Note 26 — THE PHILIPPINES, 1860–1898—SOME COMMENT AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

General.—Jagor’s book, already noted as the best introduction to the study of this period, is again mentioned here as affording data on the tobacco monopoly (which lasted until 1884, before its affairs were wound up), the attitude of the Spaniards toward the entry of foreign traders, and the part these foreigners played in developing the culture of abaká and sugar. Cavada’s Historia geográfica, geológica y estadística de Filipinas (Manila, 1876) has a good arsenal of data drawn chiefly from the civil statistical inquiries of 1870, though, like almost all such works in Spanish, it is without a topical index and is put together in a disorderly manner most exasperating to the searcher for facts or figures on a specific point of inquiry. Of the works of José Jimeno y Agius, his Memoria sobre el desestanco del tabaco (Binondo, 1871) and Población y comercio de las islas Filipinas (Madrid, 1884) should be especially mentioned. Gregorio Sancianco y Goson’s El progreso de Filipinas (Madrid, 1881), especially valuable on administrative matters just prior to the revision of the fiscal régime in connection with the abolition of the government tobacco monopoly, has also many data on land, commerce, and industry. Scattered through the eight volumes of the fortnightly La Política de España en Filipinas (Madrid, 1891–98) are useful items on Philippine currency and exchange, trade, etc., with occasional studies of these questions and those of Chinese and European immigration, in most cases hasty, unreliable pieces of work, often even fantastic for their utter disregard of the fundamentals of political economy. Foreman’s book has already been characterized; nevertheless, checked up with Sawyer’s, it is of use in this connection. Of the consular and other official reports, those of the British Foreign Office26 are the most valuable as a series, though the comprehensive reports of the French Consul, M. de Bérard, covering the years 1888–92, merit first place as individual treatises.27