Note 42 — THE PHILIPPINES, 1860–1898—SOME COMMENT AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

The administrative organism.—For present purposes, it almost suffices to refer simply to the List of the Library of Congress under the headings Finance, Law, Political and Social Economy, and to Pardo de Tavera’s Biblioteca under the names of authors cited in the above List and the alphabetical headings Aranceles, Balanza, Boletín, Colección, Disposiciones, Exposición, Guía, Memoria, Proyectos (those of 1870 for all sorts of reforms proposed after the Spanish Revolution of 1868), and Reglamentos. The bibliography of Colonization published by the Library of Congress, besides these special works on the Philippines, lists also works on Spanish colonies and works on colonization in general.42 Of the compilations, annuals, etc., listed in these bibliographies, special attention may be directed to those cited under the names of Rodriguez San Pedro (to 1869) and Rodriguez Berriz (to 1888). The most complete reference work on Spanish legislation, executive regulations, etc., is the Colección legislativa de España, and this work contains provisions enacted at Madrid with regard to the Philippines down to and including 1898. For the full official record, not only of enactments at Madrid, but of the forms under which these were carried into effect in the islands themselves, the Philippine governmental regulations, proclamations, etc., covering this entire period down to the end of Spanish rule, the official gazette of the Philippines (published under the name La Gaceta de Manila, 1860–1898) is the final source; but the writer knows of no full collection thereof in any library of the United States, though there is of course one in the archives at Manila. In this connection, it should be remarked that the governor-general had very wide, and in some respects not very exactly prescribed, powers, one of the most indefinite and sweeping of which was that requiring any general law or special provision of Madrid, before it actually acquired force in the Philippines, to be published with the governor-general’s “cúmplase” (“let it go into effect”). This might be, and usually was, a mere formality; but it was capable of being used so as at least to postpone the execution of a legislative decree or ministerial order which was distasteful to the chief authority of the Philippines, was violently opposed by the influential interests in the islands (particularly the ecclesiastical element), or, as happened in some cases, was manifestly inapplicable to Philippine conditions. Of course, the governor-general could readily be overruled, but even so, he could, if he desired, secure thus a delay and possible reconsideration of the matter, and the frequent changes of party administration in Spain encouraged delays of this and like sorts, not a few reform decrees remaining thus dead letters in the Philippines. It is often important, therefore, to discover not only what was the law or regulation provided for the Philippines in Madrid, but how it was put into force in the islands, or if it actually took effect at all. For this purpose, the Official Guide of the Philippines (Guía de forasteros to 1865, Guía oficial from 1879 to 1898) supplements in some respects the official gazette and the collection of Rodriguez Berriz.43