t monopoly: but
it does not seem to have been very strictly carried out. The tobacco
monopoly, as it stands at present, the whole trade of which from the
sowing of the seedling plants to the sale of the manufactured article
is exclusively in the hands of the Government, was first introduced by
Captain-General Jose Basco y Vargas. And a Government Order, under date
of January 9, 1780 (confirmed by Departmental Regulations, December
13, 1781), further enacted that the tobacco regulations should be
extended to the Philippine Islands, in like manner as in all Spanish
possessions in this and the other hemisphere (de uno y otto mundo).

[Governor Basco's innovations.] Before the administration of this
very jealous Governor, for a period of two hundred years the colony
received annual contributions from New Spain (Situado de Nueva
Espana). In order to relieve the Spanish Exchequer, from this charge
Basco introduced (at that time national economic ideas prevailed of
making the natural resources of a State supply its immediate wants)
a plan upon which, fifty years later, Java modelled its "Culture
System." In the Philippines, however, the conditions for this system
were less favorable. In addition to the very slight submissiveness
of the population, there were two great obstacles in the opposition
of the priests and the want of trustworthy officials. Of all the
provincial trades brought into existence by the energy of Basco, the
indigo cultivation is the only one that remains in the hands of private
individuals, the tobacco trade still being a Government monopoly. [238]
Basco first of all confined the monopoly to the provinces immediately
contiguous to the capital, in all of which the cultivation of tobacco
was forbidden under penalty of severe punishment, except by persons
duly authorized and in the service of the Government. [239] In the
other provinces the cultivation was to a certain extent permitted;
but the supply remaining after deduction of what was consumed in each
province was to be sold to the Government only.

[Speculation with public funds.] In the Bisayas the magistrates
purchased the tobacco for the Government and paid for it at the rate
previously fixed by the Government factories at Manila; and they
were allowed to employ the surplus money of the Government treasury
chest for this purpose. A worse system than this could scarcely be
devised. Officials, thinking only of their own private advantage,
suffered no c