he comforts arising out of the presence and extension
of conveniences and luxuries in their own towns, they will naturally
be led to possess and adopt them.

[Plans for progress.] So salutary a change, however, can only be
the work of time, and as long as the government confines itself
to a system merely protecting, the effects must consequently be
slow. As it is therefore necessary to put in action more powerful
springs than the ordinary ones, it will be found expedient partly to
relax from some of those general principles which apply to societies,
differently constituted, or rather formed of other perfectly distinct
elements. As relating to the subject under discussion, I fortunately
discover two means, pointed out in the laws themselves, essentially
just, and at the same time capable of producing in this populous
colony, more than in any other, the desired results. The legislator,
founding himself on the common obligation of the subject to contribute
something in return for the protection he receives, and to co-operate
in the increase of the power and opulence of the State, proscribes
idleness as a crime, and points out labor as a duty; and although
the regulations touching the natives breathe the spirit of humanity,
and exhibit the wisdom with which they were originally formed, they
nevertheless concur and are directed to this primary object. In them
the distribution of vacant lands, as well as of the natives at fair
daily wages to clear them, is universally allowed, and these it seems
to me, are the means from an equitable and intelligent application
of which the most beneficial consequences may be expected.

[Confiscating unused lands.] The first cannot be attended with any
great difficulty, because all the provinces abound in waste and vacant
lands, and scarcely is there a district in which some are not to be
found of private property completely uncultivated and neglected,
and consequently susceptible, as above stated, of being legally
transferred, for this reason alone, to the possession of an active
owner. Let their nature however, be what it may, in their adjudication,
it is of the greatest importance to proceed with uniformity, by
consecrating, in a most irrevocable manner, the solemnity of all
similar grants. Public interest and reason, in the Philippine Islands,
require that in all such cases deference only should be paid to
demands justly interposed, and formally established within a due and
fixed period