ides a
number of mestizos. Some of them were working with steam machinery
and vacuum pans. The general rate of pay is from $2.05 to $3.00 per
month. On some plantations the principle of acsa, i.e. part share,
is in operation. The owner lets out a piece of ground, providing
draught cattle and all necessary ploughing implements, to a native,
who works it, and supplies the mill with the cut cane, receiving as
payment a share, generally a third, of the product. In Negros the
violet cane is cultivated, and in Manila the white (Otaheiti). The
land does not require manuring. On new ground, or what we may term
virgin soil, the cane often grows to a height of thirteen feet. A vast
improvement is to be observed in the mode of dress of the people. Pina
and silk stuffs are beoming quite common. Advance in luxury is always
a favorable sign; according to the increase of requirements, industry
flourishes in proportion.

[The future sugar market.] As I have already mentioned,
California, Japan, China, and Australia appear designed by nature
to be the principal consumers of the products of the Philippine
Islands. Certainly at present England is the best customer; but
nearly half the account is for sugar, in consequence of their own
custom duties. Sometimes it happens that not more than one-fourth of
the sugar crop is sufficiently refined to compete in the Australian
and Californian markets with the sorts from Bengal, Java, and the
Mauritius; the remaining three-fourths, if particularly white, must
perforce undertake the long voyage to England, despite the high freight
and certain loss on the voyage of from ten to twelve per cent. through
the leakage of the molasses. The inferior quality of the Philippine
sugar is at once perceived by the English refiners, and is only taxed
at 8s. per cwt., while purer sorts pay 10s. to 12s. [216]

[A valuable by-product.] In this manner the English customs favor the
inferior qualities of manufactured sugar. The colonial Government
did not allow those engaged in the manufacture of sugar to distil
rum from the molasses until the year 1862. They had, therefore,
little inducement to extract, at a certain expense, a substance the
value on which they were not permitted to realize; but under ordinary
circumstances the distillation of the rum not only covered the cost
of refining, but gave, in addition, a fair margin of profit.

CHAPTER XXIV

[Manila hemp.] One of the most interesting productions of th