Note 102 — PART I

This last circumstance is one which is at all times a severe check on the prosperity of any undertaking in this country. The most shameless frauds are daily committed, particularly by the Chinese and Chinese Mestizos, and for these there is no resource; complaint is unavailing, for the trouble of obtaining redress is greater than the injury, and it is a matter of common conversation—how so and so has been cheated in his contracts. They appear to mistake indolence for compassion, and allow themselves to be robbed with impunity, rather than pursue the offender, or, should they do so, the magistrate to whom they apply is but too apt, if the affair is intricate, to mistake procrastination for deliberation, and thus the culprit escapes unpunished. The losses of private merchants and the individuals in this way, would, if enumerated, exceed belief. Another and a most serious drawback to the commercial prosperity of the Phillippines, has been the negligence or ignorance, or both which have prevented the establishment of bonded warehouses, or a system of drawback duties on re-exportations. A glance at their position, and the consideration of the monsoons, will convince any one, that this was of all things that for which ample provision should have been made; and it would be no exaggeration to say, that this commerce would in a few years have increased tenfold with China alone, had this plan been adopted. The enormous duties and vexatious spirit of the Chinese government, together with, what must doubtless be often the case, the fleecing combinations of the Hong merchants;102 would long ago have driven every vessel from their ports, could another have been found near enough to insure a supply of goods, which, from the enterprising spirit of the Chinese, could not have failed. Manila is this port. From Amoy and Nankin, the granaries and workshops of the eastern provinces, the most fertile and commercial part of the empire, it is but a short run to Manila; and thus, when the Chinese could freely trade in their favourite article, opium,103 and find too an assortment of European and Malay goods, while the European could complete his investment of funds with the valuable produce of China,104 without the expense of the measurement duties, and while the Malay could trade with both, an emporium might have risen, inferior only perhaps to Batavia or Calcutta.