Mountain farmers and the mining prospects

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Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Title: Mountain farmers and the mining prospects
Language: English
Source: The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume XVII (Issue No.4) April 1937
Year: 1937
Rights
Abstract: Letter from Reverend Vincent H. Gowen of Besao, in the Sagada Mission country
Fulltext: 20 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL April, 1937 Mountain Farmers and the Mining Prospects —Letter from Reverend Vincent H. Gowen of Besao, in the Sagada Mission country “I was naturally much interested in your article on Mining in Mountain Province, and in your query as to the local situation. “Besao lies on the extreme western fringe of the pine-forest belt; west of us the mountains taper away into the barren hillsides, such as one sees around Cervantes, until they reach the Abra river at Angaki. These hillsides provide room, however, for extensive systems of rice-terraces wherever there is water—terraces that bear two harvests a year—and they contain many small pockets of tropical hardwood. Im mediately north of us are thick forests extending into Abra province and taking on a tropical aspect as they come into the intermediate zone where the eastern and western rainy seasons coincide. "I have watched our fringes of forest with considerable anxiety during the ten years I have been here, for they provide*, of course, not only the local wood supply, but the regulated drainage essential to the vast area of terraces on which the subsistence of the people depends. Only the rice-terrace makes this region habitable; it would be a tragedy to see it depopulated of its sturdy, self-respect ing inhabitants and the hillsides which have sustained a picturesque group for so many centuries reduced to wilderness for the temporary advantage of people* who are not native to these mountains. “Unquestionably these forests have* been dwindling slowly, but up till now, in this district, we cannot blame* the* mines. The people .themselves have* been chiefly at fault in allowing fires ter de vastate their timber. Many of these* fire's probably are caused by spontaneous combustion in the cogon which clothes the lower slopes and which, as you know from your own experience, warms up te) the temperature of an oven; some? are? said to be set by the cattle-herders, mistakenly believing this will improve*, the quality of the grass instead of im poverishing it; but a large number are* due to the carelessness of charcoal-burn ers in the forest itself. “Furthermore, there is much waste? in getting fuel and cutting down tree's for lumber. The Bureau of Forestry has never had sufficient means to police* this district. In older days, as you wrote, the people were able to preserve? the* ba lance between their timber reserves and their needs. In Besao this balance has been disturbed, by the steady growth of the population, not because of sanitary measures (as one? might think) but because the American regime, by stopping the? head-hunting forays of the neighbouring Bontocs, has allowed the people to branch out into many smaller barrios and so to build terraces in places of which they did not dare take ad vantage when, for safety’s sake, they had to remain near the larger, more compact settlements. They have many more fields than they had a few years ago, more than enough to keep pace with the rise in population, and so have obviated the danger of famine, which they faced as recently as 1917, but they have drawn much more heavily on their forests. “In an indirect way the mines have promoted this defor estation, because a large number of Besao men find seasonal work in the mines around Baguio or at Suyoc—as an indica Sturdy Philipfint Mountainttrs tion of how this number is increasing, I can quote from some of my own figures: each June I canvass, with the help of my Igorot staff, every name in our Register; in 1934 we had 125 temporarily absent in Baguio and its environs; in 1935, 180; in 1936, 260. These men come home with money, and their first act is to build a modern, iron-roofed house instead of the picturesque but uncomfortable huts in which they themselves were born. The old-style hut, often without walls, required little more than a framework of timber; the new houses, even when the walls are iron, take much more lumber; all of it locally handsawn and secured, naturally, from the larger trees. But I believe it will not be long befjore the sawmills along the Mountain Trail will capture this market. “Since coming here I have neglected co chance to promote reforestation, part ly by example, partly by word of mouth. In our school, planting trees is a reg ulation rainy season occupation, and we have converted what was a barren ridge into a flourishing grove. Other private individuals have begun to sec the value of planting their land with trees so that in the immediate neighbourhood of the town we see many more trees than we saw ten years ago, trees wisely allowed to reach a sturdy maturity. This, of course, does not redress the wastage of the forest fires. If mining on a big scale weie begun here, however, it might soon make this district a barren watershed, so small is our margin of safety. “You will gather from this that the mining boom has not affected us greatly. Not in the matter of the forests, at least, but other difficulties, closely relat ed, have caused much trouble. During the stock-market flurry of 1933 there was a rash of claims staked, many of them by Ilokanos, who showed no hesi tation in planting their notices on the dykes of a,ncestral terraces. I was at home at the time; all these notices had disappeared before I got back in April 1934. Just across the ridge, in Fidelisan, near Sagada, the....................... in terests did some exploratory work and encountered much resistance from the Fidelisan people, who are Bontocs, trouble which Mr. Ely, of the Governor-General’s office, did his best to settle. The................, from all I can hear, were very careful to safeguard the interests of the people, but they could not down the opposition. Eventually they withdrew, after crises which came close to bloodshed. Just why they with drew I do not know, but I have heard that the prospects they found did not justify further workings. But claims in that district—whether their claims or not, I do not know—have been advertised by a Filipino company, stocked with impres sive official names, as a basis for soliciting subscriptions, and claims too at Panabungen, twelve miles west of us, which I have visited twice since Christmas without hearing even rumouis of work’s being attempted. “At present an American from Manila is running an explora tory tunnel into the mountain above Agawa, the northeasternmost barrio of Besao, just this side of the ridge from Fidelisan. His engineer, an American, has run into all kinds of difficulties (Please turn to page 22) 22 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL April, 1937 Santa Cruz-Mambulao’s Position (Notes Submitted by James M. Robb, of the administrative staff) The Santa Cruz-Mambulao Mining Company has not been content to devote all of its energies and capital to the development of its 90-odd claims in the Municipality of Mambulao, barrio of Santa Cruz, Paraeale, Camarines Norte. Besides copper claims in Zambales, chromite claims in Masbate, and nume rous other groups of claims in various portions of the Islands, the Company has acquired all of the Placer claims on the Island of La buy, Province of Camarines Sur, and has financed the acquisition of fifty-two ilode gold claims in the barrio of Padcal, Municipal District of Itogon, sub-province of Benguet. The Treasure Island Mining Company will develop the lode claims on Lahuy Island, leaving the rich Placer to the Santa Cruz-Mambulao Com pany. A new company has been formed to continue the dovlopment of the Benguet claims, Benguet-Itogon Goldfields, Inc. Taking i*s name from the location of the property, Benguet-I‘ogon Goldfields has filed its application with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a permit to sell 1*450,000.00 worth of stock. Reports on the properties by General Management Company, Inc., and by various members of R. Y. Hanlon & Co., consulting mining engineers and geolo gists, consulting engineers for the new company, plus progress reports rendered at frequent intervals by D. L. Finley and Barney Finley, in charge of opera tions, have indicated a real possibility of a commercial mine. Some 1*65,000 has already been spent in development work, and ten main tunnels have been driven, ranging in length from 600 meters to 13 meters. The company's engineers have advised concentrating on 3 of the veins encoun tered, namely, the “C”, “D”, and “Va lentin” veins. It is hoped that the lowest adit, the No. 5 tunnel, if driven about 11 meters further from its present 600 meter length will cut vein “D”, and, if driven 100 meters further, will cut vein “C”. On these veins, assays ranging from a trace to $16.80 per ton, old price, have been obtained by the General Manage ment Company at higher levels than is expected to be reached by this No. 5 tunnel. The Valentin vein has also given high values near the surface, and a tunnel has been driven 90 feet along this vein. If the No. 5 tunnel cuts veins “C” and “D”, it is planned to drift on both of them, and, possibly, winze or sink a shaft from Tunnel No. 3, which is at a higher level. A serious attempt is being made to determine whether the Base Metal .... (Continued from page 21) ippines have a keener customer than usual for their iron ore. But Japan will naturally keep the price below parity with scra]> plus haulage from ports of supply. It is interesting to note that England has abolished her duty on iron and cut the steel duty to 10% ad valorem. She is remote from the Philippines, however. All in all, a real supply of coking coal would be an industrial godsend to the Islands. Pig iron would stand a long-haul freight charge and tend to put ore prices more nearly on a level with world demands. But the coal has not come to light. Ore at the best bargain possible with a Japanese customer is the salable product. Mountain Farmers and the Mining Prospects (Continued from page 20) with the people. They have pulled down his timbering as fast as he put it up. I have not met him, as we live consider ably beyond where he turns off to reach his diggings, but he has stopp<>d off in Sagada frequently, and he apparently thinks he has a good thing. A friend of mine from Balatoc, who visited us last year, took a busman’s holiday by sampling some of the ore which had been dug up in a nearby tunnel, and did not think it worth much. Use your good judgment Choose WHITE HORSE FINE AS A FINE LIQUEUR A blend of finest whiskies, each lending a trace of its own bouquet of peat or heath er or pine; long years of slumber in vaulted darkness while these many flavors and fra grances were mingled and married together; the tongue as smooth as slow music and soft as the falling of dew; a glorious glow that spreads and suffuses and heartens with never a vestige of fire! All that’s in a name when the name is White Horse. All that’s in your glass w h n you name it WHITE HORSE Whisky HANSON, ORTH AND STEVENSON, INC. Sole Agents “The resistance to......... has been raised on the same grounds as against his forerunners, interference with the supply of water to the fields. I inquired closely about this today from an intelligent and educated Igorot. I had assumed that the people feared diversion of their water supply, but I find that what they fear is contamination of the water by chemical changes. They have hoard that this results from mining. My guess is that the results they dread are caused in the mill rather than in the mine. The Igorot to whom I spoke seemed to think the people were acting on unfounded hearsay. But the prejudice is stubbornly ingrained and may well lead to serious trouble. I believe this present enterprise has done all it could to placate the people and, by assigning shares (in just what form I would not care to state offhand) to some of the Agawa people, has enlisted a number of supporters. It seems to be a private enterprise with legitimate aims; whether it will find its claims worth pursuing I doubt. (Please turn to page 38) IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 38 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL April, 1937 Mountain Farmers (Continued from page “Krom the Bontoc region come many ugly and apparently authentic stories of lowlanders’ staking claims and registering titles to lands which have been tile traditional mainstay of whole villages. I'ntil now the Igorot ha#> not realized that his land could be taken from him by entirely legal processes. He has assumed that because his fathers built and cultivated the terraces they were his; he has not seen the necessity of securing his title by a foolish piece of paper. In consequence' he has been exploited, and—if my information is reliable, which I have every reason to believe it is—by men whose duty w:is to guard his rights. (I could be plainer, but you understand the need of being wary in such statements!) These people will resist their expropriation—and they will be shot down. Other village's, spurred on by their educated younger generation, are taking warn ing in time and registering their holdings. "That is the situation, so far as I can learn. The legitimate, responsible mining companies I have no quarrel with, though my love of the Igorot and rnv anxiety to help him preserve all tile best features of his native lift' make me hope that gold will not be found in paying quantities round Besao. Much that made his life so admir ably distinct has gone beyond the hope of re covery; this includes, I regret to say, his costume'. Perhaps I had better qualify this by saying that his costume is going; vestiges still remain, but the gee-string and the tapis and the beauti fully woven blankets, all of them so attractively designed and coloured and so sensibly adapted to local conditions, are yielding to cheap cotton imports from Japan. The Twentieth Century is in these mountains, whether we like it or not, and I look on it as my job to help ferry the Igorot across the three to four thousand years of human history which he must cover in a single generation or perish. In the process I try to see that he retains the many admirable features of his own culture and shows some discrimination in what ho picks up from the West. “But. the mines, as you pointed out, produce lxnvildering social changes, and the prosperity they bring also fetches a retinue of harpies, whose object is to separate the Igorot from his earnings. I will close with just one instance to show how vulnerable the Igorot’s own customs make him. I refer to the system of trial marriage promoted by what we call locally the ‘ebgan’ though it is lx-tter known by its Bontoc name of ‘ulag’. Whether this system was advantageous in the past I cannot say; I do believe that the lack of adequate and livable homes made it practically inevitable, and I think that the family life which the new and better houses (Please turn to page 52) Non-Status Sugar for Army One bidder for the U. S. army sugar contract this year, May-June delivery, was the Domestic Sugar Administra tion. This is the set-up of the Philip pine Commonwealth for administra tion of domestic-consumpt ion and quota reserve sugar. The army calls for 12,000 bags of sugar 100 lbs. to the bag, a total of 1,200,000 lbs., half to be deli vered May 15, half June 15. Bids were as follows: Domestic Sugar Administra tion (P.I. Government)........ 1*3.56 Juan Ki Cho, foreign sugar, c.i.f. Pier, without sales tax, and without import duty............. 3.83 Victorias Milling Co., Inc........ 5.82 Insular Sugar Refining Corpo ration....................................... 5.75 F-csh Food, Inc., foreign sugar: c.i.f. Pier, with 1/2% cash discount for payment in 10 days......................................... 4.28 The Domestic Sugar Administration’s bid, successful, involves confiscated su gar, not reserve sugar nor domestic con sumption sugar. It. was sugar milled in excess of the quota for export, the quota for reserve.to make up deficiencies in the quota for export, and the quota for the local Philippine market. Con fiscated, it could not enter any regular market; it was non-status sugar neither to be sent to America, held in reserve for that purpose in case quota shipments were short of the allotment, nor sold for local consumption. The army’s requirements offered it an outlet. less 2% cash discount................................................. $0,096 or a not U. S. current price of...........per 100 lbs. $4,704 Philippine sugar bid by Insurefco, equivalent to, per 100 lbs........................................................................ $2.925 Philippine sugar bid lower than the U. S. current net market price (per 100 lbs. not bag) by P3.558, or.........................................................................U. S. $1779 Canadian Pacific The Canadian Pacific liner Empress of Japan that left Manila for Vancouver April 12 via China and Japan took from this port the largest number of passengers ever booked for a single departure, 435, the agents report. The Pacific passenger trade could spell prosperity in capital letters with consistent trade of that calibre. Recipe for Sighting Your eyes need good light. Protect them by always using the economical OSRAM'S LAMPS. SMITH, BELL & GO., LTD. Sole Representatives Manila — Iloilo OSRAM-Q' give more and better light. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 52 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL April, 1937 RAIL COMMODITY MOVEMENTS By LEON M. LAZAGA Traffic Manager, Manila Railroad Company The volume of commodities received in Manila during the month of March 1937, via the Manila Railroad Company, are as follows: Rice, cavanes. 249,354 Sugar, piculs.................................. 837,066 Copra, piculs................................. 27,478 Desiccated Coconuts, cases......... 31.280 Tobacco, bales.............................. 93 Lumber, board feet....................... 150,509 Timber, kilos................................. 1,431,000 The freight revenue car loading statistics for four weeks ending March 27, 1937, as compared with the same period of 1936 are given below: FREIGHT REVENUE CAR LOADING COMMODITIES NUMBER OF FREIGHT CARS tFo’S bDee™a*°T 1937 1936 1937 1936 Cars Tonnage Rice.............................................. Palay............................................ Sugar............................................ Sugar Cane.................................. Coconuts..................................... Molasses...................................... Hemp........................................... Tobacco....................................... Livestock..................................... Mineral Products...................... Lumber and Timber................. Other Forest Products............. Manufactures.............................. All others including L.C.L... . 791 233 1.713 7.768 150 12s 338 147 2.7S9 112 1.112 277 1 10.713 2.882 52,028 133 2/278 2.111 L252 11.091 1.385 3.105 3,788 107 20,225 240 121 1.250 6,656 (375) 13* 17 (GO) (38) 4.104 1.630 37.937 123,562 (2.766) (118) 2.582 (38) 106 570 (1"(37) (415) (3.067) 6.351 |240.769 78,161 7.935 162.608 SUMMARY Week ending March 6...............1 4.324 Weekending March 13............ 4.336 Week ending March 20............. 4.017 Weekending March 27.............. 1.609 2.157 1,71 1 1,308 1,175 74,726 75,006 66,860 24,177 22,118 13,930 1 1,94 7 2,709 434 44,560 5A930 12,230 Total................................... 11 1.286 6.351 240.769 1 78.161 7.935 162.608 NOTE:—Figures in parenthesis indicate decrease. Mountain Fanners (Continued from page 38) (built from money earned in the mines) are promoting is superior. My criticism of the ‘ebgan’ is pragmatic rather than moral, and concerned with the present rather than the past; whatever one may think of its promiscuity— and one can see the subject fairly only through native eyes—it is a system which can endure only where there is no taint of venereal disease. Venereal disease was unknown to the Igorot until very recently (certainly unknown in modem times), and even now its risks are a closed book to much of the Mountain Province. The expected sequence is occurring. We have more and more cases, all of t hem traceable to Baguio—again I should qualify: the Consta bulary has spread its share, and I know of cases contracted in the new training camps. But the majority certainly originate in Baguio, while the ‘ebgan’ is a fertile field for dissemi nating the contagion. The virulence of some of these cases of gonorrhoea (not. surprising, I suppose, in a people who have built up no degree of immunity) is ghastly. When you arid to the picture the fact that the older people look on western theories of germs as arrant superstition and scorn any prophylactic practices, you can see the threat this single group of vencral diseases presents. Fortunately the Igorot can stand blunt speech and has no prudish reticence about the facts of the body—some of my sermon topic in Besao would get. me tarred and feathered at home I "I must apologize for the length and way wardness of this letter. I doubt if I have said anything that can be of value to vou; I have let my typewriter ramble. But you have the same hope which I hold to, that these mountains may continue to be inhabited by the people who, against such formidable obstacles, have made a home on their steep hillside. I wish you could get here one of these days so that we might have a talk; Manila is too bustling— I like the remoteness, the quiet evenings, of Besao. You would see, I am sure, much to interest you.” BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY Kerr Steamship Co., Inc. General Agents “SILVER FLEET” Express Freight Services Philippines-New York-Boston Philippines-Pacific Coast (Direct) Roosevelt Steamship Agency Agents Chaco Bldg Phone 2-14-20 P. O. Box 1394 Telephone 22070 J. A. STIVER Attorney-At-Law—Notary Public Certified Public Accountant Administration of Estates Receiverships Investments Collections Income Ta* 121 Real, Intramuros Manila, P. I. fr & ® * CHINA BANKING CORPORATION MANILA, P. I. Domestic and Foreign Banking of Every Description Philippines Cold Stores Wholesale and Retail Dealers in American and Australian Refrigerated Produce STORES AND OFFICES Calle Echague Manila, P. I. AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL P. O. Box 1638 — Manila — 180 David RATES Philippines - - - 1*4.00 per year United States - - $ 2.00 Foreign Countries- $3.00 ” ” IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL
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