measure, but it became law under Philippine
Commission Act No. 1189. Since the imposition of this tax there
has been a general complaint throughout the civilized provinces of
depression in the internal trade, but to what extent it is justified
there is no available precise data on which to form an estimate.

As already stated, the American occupation brought about a rapid
rise in the price of everything, not of necessity or in obedience
to the law of supply and demand, but because it was the pleasure
of the Americans voluntarily to enhance established values. To the
surprise of the Filipinos, the new-comers preferred to pay wages
at hitherto unheard-of rates, whilst the soldiers lavishly paid in
gold for silver-peso value (say, at least, double), of their own
volition--an innovation in which the obliging native complacently
acquiesced, until it dawned upon him that he might demand anything he
chose. The soldiers so frequently threw away copper coin given them in
change as valueless, that many natives discontinued to offer it. It
followed that everybody was