an
families and the formation of estates proportioned to the fertility
of the soil and capabilities of the country are to enter into the
views of government. In vain would grants and transfers of vacant and
useless lands be made to new and enterprising proprietors, unless at
the same time they can be provided with laborers, and experience every
other possible facility, in order to clear, enclose, and cultivate
them. Hence follows the indispensable necessity of appealing to the
system of distributions, as above pointed out; for what class of
laborers can be obtained in a country where the whites are so few,
unless it be the natives? Should they object to personal service,
should they refuse to labor for an equitable and daily allowance,
by which means they would also cease to be burdens to the State
and to society, are they not to be compelled to contribute by this
means to the prosperity of which they are members; in a word, to
the public good, and thus make some provision for old age? If the
soldier, conveyed away from his native land, submits to dangers, and
is unceasingly exposed to death in defence of the State, why should
not the Filipino moderately use his strength and activity in tilling
the fields which are to sustain him and enrich the commonwealth?

[The undeveloped Philippines.] Besides, things in the Philippine
Islands wear a very different aspect to what they do on the American
continent, where, as authorized by the said laws, a certain number
of natives may be impressed for a season, and sent off inland to a
considerable distance from their dwellings, either for the purpose of
agriculture, or working the mines, provided only they are taken care of
during their journeys, maintained, and the price of their daily labor,
as fixed by the civil authorities, regularly paid to them. The immense
valleys and mountains susceptible of cultivation, especially in the
Island of Luzon, being once settled, and the facilities of obtaining
hands increased, such legal acts of compulsion, far from being any
longer necessary, will have introduced a spirit of industry that
will render the labors of the field supportable and even desirable;
and in this occupation all the tributary natives of the surrounding
settlements can be alternately employed, by the day or week, and thus
do their work almost at the door of their own huts, and as it were
in sight of their wives and children.

[No legal obstacle to forced labor.] If, after w