Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/269

 PHILIPPINES — INDUSTRIES

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tistics are available for the years following. The postal system is exceed- ingly crude, and it is almost impossible to communicate with any inland towns and villages. There is a fairly regular mail service between Manila and Hongkong, and between Manila and the principal ports in the islands to the southward. The question of labor is a serious one. The natives are not to be de- pended upon as laborers. They work only when they see fit, and their work is far from being satisfactory. The best workers in the Philippine Islands are the Chinese coolies, most of whom, however, are in and around Manila. There is practically no labor-saving machinery in use in the islands. The four principal industries of the islands are hemp, sugar, copra, and tobacco. Hemp leads the list in the aggregate value of exports, sugar coming second. Copra is a comparatively new industry, but a very im- portant one to the islands. The tobacco industry is an important one, and there are large exports each year of tobacco leaf and manufactured tobacco. The following table gives the amount of hemp exported, in piculs, for each year for the twenty years ending with 1897 :

Exporta- Exporta- Exporta- Years tion in Years tion in Years tion in Piculs 1 Piculs Piculs IsTT 630,5:3r) 1884 815,618 1891 1,271,094 1>T8 6(57,;378 1885 834,260 1892 1,581,016 1^79 &47,959 1886 743,364 1893 1,282,942 18S0 S(X),936 1887 1,029,946 1894 1,591,962 1881 868,904 1888 1,322,858 1895 1,664,590 1882 707,:3-U 1889 1,137,142 1896 1,5:31,786 1883 746,870 1890 1,012,310 1897 1,804,576

1 A picul is equal to 140 pounds avoirdupois. In the opinion of those who are largely interested in the hemp industry there is a great future for this product. There is practically no rope manufactured in the Philippine Islands. During the year 1897 the total exports of hempen rope and cable amounted to only 4029 piculs, as compared with exj)orts of 3-468 during the preceding year. The larger portion of the hemp grown in the Philippine Islands is ex- ported from Manila. As shown in the table preceding, the exports for 1897 were 1,804,576 piculs. The exports to the several countries which are large users of hemp were as follows : Picu/a United States (Atlantic coast) 733,004 United States (Pacific coast) 51,900 Great Britain 728,344 Europe (continent) 28,596 Australia 38,058 Singapore and India 12,468 Cliina and Japan 51,300 Sugar forms an important item in the export trade of the Philippine Islands, standing second to hemp. For the year 1897 the total exports of sugar from the various ports of the Philippine Islands amounted to $13,000,000, silver, in round numbers.