.cts. P.cts. P.cts. P.cts. P.cts. P.cts.
9.30 10.00 12.00 9.87 9.56 19.50 20.34 25.80 24.40
_nom._

Quotations later than 1891 would serve no practical purpose in the
above table of comparison, as, due to the extremely small quantity
produced, almost fancy prices have ruled since that date. In 1896,
for instance, the market price ran up to P35 per picul, whilst some
small parcels exchanged hands at a figure so capriciously high that
it cannot be taken as a quotation. For figures of Coffee Shipments,
_vide_ Chap, xxxi., "Trade Statistics."

I investigated the system of coffee-growing and trading in all the
Luzon districts, and found it impossible to draw up a correct general
estimate showing the nett cost laid down in Manila market. The manner
of acquiring the produce and the conditions of purchase varied so
greatly, and were subject to so many peculiar local circumstances,
that only an approximate computation could be arrived at.

Some of the provincial collectors had plantations of their own; others
had not, whilst none of them depended entirely upon the produce of
their own trees for fulfilling the contracts in the capital.

Coffee was a much more fluctuating concern than hemp, as the
purchase-rate (although perhaps low) was determined out of season
several months before it was seen how the market would stand for the
sale of that coffee; in hemp transactions (there being practically no
season for hemp) the purchase-money need only be paid on delivery of
the produce by the labourer at rates proportionate to Manila prices,
unless the dealer be simply a speculator, in which case, having
contracted in Manila to deliver at a price, he must advance to secure
deliveries to fulfil his contract. Therefore, in coffee, a provincial
collector might lose something on the total year's transactions or he
might make an enormous profit, if he worked with his own capital. If
he borrowed the capital from Manila dealers--middlemen--as was often
the case, then he might make a fortune for his Manila friends, or he
might lose another year's interest on the borrowed funds.

In Cavite Province districts there was another way of negotiating
coffee speculations. The dealer with capital advanced at, say, 6 or 7
pesos per picul "on joint account up to Manila." The planter then bound
himself to deliver so many piculs of coffee of the next gathering,
and the difference between th