Valley merits some attention from the government

Title

Language

English

Source

The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume 6 (Issue No.6) June 1926

Year

1926

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

June, 1926 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 11 P 7,000,000 Excise Taxes from Tobacco Yearly Data on Cagayan Valley- Opened by New Road TOBACCO REVIEW By P. A. Meyer Alhambra Cipar and Ciparctte Mann factoring Co. R .1 W LEAF-. Trading in grades for local consump tion during May has been very weak and was mostly limited to Pangasinan leaf as used by the smal ler cigarette facto ries. The demand from abroad, outside of Spain, has been very small and con signments made to the United States and Belgium consisted exclusively of scrap tobacco. Of the 1925 crop of Ysabela and Cagayan there still remain big quantities in the hands of local dealers with no inquiries. Shipments to foreign countries during May were as follows: Leaf Tobacco and Scraps Kilos Australia ......................... 288 Belgium and Holland.... 15,026 China ............................... 9,157 Hongkong......................... 10,227 Japan . .•........................... 41,504 Java 1................................... 8,574 Spain................................. 528,264 Straits Settlements.......... 4,353 Uruguay ..........:............. 4,691 United States .................. 10,735 632,819 CIGARS: Comparative figures for the trade with the United (States are as follows: May 1926 .... 17,584,906 April 1926 .... 17,154,776 May 1925.............. 19,041,369 Valley Merits Some Atten tion from The Govern ment Last year the pro ducers of tobacco in Cagayan and Isabe la, the region where leaf for cigars for the American mar ket is grown, receiv ed more than P5,000,000 for their crop. This does not include expense of transportation, clas sification and re baling, etc., which added a considerable sum to the money the valley derived from its tobacco. However, until very recently this rich valley which . has always given the government a goodly share of its total revenues, has been woe fully neglected; so that despite the con siderable Caucasian element in its popula tion, its development has been retarded. Aparri, capital of Cagayan and the port for the valley, is now within 30 hours of Manila by automobile. The Wood adminis tration has opened the road into the valley. All sections are not completed, and there is one gap that it is best to bridge by way of the river, but the work continues. On the San Jose and Santa Fe section Pl,132,000 has been spent; on the Santa Fe and Bayambang section, POO,200; on the Bajabag and San Luis section, P232,000; on the Cauayan and Hagan section in Isabela, P228,000; on the Hagan and Cabagan sec tion in Isabela, P42,000; on the Alacala and Aparri section in Cagayan, P504.000. The total recent expenditures therefore on various sections of the road from Manila to Aparri have been P2,204,200. This is on sections the combined length ef which is 270.5 kilometers. Work on the Ilagan-Cabajan section is not much more than well begun. Trips into the valley are interesting and instructive. This year’s tobacco crop is big (Du. of Jtqricullure Plate) making "manoa" of Tobacco. Caqaqan Vallcq. and promises to be of good quality. Corn and rice are also grown, as well as sugar cane, but tobacco is the principal crop; so that the opening of the valley and the good season it has enjoyed are a factor in the year’s business of the islands. Improvement of the port of Aparri is planned. Owing to the heavy river current and the topography of the coast, during the northeast monsoon bars from at the mouth of the river, making navigation dan gerous and difficult. It is proposed to build jetties to prevent precipitation of the silt carried by the river until it is well out to sea. This will cost several hundred thousand pesos. It is insulai- money, but only a fraction cf the tobacco revenue. The internal revenue reports show that during the five years from 1920 to 1924 the government collected in excise taxes on cigars Pl,402,005 and P28,528,884 on cigaret tes, and Pl,727,758 on other tobacco manu factures. It got beside about Pl,000,000 a year in Federal excise taxes collected on Philippine cigars sold in the United States, which taxes are remitted to the insular treasury; but it is now proposed, in the Kiess bill, to allot these taxes to the office of the gorvernor general.) In 1924 local insular revenue from the tobacco industry was P6,167,652; in 1923 it was P6,341,971; in 1922 it was P5,982,091; in 1921 it was P6,538,483 and in 1920 it was P6,628,448. Collections were perhaps higher last year than in 1924, the last year for which the reports are availa ble. The revenue from cigarettes alone is more than P5,000,000 a year. Although tobacco from the Cagayan valley is rated high among the tobaccos of the world, not all of it, by any means, is used by the factories in Manila for manu facture into cigars for the overseas mar kets, particularly the United States. Such tobacco is in fact a smali percentage of the whole, and is carefully selected and stored for the purpose intended. There are even factories using nothing but valley tobacco even for cigarettes for the domestic trade. The internal revenue law went into effect, in 1904; it has therefore been in effect 23 years. The collections on tobacco from August 1, 1901, to June 30, 1905, were P2,042,576, but perhaps an average of four million pesos may be taken for the period, as the collections mounted rapidly; and to total this sum would indicate the justifica tion for the liberal, though tardy, expen ditures on public works in the valley. Spain’s revenue from tobacco under the monopoly, 1781 to 1882, ran in the later years above $5,000,000 Mcx., and was the principal source of public funds. An annual tribute of 90,000 quintals also went to Spain from Manila. A private corporation once offered to guarantee the insular budget, then about $15,000,000 Mex., in exchange for the mono poly, which applied only in Luzon and only to Cagayan, Isabela, Union, Abra, Ilccos Sur and Ilocos Norte. The population in those provinces in 1882 was 785,000. Then as now it was the Ilocano immigrant who tilled most successfully in the Cagayan valley. The new road will encourage im migration of these thrifty hard-working farmers. COMES TO COMMERCE OFFICE W. K. Hoyt will arrive in Manila in July, to be in the office of the bureau of 'foreign and domestic commerce, an assistant to the trade commissioner, O. M. Butler. This news is received from an old friend of the Journal, Evett D. Hester, former registrar cf the college of agriculture. University of the Philippines. Hester is now in the de partment of commerce, an assistant trade commissioner; and he has gone to Madrid for duty in the office of the commercial attache, Charles Cunningham.

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