." [139] Compulsory labour was authorized, and those natives
in the northern provinces of Luzon Island who wished to till the land
(the property of the State)--for title-deeds were almost unknown and
never applied for by the natives--were compelled to give preference to
tobacco. In fact, no other crops were allowed to be raised. Moreover,
they were not permitted peacefully to indulge their indolent nature--to
scrape up the earth and plant when and where they liked for a mere
subsistence. Each family was coerced into contracting with the
Government to raise 4,000 plants per annum, subject to a fine in the
event of failure. The planter had to deliver into the State stores
all the tobacco of his crop--not a single leaf could he reserve for
his private consumption.

Lands left uncultivated could be appropriated by the Government, who
put their own nominees to work them, and he who had come to consider
himself owner, by mere undisturbed possession, lost the usufruct and
all other rights for three years. His right to the land, in fact,
was not freehold, but tenure by villein socage.

Emigrants were sent north from the west coast Provinces of North and
South Ilocos. The first time I went up to Cagayan about 200 emigrant
families were taken on board our vessel at North Ilocos, _en route_
for the tobacco districts, and appeared to be as happy as other
natives in general. They were well supplied with food and clothing,
and comfortably lodged on their arrival at the Port of Aparri.

In the Government Regulations referred to, the old law of Charles
III., which enacted that a native could not be responsible at law
for a debt exceeding P5, was revived, and those emigrants who had
debts were only required to liquidate them out of their earnings in
the tobacco district up to that legal maximum value.

As soon as the native growers were settled on their lands their
condition was by no means an enviable one. A Nueva Ecija landowner
and tobacco-grower, in a letter to _El Liberal_ (Madrid) in 1880,
depicts the situation in the following terms:--The planter, he
says, was only allowed to smoke tobacco of his own crop inside the
aerating-sheds which were usually erected on the fields under tilth. If
he happened to be caught by a carabineer only a few steps outside the
shed with a cigar in his mouth he was fined 2 pesos--if a cigarette,
50 cents--and adding to these sums the costs of the conviction,
a cigar of his own crop came to cost him