Note 9 — INTERNAL POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE PHILIPPINES, 1842

The present superintendent of the islands, Don Juan M. de la Matta,9 whose opinion I greatly respect, because I truly believe that he is one of the few Spaniards who know the country, and that he has the capacity, honor, patriotism, and energy to do something good and solid there, wrote me in a letter now before me: “It is necessary for the Spanish population to stick to agriculture, the only source capable of providing abundantly for their necessities, for which the profit from any other employ in the different careers of the state is indeed very insufficient. I have already called the attention of the ministry of the treasury to this particular, showing that a wretched generation, and consequently, one dissolute and turbulent, is increasing daily, and that the government must prevent in time the fatal consequences, by inviting them to turn their attention to agriculture.10 In fact, there are rich and extensive lands which have been abandoned, which ought to invite the attention of a Filipino-Spaniard more than the posts, for with an estate not only can he live in ease and independently, but he can also establish a rich patrimony for his descendants. Lands that now are worth little, or even nothing, will in time have a greater or less price by reason of the population of the territory and the perfection to which its cultivation is carried. There is today in the charity hospital of Sidney an aged woman, whose husband owned a bit of land, which he sold thirty years back for three pounds sterling, and at this moment it is worth one-half million pesos fuertes. And this, only because of the rapid increase in population! In Filipinas itself, any one can be convinced of this manifest fact, which is a trivial truth among economists. In Laguna and other provinces, there are most fertile fields, abandoned and at the disposal of the one who will take them; and in Bulacan and Tondo, whose soil is very inferior, all have owners and a value. In the environs of Malolos and Manila, land costs one thousand pesos fuertes per quiñon. One hundred years ago, this same quiñon could be bought for fifty.”