Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 01).djvu/65

 be punished by this court. The Holy Inquisition transplanted to New Spain in 1569 stretched its long arm across the great ocean to the Philippines, in the person of a commissioner, for the preservation of the true faith. The Indians and Chinese were exempted from its jurisdiction. Its processes were roundabout, and must have given a considerable proportion of its accused a chance to die a natural death. The Commissioner must first report the offense to the Court in New Spain; if a trial was ordered, the accused must be sent to Mexico, and, if convicted, must be returned to the Philippines to receive punishment.

The most peculiar feature of the old régime in the Philippines is to be found in the regulations of the commerce of the islands. In the Recopilacion de leyes de los reinos de las Indias, the code of Spanish colonial legislation, a whole title comprising seventy-nine laws is devoted to this subject. For thirty years after the conquest the commerce of the islands was unrestricted and their prosperity advanced with great rapidity. Then came a system of restrictions, demanded by the protectionists in Spain, which limited the commerce of the islands with America to a fixed annual amount, and effectively checked their economic development. All the old travelers marvel at the possibilities of the islands and at the blindness of Spain, but the policy absurd as it may seem was but a logical application of the protective system not essentially different from the forms which it assumes today in our own relations to Porto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines.