circular letters and recommendations issued by the provincial government have found a faithful echo, if not with all, with the majority of the agriculturists.

The barrio, or even the house, without its plantations of coffee, cocoa, and cocoanuts is rare indeed. The tenientes, or headmen of the barrio, inspect these plantations frequently in order the better to inform themselves as to their condition.

Among the more well-to-do farmers the planting of maguey has received considerable attention, so much so that they have bought a great many shoots of this textile plant in the provinces of Zambales and Ilocos Sur, paying even as high as 10 per thousand. It is therefore not too much to predict that within a few years the production of this fiber will become a new source of wealth to the province.

A close estimate of the production of tobacco in the year 1904 is some 82,000 quintals, and though the present year's crop will not rival in quantities that of the year before, as I estimate that it will reach but from 50,000 to 60,000 quintals, inasmuch as it has notably increased in quality, owing to the greater care exercised in its cultivation, harvesting, curing, and preparation for market, in accordance with the instructions that were issued by the provincial government and followed by the municipalities and by the planters, I trust that it will sell for as good a price as last

year.

The production of rice was fair-sufficient to meet the needs of the inhabitants of the province, who have not been obliged, consequently, to draw upon Pangasinan or Saigon. The great amount of rain spoiled many plantations and resulted in a falling off in the crop.

Some 7,000 or 8,000 piculs of sugar were produced last year that were neither better in quality nor higher in saccharine matter than last year's product, owing to the same methods of manufacture having been followed.

Hemp.-Some farmers have experimented with this textile plant, but it is too early to say what the results will be. At the request of several planters, I have inquired of the provincial governors of Camarines, Albay, and Sorsogon as to the price of young plants per thousand with a view to purchasing in these provinces, which enjoy the reputation of producing a good quality of hemp.

At my request, and for the purpose of insuring better success for agricultural labors, an agricultural committee has been formed in each municipality composed of wellto-do persons having a knowledge and a love for agriculture.

These members have taken upon themselves the obligation of visiting the plantations for purposes of inspection, and in order to hear and decide questions brought before them, and to make recommendations.

COMMERCE.

As stated in my last report, the trade of this province consists principally in leaf tobacco. Though there were no large transactions, the Compañia General de Tabacos bought up some 57,000 quintals, while the Chinese and other merchants took approximately 20,000 quintals. The former paid P9 per quintal and the latter a little less. The difference between the total of these two amounts and the 82,000 quintals representing the aggregate production for 1904 was either consumed locally or sold at retail in the province.

I was somewhat alarmed at the beginning of the year over the fact that buyers would not venture upon the engrossment of this article because of pessimistic advices relative to this product and the demand for it in European markets, and that there were large stocks on hand in the capital of the archipelago; but about the beginning of April my fears were dispelled upon seeing that the Chinese merchants had started to buy, being subsequently followed by the Compañia General de Tabacos, who paid the same prices for the same classes as last year. In this manner they assisted the inhabitants in meeting their obligations to the province.

The experiments that are being conducted by the Compañia General de Tabacos in this province with relation to the selection of leaves that on account of their quality and other properties will improve the product and put it on a basis to compete with that of other provinces, and that in the opinion of the undersigned will result in higher prices, are worthy of mention.

Sugar was quoted at P 25 per picul of 137 pounds in this province.

Rice. The price of this article at present is from P5 to P6.50 the cavan, according to origin.

Sales of foreign and domestic merchandise have diminished in comparison with former years, the total in this city for the six months ending June 30 having been but P170,000.

The change in currency has encountered opposition among some of the holders of the old money and has had to be effected slowly, the loss occasioned by the exchange

being somewhat felt and there still remaining a good deal of the old currency in the hands of the people, particularly the Igorot, although I believe that little by little the people will become convinced of the advantages of a system which places in their hands a kind of money whose value does not fluctuate such as the dollar of universal circulation.

EDUCATION.

This is one of the departments of the provincial government that can be said to be in a flourishing state. The animation and the love of study of our young school people is daily increasing. So great has been the animation and the interest of the school boards of the various pueblos that, assisted by their respective presidents and councilors, they have succeeded in increasing the attendance during the past year to nearly 15,000. At the end of the term--that is to say, in March of this year-some 12,481 children attended to 53 schools presided over by 145 teachers.

During the first half of the year the province rented two private houses for school purposes, paying P75 a month for same, which, on account of their poor condition, induced the board to authorize the transfer of one of the schools to the provincial building.

An intermediate school has been established at Namacpacan that is of great advantage to the young people of that town, for the reason that in future they will not be compelled to go to any additional expense in order to attend the normal school of this city, but will continue their studies there. It is also proposed to establish another intermediate school at Agoo, which would be of immense benefit to the inhabitants of the pueblos of the south.

A building is in the course of construction for the provincial school, to be paid for out of the fund furnished by the general superintendent of education, and for which the provincial board is negotiating for the purchase of the site.

IGORROTE.

A careful study has been made of the administrative condition of the settlements of Igorrotes in this province, and I can do no less than state that I am of the opinion that a system of government should be speedily established for these non-Christian tribes which will be appropriate to their degree of enlightenment and have due regard for their peculiarities, customs and habits, their religion, and the laws by which they were governed during Spanish domination, when they were unaccustomed to taxation. In view of this latter fact, I think that a period of transition is necessary before they are placed on a level with other municipalities. Their frequent petitions denote their anxiety for a prompt change from the present anomalous conditions to which they are subject, for if the same state of affairs is allowed to continue their complaints will not cease, nor will they desist from demanding the enactment of laws that will save them from their present political condition and put a stop to the annoyances to which they are frequently subjected, arising from their relations with the municipal authorities.

In the enactment of legislation relative to this matter, in order to avoid by every possible means the sources of trouble above mentioned, it should be decreed that these tribes should be governed directly by the governor of the province in accordance with their request, as, in my opinion, I believe that this would be the most proper and advisable measure to adopt for the present.

CACIQUISM.

This political socialism, as I have had occasion to state before, does not prevail in this province as much as it was feared; however, in some pueblos its pernicious influence has been felt, owing more to the weakness and lack of experience of some of the municipal officials in the discharge of their duties and of their lack of knowledge of the laws than on account of the audacity of the caciques.

The undersigned governor has brought to the knowledge of the members of the provincial board, both in the recommendations made to the higher authorities for the appointment of officials and in passing upon complaints relative to elections of councilors, the means best adapted to do away with the evil influences of caciquism. As caciquism is to be found among the wealthiest and most enlightened people, it is evidently difficult to overcome its influence, as the majority of the offices have to be filled from among these persons, both in the provincial and municipal governments, and this, instead of diminishing, increases and strengthens its influence. In trade, industry, and in the internal affairs of the pueblos, and more particularly in provincial

and municipal elections, is principally where the pernicious influence of the autocracy of caciquism is felt.

I will leave no means untried to diminish, so far as possible, the influence of this evil in order that the pueblos may be freed from this yoke, which converts the illiterate into automatons and slaves of the cacique.

POLITICO-SOCIAL CONDITIONS.

As most of the inhabitants of this province are small landowners, few of them devote their time to the study of the political affairs of the country, nor do they pay any attention to the subject, but rather apply themselves to the cultivation of their more or less extensive holdings.

This condition of tranquillity is strengthened by the fact that there are no large landowners whose wealth and superior culture might place them in a position to exercise oppression upon their tenants or employees, and by the fact that there are not many natives in the province who have academic degrees, and that the few exceptions who during their stay in Manila formed ideas as to the value of different systems of government and consider themselves politicians, should be taken rather as egoists who, desiring office or privileges, represent but the ideas of their friends and protectors from whom they expect some advantages, so that, in my opinion, in the true acceptation of the word, there is not a single politician in the province.

The peace and tranquillity that have prevailed throughout the province during the past fiscal year, the simplicity of its inhabitants whose love for the soil is repaid with large returns to those who till it, prove the correctness of my humble judgment.

The inhabitants of La Union realize what their best interests are, and bow down before the public authorities, realizing that they are the safeguard of the rights of all.

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH.

The sanitary conditions of the province have undergone a remarkable improvement, as is testified to by the health inspectors, who have found the province clean. It must be remarked that this cleanliness of the pueblos is not temporary, while the time of inspection lasts, but permanent, owing to the constant vigilance exercised by the president of the provincial board of health, who frequently visits the different pueblos of the province and makes the visits extensive to their barrios.

During the past fiscal year there were 2,964 deaths, classified as follows: Married, 347 males and 266 females; widowers, 133; widows, 161; single, 148 males and 131 females; children, 943 males and 781 females; unclassified, 36 males and 18 females. As may be seen, the largest death rate is among children, with a total of 1,724, 546 of whom died of convulsions.

The diseases that have caused the greatest mortality are: Typhoid fever, 114; malaria, 466; smallpox, 301; dysentery, 66; tuberculosis, 135; convulsions in children, 546; diarrhea, 116; senile debility, 228. Of the latter there have been cases of deaths of persons 120 years of age.

The only epidemic that appeared in the province was smallpox, which was prevalent in every pueblo during the past year, though with less disastrous results than during former years. The pueblos that have suffered most from this epidemic were in the south of the province-Tubao, Agoo, and Santo Tomás. There wers 722 cases and 301 deaths. To combat the disease vaccination has been constantly carried on among the inhabitants of the pueblos infected, 53,118 persons, young and old, having been vaccinated.

In order to expedite this work the provincial board of health requested the assistance of the department of public health at Manila, which sent 1 medical inspector and 14 vaccinators, who rendered services in the pueblos of Bacnotan, Namcapacan, Balaoan, and Bangar.

There were 6,841 births.

Among animals the mortality was as follows: 36 horses from glanders, 19 from surra; among carabaos, 33 from rinderpest, 27 from foot-and-mouth disease; among cattle, 6 from rinderpest and 3 from foot-and-mouth disease.

To combat the epidemic among animals the central health department at Manila sent 2 veterinary surgeons to this province, but we do not know what results the treatment employed by them has given. Respectfully submitted.

J. LUNA,

Governor Province of La Union.

The GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.

REPORT OF THE GOVERNOR OF THE PROVINCE OF ZAMBALES.

OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR, PROVINCE OF ZAMBALES, Iba, July 13, 1905. SIR: Never, during the four years, approximately, that I have been administering this province, has it passed through so difficult and despairing a period of trial as during the past fiscal year. Poverty and want, though great the year before, were still greater as the result of various calamities, namely, rinderpest, Asiatic cholera, locusts, and drought. Cattle were fewer, though few before, as the small number that survived the first epidemic were reduced very much owing to a repetition of said calamity; it was the same with drought in the majority of the pueblos. It was in the midst of such difficulties precisely when the province must needs lose nearly one-half of its old-time pueblos that, at their own request, were consolidated with the province of Pangasinan, the result of which was not a few losses to the reduced and newly formed province of Zambales, through its becoming responsible for a number of previously contracted and unsettled obligations of the pueblos annexed to Pangasinan, which province, on the other hand, became entitled to collect the taxes from the said pueblos that were due but uncollected on January 1, 1904. So critical and insupportable did this state of affairs appear that the immense majority of the people of Zambales feared that in the end their beloved province, with all its abnegation and patriotism, would succumb and lose its autonomy, though others less pessimistic, or perhaps more conscious of its strength, never doubted that its existence was, as formerly, assured by its own natural resources when backed up by the intelligent, methodical, and efficient action of the officers in charge of the custody and administration of provincial interests and for untoward events by the valuable, magnanimous, and paternal protection of the general government of these islands; especially as at the head of those who so thought and with whom the writer sided was our good friend the provincial supervisor-treasurer, Mr. Ferrier, a worthy official from any point of view, intelligent, upright, and industrious, whose opinion on the subject, by reason of his office, was not only weighty but decisive. The province has in fact practically responded to our legitimate hopes, and this has enabled us to manage it during the entire last fiscal year, though modestly, yet with its own legal revenues and without having recourse to extraordinary measures, notwithstanding the not few losses of more or less consideration which its inhabitants suffered in their property, revenues, and other means of livelihood.

Agricultural production, the principal source of wealth of Zambales, was scant and costly; scant for the reasons above set forth, and costly on account of a raise in wages of two-thirds over the amount formerly paid to laborers employed to do the several kinds of work pertaining to agriculture. The wealth in cattle, on the other hand, was reduced to 10 per cent of what it formerly was, and for this reason could no longer be, as in the past, a most valuable subject of commercial transactions for its

owners.

Naturally such transactions were very rare and yielded little or no profit when not made at a loss in a province like this, whose principal products were agricultural and in stock raising. Aside from this all of the grain harvested could not be sold except at less than half the price it brought in this market the year before, owing to that brought from China to these islands, which was quoted in the different provinces of the archipelago. In some of the pueblos, however, the inhabitants were engaged profitably in the extraction of forestry products, such as lumber for building purposes, timber for charcoal, rattan, and guins. Though agriculture and commerce did not prosper in the preceding fiscal year, many inhabitants in nearly all the pueblos of this province continued to occupy themselves in planting cocoanuts and maguey during that period of time, some of them on a large scale, so that these plantations may in the not far distant future considerably improve agriculture and commerce in Zambales, while the cattle industry is recovering, which it will continue to do, though slowly, unless its natural increase is arrested by the terrible rinderpest that is liable to frequently reappear.

In this connection I must state that in the month of April of the present year, 1905, several deaths of carabaos from that pest occurred in the municipality of San Marcelino. Their number up to the present time, when the disease unfortunately still exists at several places in that pueblo, is 30 head. The mortality has not been greater on account of the efforts made by the inhabitants and the municipality, who adopted measures tending to prevent contagion and the propagation of the disease. In the same month of April I reported it to the commissioner of public health, giving the symptoms and other details of the disease, at the same time asking him kindly to send veterinarians to inoculate the serum which gave such good results in the Visayas, but I have not been able to obtain them so far, due, it appears, to lack

of personnel, and this I deplore, because if that remedy had been applied this disease would perhaps not exist in that pueblo to-day, and one would not fear, as one unfortunately must fear, the close and imminent danger of an infection of the neighboring pueblos.

As there was scarcely any business, as has been already stated, there was necessarily a lack of money in those pueblos where the inhabitants generally depend upon sales of their cattle to get money. This did not prevent them, however, from tiding over their misfortune, inasmuch as there came to their assistance, in a really providential manner, first some thousands of cavans of rice sent here by the insular government for work on the construction of the provincial high school, that were afterwards sold, by superior authority, to the needy classes at very low prices owing to the fact that the rice might have spoilt if the work was not started. This sale was really a great help to the popular masses, as was also the subsequent construction of the new wagon road from Iba to Capas, where numerous laborers went from several pueblos of the province and found an honest means of livelihood for themselves and their more or less numerous families, and were enabled, at the same time, to meet their municipal and provincial obligations, so that the benefits derived by said inhabitants from that new insular road were made extensive to the municipalities and the province, from a financial point of view, because had this insular road not been built, the aforesaid taxpayers, at least the majority of them, would not have been able to pay their taxes for lack of means, nor would the municipalities and the province been able to collect the taxes. However, as to the improvement of the road between Capas and Iba and the consequent natural advantages thereof for the transportation of goods and for travel, which will assuredly favor this province, the inhabitants thereof will for the present not enjoy said advantages in the fullest extent, for the reason that there can not be any personal safety for the travelers on account of the large tracts of uninhabited land which the new road traverses and, on the other hand, the proximity thereof to the settlements of Aetas of the most savage kind, who are not disposed to trade with civilized people, and to the existence of almost inaccessible places of refuge for brigands, and the lack of detachments of armed forces at any point on the road. It is hoped, however, that this small difficulty will disappear as the old barrios burnt and destroyed during the late war with Spain are rebuilt and repopulated. Then, thanks to this new road, the commercial relations of the inhabitants of this province with those of the provinces of Pampanga and Tárlac will be more frequent, easy, convenient, and advantageous, and the economic conditions of this province will considerably improve, all the more so if the present government of these islands, that has worked from the start for the improvement, progress, and welfare of their inhabitants, determines to allow Zambales, like many other provinces in the archipelago, to participate in the advantages brought by the railroad by permitting the construction of a line along this wagon road which, besides being of immense length, traverses very extensive lands, a great portion of which are suitable for agriculture on account of their fertility and are covered by immense forests that produce the best class of timber on earth, and mountains in whose bowels are hidden mines of coal and metals of various kinds, which have not yet been worked.

Thanks to the unsurpassable zeal, exemplary activity, uncommon ability, and tested honesty of our provincial supervisor-treasurer, the operation of the department in his charge has been maintained with regularity as demonstrated by the following statement of the disbursements made during the past fiscal year: