Note 4 — Chapter XXV · ILOILO AND PANAY.

“‘To reach the consuming markets by the most direct line, to avoid transshipments and save double freights are objects, commercially, of the highest importance.’4 And there is an aspect of the matter which renders it still more necessary, as regards the Philippine trade, that these objects should be kept in view. Australia is now, after Great Britain, the most important market for the Philippine sugars, and particularly for the reclayed Bisayan sugars of Iloilo and Cebú, which are there used for refining purposes, and it will most undoubtedly be before long the largest consumer of the sugar of these islands. In 1857 the exports of Iloilo and Cebú sugar from Manila to Australia were 18,178 and 51,519 peculs respectively, while to all the other markets, including Great Britain, they were only 11,519 and 41,699 peculs; and the same year the total export of all kinds of sugar to Australia was even more than to Great Britain, being 17,847 tons, or 285,552 peculs, to the former, against 16,675 tons, or 266,800 peculs, to the latter market. In the present year (1858), the total export from Manila to Australia, owing to a deficiency in the Pampanga crop, and the discouragement caused to the Australian importers by the high prices of 1857, have only reached 9,038 tons, or 145,028 peculs.