irst importance in determining
the future of the Islands, we must look for all the light possible
on the question. A flood is thrown on it by an article entitled
"_Nulla est Redemptio_," published in the (native) _La Democracia_,
of Manila, October 10, 1910, and believed to be the production of
perhaps the ablest Filipino alive to-day. Premising that agriculture is
the chief source of Philippine wealth, and that this source failing,
all others must fail, the author points out that, although taxes are
lighter in the Archipelago than in any other country, production is
much less, and that this is the chief cause of the prevailing economic
distress. He points out further that the Assembly is wholly native,
as are all municipal and nearly all provincial officers, and that
therefore they, and the constituencies that elected them, must assume
responsibility. Now, what has been achieved? The provinces have spent
money on buildings and parks, but, with one brilliant exception, none
on roads. Nothing has been done for agriculture. Of the municipalities,
the least said the better; they are a wreck in the full extension
of the word. And, as the hope of a people must rest in its youth,
what does he find to be the case? Thousands of candidates in pharmacy,
law, medicine; as regards the Civil Service, enough candidates to fill
all the posts in the Islands for generations to come. But of farmers,
young men willing to return to the fields, their own fields, and by the
sweat of their brow to work out the salvation of the country? None:
the development of this principal element of national existence is
left to the ignorant and indolent peasantry. He draws no less gloomy
a picture in respect of capital and property. Nine-tenths of Manila,
and all important provincial real estate, is mortgaged. Capital is
furnished at exorbitant rates of interest, and usury prevails. In the
country, no security is accepted save real property, and then only
when the lender is satisfied that his debtor will be unable to pay,
and that the security will pass.

Bad as the outlook is, no remedy suggests itself. For, returning
to the theme that agriculture is recognized as vital, much energy
is spent in discussion, discourses, lectures, in writing articles,
in discovering reasons why agriculture does not flourish, but nothing
else and nothing more. [56]

The picture may be overdrawn; but it is a Filipino picture, drawn by
a Filipino hand. Let us now permit, the