Note 44 — THE PHILIPPINES, 1860–1898—SOME COMMENT AND BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Of surveys and summaries of Spanish administration in the Philippines listed in the Bibliography may be mentioned Cabezas de Herrera’s Apuntes (1883) and Fabié’s Ensayo histórico (Madrid, 1896), also José de la Rosa’s La administración pública en Filipinas.44 In the compilation by Jesuit fathers published at Washington in 1900 under the title El archipiélago filipino, there is to be found in vol. i, a survey of the governmental organization and the various activities of the government both under civil and ecclesiastical control. This is reproduced in English in vol. iv of Report of the Philippine Commission, 1900. In vol. i of this report of the Schurman Commission (part iv, chapter i, also pp. 122–123) is an abstract of the Spanish system of government which, so far as the framework of that government is concerned, serves the purpose for one who can not readily consult the Spanish official sources from which it was drawn.45 The major portion of this abstract is occupied by a translation and summary of the law reforming the Philippine local governments in 1893, commonly called the “Maura Law” after the Colonial Minister who promulgated it.46 As put in force by Governor-General Blanco, however, it was somewhat altered and revised, and many of its more promising provisions for local autonomy had in most towns remained in reality dead letters up to the time when revolt broke out in the Tagálog provinces in 1896; elections under the new law were suspended, and martial law established. For this law in its original text and as promulgated by Blanco, with regulations and model forms for the municipalities, see Felix M. Roxas’s Comentarios al reglamento provisional de las juntas provinciales (Manila, 1894).47