he craving demands of their
numerous partisans and friends. They were sent out with a salary and to
make what they could,--at their own risk, of course,--like the country
lad who was sent up to London with the injunction from his father,
"Make money, honestly if you can, but make it."

From the Conquest up to 1844, when trading by officials was abolished,
it was a matter of little public concern how Government servants made
fortunes. Only when the jealousy of one urged him to denounce another
was any inquiry instituted so long as the official was careful not to
embezzle or commit a direct fraud on the _Real Haber_ (the Treasury
funds). When the _Real Haber_ was once covered, then all that could
be got out of the Colony was for the benefit of the officials, great
and small. In 1840, Eusebio Mazorca wrote as follows: [104]--"Each
chief of a province is a real sultan, and when he has terminated his
administration, all that is talked of in the capital is the thousands
of pesos clear gain which he made in his Government."

Eusebio Mazorca further states: [105]--"The Governor receives payment
of the tribute in rice-paddy, which he credits to the native at two
reales in silver per caban. Then he pays this sum into the Royal
Treasury in money, and sells the rice-paddy for private account at
the current rate of six, eight or more reales in silver per caban,
and this simple operation brings him 200 to 300 per cent. profit."

The same writer adds:--"Now quite recently the Interventor of Zamboanga
is accused by the Governor of that place of having made some P15,000
to P16,000 solely by using false measures ... The same Interventor to
whom I refer, is said to have made a fortune of P50,000 to P60,000,
whilst his salary as second official in the Audit Department [106]
is P540 per annum." According to Zuniga, the salary of a professor
of law with the rank of magistrate was P800 per annum.

Up to June, 1886, the provincial taxes being in the custody of the
Administrator, the Judicial Governor had a percentage assigned to him
to induce him to control the Administrator's work. The Administrator
himself had percentages, and the accounts of these two functionaries
were checked by a third individual styled the "Interventor," whose
duties appeared to be to intervene in the casting-up of his superiors'
figures. He was forbidden to reside with the Administrator. After
the above date the payment of all these percentages ceased.

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