er cent. I need not
refer to the isolated cases which have come to my knowledge of over
100 per cent. being charged. As at the present day agriculture in
the Philippines does not yield 30 per cent. nett profit, it naturally
follows that the money-lender at this rate has to attach the estate
upon which he has made loans, and finally becomes owner of it. In
the meantime, the tiller who has directed the labour of converting a
tract of land into a plantation, simply gets a living out of it. Some
few were able to disencumber their property by paying, year by year,
not only the whole of the nett returns from the plantation, but also
the profits on small traffic in which they may have speculated. It
seldom happened, however, that the native planter was sufficiently
loyal to his financial supporter to do this: on the contrary, although
he might owe thousands of pesos, he would spend money in feasts, and
undertake fresh obligations of a most worthless nature. He would buy
on credit, to be paid for after the next crop, a quantity of paltry
jewellery from the first hawker who passed his way, or let the cash
slip out of his hands at the cock-pit or the gambling-table.

Even the most provident seemed to make no reserve for a bad year, and
the consequence was that in 1887 I think I may safely assert that if
all the Philippine planters had had to liquidate within twelve months,
certainly 50 per cent. of them would have been insolvent. One of
the most hazardous businesses in the Colony is that of advancing to
the native planters, unless it be done with the express intention of
eventually becoming owner of an estate, which is really often the case.

The conditions of land-tenure in Luzon Island under Spanish rule
stood briefly thus:--The owners either held the lands by virtue of
undisturbed possession or by transferable State grant. The tenants--the
actual tillers--were one degree advanced beyond the state of slave
cultivators, inasmuch as they could accumulate property and were free
to transfer their services. They corresponded to that class of farmers
known in France as _metayers_ and amongst the Romans of old as _Coloni
Partiarii_, with no right in the land, but entitled to one-half of its
produce. Like the ancients, they had to perform a number of services
to the proprietor which were not specified in writing, but enforced
by usage. Tenants of this kind recently subsisted--and perhaps
still do--in Scotland (_vide_ "Wealth of Nation