The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Vol. 7, No.6 (June 1927)

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Title: The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Vol. 7, No.6 (June 1927)
Issue Date: Vol. 7, No.6 (June 1927)
Year: 1927
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extracted text: PHILIPPINE ISLANDS unt Kanlaon (Occidental Negros) Blowing the Top Off, March 20, This Year ie massive volcano continues active. The successive eruptions, occurring at intervals of a few were photographed by Colonel R. O. F. Mann at Panubigan, the silk farm of Jose de la Vina, ve kilometers. No. 1 was taken at 8:10 a. m., No. 2 at 8:15 a. m., No. 3 at 8:20 a. m., No. 4 at i., and No. 5 at 8:30 a. m. ’ sue Contains Special Articles on Bikolandia: A Neglected Corner of Great Luzon General Wood’s Latest Picture Taken in Manila: With an Interview A Lindbergh Flight Story by a Flier Comment of Timely Interest and Permanent Value: Trade Reviews SDCDNY MOTOR OILS Look for the familiar blue sign and the blue tins, at service stations and at dealers on every motor road in the Philippine Islands. The result of 60 years of refining experience STANDARD OIL CO. OF NEW YORK MANILA Cebu Iloilo Zamboanga Baguio Legaspi IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOUR, ’-U. THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 1 EL ORIENTE CORONAS ORIENTE FABRICA DE TABACOS, INC. 732 Calle Evangelista MANILA MANUFACTURERS OF Coronas Oriente Jean Valjean Fighting Bob HIGH GRADE CIGARS ESTABLISHED 1854 YNCHAUSTI V MANILA, P. I. IMPORTERS GENERAL MERCHANTS La Cariota Sugar Central Pilar Sugar Central Ynchausti Steamship Co. Ynchausti Rope Factory CIA. EXPORTERS Ynchausti Paint Factory Rizal Cement Factory Tanduay Distillery Hardware and Shipchandlery BRANCHES ILOILO SORSOGON GUBAT HONGKONG SAN FRANCISCO SHANGHAI AGENCIES IN ALL PRINCIPAL PORTS IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 2 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1927 PELLICER’S THE MOLD OF FASHION MEN’S FURNISHERS CUSTOM TAILORS HABERDASHERY LEADING MARKS KNAPP FELT HATS FLORSHEIM SHOES For women we carry the finest fabrics and guarantee the most courteous service by our experienced clerks Manila Shirt Factory (Pellicer’s") 44 Escolta Manila, P. I. Drink Ginger Beer Delicious and Refreshing Commercial Printing is a silent but Powerful Messenger Your letter heads, bill heads, cards, envelopes, etc., when well printed, all help to build up that “feeling of confidence’’. Our reputation for producing GOOD PRINTING has been earned and merits your patronage. McCullough Printing Company 424 Rizal Ave. Phone 800 Luzon Stevedoring Co., Inc. Lightering, Marine Contractors Towboats, Launches, Waterboats Shipbuilders and Provisions SIMMIE & GRILK Phone 302 Port Area IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL eAmerican Chamber of Commerce Journal PUBLISHED MONTHLY THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS Captain Lindbergh’s Nonstop Flight (By Major W. B. Duty).. 5 Bikolandia: Future Philippines Playground (By Percy A. Shipping (By H. M. Cavender).............................................. The Negros: Drown the First............... 9 General Wood’s Last Day in Manila............................................... 10 After Five O’Clock: Speaking Personally...................................... 11 Scott, of Washington Star: His Views on Manila.................. 11 Bikol-Express Trip into the Mule’s Neck (By Walter Robb)... 12 Demigods of Bikolandia......................................................................... 15 Real Estate (By P. D. Carman)............................................ 21 Hemp (By T. H. Smith)........................................................... 22 Sugar (By George H. Fairchild)............................................ 23 Tobacco (By P. A. Meyer)....................................................... 24 Copra and Its Products (By E. A. Seidenspinner). 24 Exchange (By Stanley Williams).......................................... 25 Statistical Summary of Overseas CommerceReviews of May Business— Rice (By Percy A. Hill)............................................................. 18 Rail Commodity Movements (By M. D. Royer)............. 18 Ports by Nationality of Carrying Vessels........................... 26 Principal Exports............................................................................ 27 Principal Imports............................................................................ 27 Port Statistics.................................................................................... 27 Carrying Trade................................................................................ 27 Foreign Trade by Countries....................................................... 27 S^ss 4 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1927 (owned by the national city bank of new york) INVESTMENT SECURITIES Your individual requirements carefully analyzed and suitable selections offered through our affiliate, the NATIONAL CITY COMPANY which maintains more than fifty offices throughout the United States, Canada and elsewhere. Manila Office............................................................Pacific Building 5. Williams, Manager . and just before bed-time drink a glass of clear, cool sparkling ilsen You’ll find that you will sleep better. And you’ll wake up better too—full of pep and go- with a clear head ready to tackle the day’s problems—and a strong body to carry you through! PALE PILSEN is more than a drink. It’s a tonic! And it’s brewed specially for. the tropics! Try it at bed-time! San Miguel Brewery 7/V RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL Lindenbergh’s Non-Stop Flight to Paris By Major W. B. Duty Air Officer, Philippine Department, U. S. A. The recent flight of Captain Charles Lind bergh, from New York to Paris, awakens deep enthusiasm even among veteran aviators. In the Air Corps, flying feats which stir the public to praise, are looked upon more as a matter of course, and most aviators feel they could do what any other one could if they had the air plane and motor. But the vision of a mere boy, scarcely three years out of the army flying school, flying through the midnight air over the treacherous Atlantic all alone, save a kitten, arouses the admiration of every flyer. The more recent non-stop flight from New York to near Berlin by Chamberlain and Levine, in no way detracts from the glory that is Lind bergh’s, for it must always be remembered that Lindbergh was the first to accomplish a non-stop flight from the North American continent to the continent of Europe. . Lindbergh is a graduate of the United States Army primary and advanced flying schools and completed his flying instruction in March of 1925. Lindbergh’s feat is of particular interest to officials in the Philippine Islands due to the fact that the men who taught him to fly are now on duty in the islands. These officers are the former flying instructors at Brooks and Kelly fields, San Antonio, Texas, where the army maintains its flying training schools. Each Air station in the islands has at least one former flight instructor who was on duty at the schools when Lindbergh went through the “hopper” with his class, and some of them remember him quite well. The officer who gave him his final test to see if he could really fly, is on duty at Camp Nichols. The instructors here who re member Lindbergh describe him as a good “natural” flyer. It might not be amiss to state at this time that during the course of instruction at the Army flying schools, young men like Lindbergh are studied carefully by psychologists and skilled flight instructors to see if they have a natural bent for flying, and if after a sufficient amount of instruction has been given and the student is unable to acquire the art of flying, further instruction is stopped. The army maintains a corps of flying instructors at the schools who are without their peers, and the schools are equip ped with modern flying equipment and safety devices. But with all the excellent training that the government may have bestowed upon Captain Lindbergh, nothing can surpass the high courage of the man. He may have bet his life against the elements in true gambling fashion, but it takes courage and self-reliance to do such a thing. Facing the hidden hazards of the air, in the weird and abysmal reaches of the sky, over the hungry fathoms of the wide Atlantic alone, requires a kind of bravery some what different from rushing into battle with cheering companions on all sides. Without the aid of a sextant, such as guides seamen on their course, Lindbergh set out with only an earth inductor compass, and drift indi cator, as navigating instruments. He studied how the course of his plane cut the lines of force of the earth’s magnetic field, and by releasing smoke bombs, or possibly by other means, he checked his drift to find how much the wind was drifting him from the straight but invisible path to Paris. He did all this alone with the silence of the heavens broken only by the sleepy drone of his motor. But there was no sleep for him. After the long and dreary hours, his being merged into the airplane, and during the border land periods of sleep and awakening, which he experienced, he scarcely knew which was him self and which was the airplane. That Lind bergh’s instinct for direction and skill at keeping a course was above the average, is shown from the place he struck Ireland and the length of time it took to make the flight. He took as nearly a direct great circle or shortest course that could be flown. Many good aviators would have been content merely to strike a place as big as Ireland, with no more navigating instruments than Lindbergh used. This was not the result of chance, or haphazard calculations, but rather it showed the thought and study that was put forth in preparation for the flight. It is not always an easy thing, under the most ideal conditions and using land marks, to find one’s way, so what must the problem have been to Lindbergh for a flight over water? It is difficult to think of the accomplishment of Lindbergh without giving a thought to the two gallant French aviators, Captains Nungesser and Coli, who gave their all in an attempt to accomplish what no other had undertaken— a non-stop flight across the Atlantic. Aviators throughout the world join with France in paying tribute to the memory of these two aces who have been lost to the world. That Fate was against them only accentuates the difficulties of the problem that confronted them. Many honors have been bestowed upon Cap tain Lindbergh by the United States and foreign governments and aeronautical societies, and the modesty and simplicity with which they are being received has impressed the world. Lindbergh’s flight has demonstrated the possi bility of long flights by air. However, to suc cessfully accomplish flights of this type two requisites are necessary: The pilot should have the character and training of Lindbergh and ' should have a motor in his plane that will run, and run, and run, and never stop until the journey is ended. CURRENT MONEY CIRCULATION Money in circulation in the Philippines on May 21 was P145,970,944, according to the insular auditor’s weekly summary, and P146,405,784 on May 14. The P145.970.944 included Philippine coins, P21,297,323; treasury certi ficates, P91.456.388: banknotes, P33.217.233. Jose Paez, manager of the Manila railroad, announces an early expenditure of 1*500,000 for 50 freight cars and three large locomotives of the type of the three just put into use that were bought last year for the growing main line traffic. Maurice Newton, of the banking firm of Hallgartcn and Company of New York, spent six weeks in the islands and left Manila for home May 28, declining to give out the terms on which the interests he represents are trying to acquire of sugar centrals financed by the Philippine National Bank in Negros. B. Haldane-Duncan, who made the Hallgarten-Schroeder proposal to take over this group of five big mills, has also gone away after an extended visit here, the second in recent months. The deal remains pending, apparently, but not closed. The company got its interest in Philippine invest ments from handling insular bond issues, an activity which has been in its hands since 1921, during which the public debt has been practi cally doubled by issuing four-percents, nonFor every Farm Job Fordsorv THE UNIVERSAL TRACTOR Economical, Dependable and Powerful Has the power of 8 carabaos, does every farm, road and belt job. Can be operated on any kind of vaporizing fuel, 24 hours a day if desired. Price 1 1*1,525.00 cash. Easy terms can be arranged. Il’> itr for our frrr illustrate,/ For,Ison ,;<t,ilot, MANILA TRADING & SUPPLY COMPANY MANILA Iloilo Cebu Bacolod Legaspi Pulupandan I For every Road Job IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAI 6 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1927 Bikolandia: Future Philippines Playground By Percy A. Hill Bikolandia is the regional name of all of Luzon island south of Hondagua and Aloneros. It comprises Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Albay, Sorsogon, and the islands of Catanduanes. It is the region where the Bikol people live and the Bikol language is spoken, in various regional dialects. Comparatively easy of access by land and sea, it is a land of hemp and coconuts. The topography is broken, the rainfall distrib uted throughout the year. Rice fields claim the lower valleys of innumerable streams. Above them, the glossy-leaved plantations of Manila hemp and coconuts give the region a genuine tropical setting. The towns are solidly built. The Bikol people are quiet-minded, content to take life easy. The region has a great many picturesque volcanoes. The intervening plains are extremely fertile, and verdant throughout the year. There are, of course, frequent hot mineral springs. The natural beauty, lending itself to the ends of home-building, the springs and the climate and outdoor pleasures offered, all indi cate Bikolandia as the future playground of the Philippines. Camarines Norte is a neglected corner of the islands. Discovered by the gallant Juan de Salcedo in 1672, he found such towns as Paracale and Mambulao already famous for their gold washings. The towns clustered around Daet should have prospered, during 300 years of peace, but the population even today does not exceed that of single towns in other regions of Luzon. The mountain barriers retarded progress. The aboriginal Negritos held possession of these, and Moros from the south often made depreda tions along the Bikol coasts. Bound by heredity and environment, yet bountifully provided by nature, the people learned their contentment long ago; and a lack of efficiency in agriculture and industry is the consequence. Lack of transportation was a factor, too. In ancient days, only sailing craft; later, a few crazy steamboats; so that the people have had no means of mingling with their neigh bors beyond their provincial boundaries. As soon as Camarines Norte is linked up by good roads and the extension of the railroad, it will be much more important than at present— with its slipshod farming and its extensive vacant lands. During six months of the year, while the nortadas blow, the province is practically cut off from the outside world, for travel is difficult and perilous. Chinese control the commerce, and share in the carrying trade. Land-hungry Ilokanos to the number of 100,000 would put Camarines Norte on the map—make it a second Albay. Camarines Sur is a succession of fertile vol canic plains set between Mount Isarog and Mount Iriga and the range bordering the sea. The soil is excellent for Camarines Sur diversified crops, yet rice. Land of Nebuy to which a great part of the province is planted, does not seem to give as good returns as in other provinces. This is no doubt due to capillary irrigation keeping the soil constantly moist and preventing the annual seasonal effect so bene ficial to rice culture. Naga, formerly Nueva Caceres, the capital, has the true aspects of a city. The buildings are exceptionally good. Naga has a cathedral, churches, parks, monuments, colleges, a seminary. There is a large business community, chiefly Chinese. Upon the arrival of the Spaniards they found the “land of Nebuy” well settled by Indonesians, and the barrio system, the Malay unit, well established. The fertility of the soil plus the peaceable population induced them to found a bishopric which served, and still serves, the four provinces forming Bikolandia. Field and forest produce, an excellent climate, easy access, for those days, by sea and river, were the main inducements. The inhabitants have more of Bewitching Highways of Bikolandia: The Ammen Transportation Company Maintains Regular Schedules Over These Excellent Roads the Indonesian than those of the Daet sector, and produce enough rice for local consumption, the surplus going to Albay. There are many interesting old towns such as Nabua, a corrup tion of Nebuy. The hot sulphur springs at Buhi are well known locally and deserve a visit, in their picturesque setting. The province of Albay, with about the same population as Camarines Sur, is a series of vol canic plains lying between and around the line of volcanoes including Masaraga, Albay Malinao, and the queen of all The Beautiful volcanoes—the Mayon. This most symmetrical mountain in the world sweeps up from the sea level 8,000 feet, its crater being often topped by a plume of smoke and steam. The vagrant clouds from the Pacific form at about 3,000 or 4,000 feet, leaving the peak detached as it were, and no matter where the traveler goes in Albay his eye is enticed to this fascinating cone. It is as if some Titan had filtered sand thru a giant funnel. Its eruptions have fertilized the surrounding country as well as devastated it since the dawn of time. The last great eruption took place in 1900, the lava pouring down the ravines into the sea and deluging the shores in clouds of steam. This was at the time of the American occupation, and sand and stones fell to a depth of six inches over the valley. The capital, Albay, close to Camp Daraga, the latter with its church built on a rocky scarp, and the port of Legaspi, form a triumvirate of towns that should be united for administrative purposes. Ameri cans in Albay nearly all live at Camp Daraga, which has its cool breezes, green lawns and golf links to boast of, as well as a good climate. Albay has many well built towns, all connected up by good motor roads. Even along the shady roads are solidly built houses of stone, the work of former generations, esProvincial Sights pecially on the road around Mayon, which is a prac tical triangle of 20 miles with Tabaco, Legaspi and Ligao at the angles. Along these roads bloom, amid the glossy abaca, rustling palms and graceful bamboo, such flowers as hydrangea, poinsetta, hibiscus, and the lantana—known as Coster’s Curse in the South Seas, and probably brought, in by some visiting ship. In the Sula pass are the sea gardens, with twenty kinds of coral and myriads of orange and black, scarlet and electric blue fishes. Excellent sea fishing abounds off the coasts and between the islands of Kaguray, San Miguel, Rapu-Rapu and others. The red snapper, the pampano and the rompecadena to attract the deep-sea angler. Snipe and duck hunting are to be had in the marshes. At the foot of Mount Malinao, a few miles from Tabaco, are the hot springs of Tiwi, probably the best in the islands, and spoken of by Jagor in his book describing the Philippines in 1867. This peak, Malinao, was once active. Only last year part of the crater walls gave way, inundating a vast area of arable land and leaving it a cobblestone waste. The islands off shore, such as San Miguel, Bataan, and Rapu-Rapu, plainly show the effect of the volcanic break which forced them off from the mainland eons ago. This is per haps why the coal seams of Bataan pinch out so rapidly. There is quite an American and Spanish colony in Bikolandia—nearly fifty of the former having gathered for last year’s Fourth of July celebration. According to the Spaniards, there were about 1,500 of them located in Bikolandia formerly, but the colony has dwindled to about 300. Nearly all agree that the merchant tax is driving them slowly but surely out of business, which is rapidly becoming absorbed by the Chinese. There are other shapely volcanoes in the world, Colima in Mexico, those of Java, and Volcan de Agua in Nicaragua, but none can bear comparison with Queen Mayon—The Queen Mayon. Sweeping up of Mountains from sea-level in a mag nificent contour to near ly 8,000 feet into the blue heavens, it is a sight that remains printed on the memory. Deep in its depths, the great god Vulcan bides his time and breaks forth with periodical eruptions. The Spaniards called Mayon the Vulcan of Albay. The eruption of 1814, as described by Father Francisco Argoneses, the valiant parish priest of Cagsaua, is interesting. Thirteen years of inactivity had lulled the people into confidence. They had planted the slopes of Mayon till it resembled a garden. The prosperous town of Budiao was near the foot, and that of Cagsaua some 15 miles away. The first of February dawned calm and beautiful. There had been rumblings, but the people paid no attention, thinking it would come to nothing. At about eight o’clock in the morning, an immense column of sand and stones suddenly burst forth from the crater, and at the same time great clouds of heavy volcanic gas and smoke descended the crater and moved upon the doomed towns. The height to which the debris ascended in the atmosphere was enormous, for almost at once a terrific bombardment of igneous boulders weigh ing from two to 20 tons inundated the landscape. Some idea can be formed of their trajectory: Cagsaua is some 15 miles away in a direct line from the crater, and they must have risen some 22,000 feet at least. The horizon darkened to the hue of midnight. The terror-stricken population of the towns attempted to flee, using such means of protection as buffalo-hides, tables and chairs which were of no avail against the 10-ton boulders. Hundreds were killed in their flimsy houses, 200 perished to a man in the church of Budiao, and 35 in one house alone. The church of Cagsaua, and the tribunal, claimed many victims as the boulders crashing through the roofs buried all alike. By one o’clock, although dense clouds of cinders and red ash still fell, it was possible to see the havoc caused. Hundreds lay maimed and dying, with broken limbs and bodies. Others lay dead where they had been struck. Twelve hundred June, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 7 lives had been blotted out, and 1,000 more died from their wounds. The towns of Budiao and Cagsaua were a heap of stone, the debris in the former town being as high as the tops of the coco nuts. Camalig, Albay and Guinobatan were in ruins, rivers were changed, and the arable land lay under a blanket of debris from six to 30 feet deep. Twenty thousand people were dis persed. Ashes fell as far as Manila, Bulacan and Pangasinan, 400 to 600 kilometers distant. The ruins of Cagsaua bear mute evidence as to the sturdy building of the Spanish friars. The erect but ruined tower, the tribunal and the gables of stone houses still remain, The Ruins a few meters away from the main of Cagsaua road, and are well worth a visit. In 1914 the site was declared a provincial park and part of the vegetation cut away, but this has again grown up and the stems of the balete and lantana twine themselves as if in an effort to complete the ruin. All round as far as the eye can reach lie the igneous boijlders ejected on the day of terror a century ago, which claimed so many lives. They lie so close in places that the scanty vegetation can scarcely find root. One can easily imagine the sight that awful day. The dense volcanic clouds, the fleeing population, the flying boulders, the lightning playing incessantly about the angry cone, the dead and the dying, must have made a scene both terrible and magnificent. Where Mayon Buried a Town: Building Buried to Eaves in the 1814 Eruption: Inset, Bell Tower of Cagsaua Church It is vividly described in the tense sentences of the valiant friar, Aragoneses. For some years there was a popular song in Bikol, referring to the eruption. The remnants of the people of Cagsaua moved to Daraga and built the fine church of that town. But today Mayon, while it may brood over the past, is still the magni ficent and the peerless, spearing the blue with its matchless cone, the queen of all volcanoes. San Miguel Estate, in its exquisite setting on the island of San Miguel, is not only a thing of beauty, but an object lesson in coconut plan tations. Here, copra not San Miguel Estate of the odoriferous variety . is produced, cured, sack ed and shipped in a workmanlike manner. More important, every single operation from climbing the trees to sewing the sacks is on a business scale with each operation and its cost-production figured out to a mathematical nicety. When the recently planted areas come into bearing, they promise to make the place one of the most profit able of Philippine plantations. The winding roads, clean rows of palms, the bluffs and inlets of the shores, the colonnaded new plantings, all this is worth going far to see. Across the shimmering five miles of bay toward the mainland, the grand and imperial bulk of Mayon rises in what is probably its finest setting for the play of cloud and shadow. Behind the succession of mountain masses south from Albay lies the province of Sorsogon, the province of abaca and peninsulas. Across it runs a good road newly constructSorsogon ed and opening up new areas to hemp and coconuts. It is also rumored that a start will be made at the rubber industry, but perhaps it will be best to wait and see what the politicians who received all the rubber seedlings from the bureau of agri culture will accomplish first. While Sorsogon is preeminently a hemp country, there is always the reminder that hemp is a dying industry, except perhaps in the land of long fiber—Davao. The loud slamming of the door by the politicians after the horse had been stolen served no other purpose than to show they were more victims of eleuthero-mania than exponents of a sound economic policy. Sorsogon and the Catanduanes, however, possess large tracts of public land that will one day swell the export crops with their produce, once the real pioneers take hold and tame the wild lands to produce revenue instead of remaining a potential liability as they In spite of their being cut off from Manila until the opening of the railroad, the Bikolanos have made great strides in potential well-being. They retain many old cusThe Bikolanos toms, they still dress gaily for the ancient church fiestas in the costumes of bygone cotradias and church ceremonials. The see of Nueva Caceres has always -looked after their well-being as it has their spiritual needs. And there are many Americans located in Bikolandia, more than in any other Philippine region, perhaps not even excepting Davao, whose outlook is broader and truer than that of the dweller in Manila, confused as the latter’s is by the sirens and steam whistles, the propaganda and the fairy stories of politics. What Bikolandia needs is the railway con nection between Aloneros and Pasacao, with a real express service. Instances cited by aggriev ed patrons seem to indicate the need of adjusting Fine Parish Church of Daraga, Built by Refugees from Cagsaua, after Mayon’s Eruption in If rates, to stimulate freight volume and, induce development. But this region, Bikolandia, is entitled to be better known and will repay acquaintance on the part of Manilans. It is certainly worth the seeing, perhaps in preference to Baguio, on a slogan of See the Philippines Before Sizing Them Up. RELIGIOUS PROPERTY EXEMPT FROM TAXATION Jan. 1, 1922 Amount of Tax ^IpdibU Abra............................... . P 138,150 £•“ 1.21 Albay.............................. 1,250,810 10,9'r’’ Antique.......................... 355,440 3,119 Bataan........................... 355,870 3,1 Batanes.......................... 27,580 Batangas....................... 1,136,480 9.940 Bohol.............................. 2,213,890 19370 Bulacan.......................... 1,925,840 16,850 Cagayan........................ 3,563,960 31,180 Camarines Norte. . . . 218,680 Camarines Sur............ 1,684,740 ft 1 Capiz.............................. 1,339,880 * H.7V, Cavite............................ 1,674,510 14 /'SO Cebu............................... 5,269,530 46.010 Ilocos Norte................. 846,000 Ilocos Sur..................... 1,541,180 13,180 Iloilo............................... 4,961,020 43,410 Isabela............................ 574,710 . p30 Laguna.......................... 1,543,190 La Union...................... 491,530 4,300 Leyte.............................. 1,886,320 16.500 Marinduque................. 171,660 1.500 Masbate........................ 83,390 723 Mindoro........................ 106,860 930 Misamis........................ 1,211,290 10,598 Nueva Ecija................ 264,150 '•'.310 Occidental Negros. . . 743,380 Oriental Negros.......... Palawan........................ 199,590 Pampanga..................... 2,127,780 18,620 Pangasinan................... 4,108,690 Rizal............................... 3,391,680 Romblon........................ 115,290 Samar............................ 1,408,480 Sorsogon........................ 843,620 7.3 8C Surigao.......................... 351,260 Tarlac............................ 476,810 U* • Tayabas........................ 1,619,630 r ii.ru Zambales....................... 186,010 1,630 Total....................... . F50,408,880 C44r, ifjfi THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1 Population and Resources of Bikol Provinces Popula- Per lion 1018 Sq. M. 323,234 181 270,814 83 178,443 236 each census the Rain throughout the year is one of the prime advantages of the Bikol provinces in southeastern Luzon. A visit was made to them in May, when residents remarked the dry weather prevail ing. It really was dry in Manila, but not in Bikolandia. There it was merely a season of intermittent showers. The whole landscape was lush with green wherever the eye roved; rice was seen in every stage of cultivation, fields being plowed here, planting in progress there, while not far away the ripe grain was being harvested. It is a valley crop, on the hillsides and mountain slopes groves of coconuts and wild fields or plantings of Manila hemp, abaca, gave no evidence of a particularly parch ing drouth; they glistened emerald in the sun, or the passing showers pattered down on their receptive but unthirsty leaves. The mountains are not lofty enough to consti tute barriers such as cause the northwest coast of Luzon and the central valley to bake through out the period of the northeast monsoon; north east or southwest monsoon, Bikolandia has its rainfall, for there are many lofty volcanoes scattered about to condense the moisture and cause precipitation. The weather charts attest the fact. Experiments in growing rubber are being undertaken. The region is sometimes pillaged by typhoons, which might be a draw back to the industry, but it would never languish for want of sufficient moisture. Vast acreages in this fertile region lie fallow, but before taking this up further it is desired to state the population according to the census of 1903 and that of 1918. Province Area tion 100.1 Albay.............. 1783 240,326 Sorsogon........ 755 120,495 Areas are in square miles. I two provinces of Camarines were listed as Ambos (both) Camarines, their political separation having taken place subsequent to the census of 1918. They had been separate under Spain, but were united under the Urtited States until a few years ago. Coastal islands including Catanduanes are counted with Albay. The population in 1903 was 600,226, and in 1918 it was 772,491, a numerical increase of 172,265 inhabitants in the whole region during 16 years. On the basis of the population of 600,226 in 1903, this was an increase of 28.7 per cent, or 1.8 per cent per annum. This is somewhat below the norm which may be safely taken for the basis of estimating, from either census, the present population of any region in the Philip pines without considering immigration or emi gration. It is evident that during all this period of 16 years there was practically no immigration into the Bikol region. The same circumstances prevail today, immigration is nil. What mi gration there is seems to be outward, and no doubt it is labor going to Manila or into the Visayas—a paradox such as one would have to come to the Philippines to find, as its only parallel, perhaps^ exists in the pioneer period of America. This, however, is not a true parallel, because the men in the United States who pushed westward through thinly settled Ohio and Indiana did not do so for wages, but for homes; and in Bikolandia it is wages that are drawing young men away from their native provinces where public lands of the United States are the greater portion of all lands, and therefore from a region where homesteads should abound. On this point expert counsel has been taken. The public lands are in such a state that even a man of education, accustomed to deciphering topographical maps, could not select a homestead and be certain that he was on public land. He would have to employ technical aid, at fees beyond the pocketbook of the peasant; so that, though the land is there and the peasants too, home-getting doesn’t progress much. Diligent inquiry was made on another point, whether any of the provinces were making any official effort to induce immigration, and negative answers followed each inquiry, the explanation being made that such matters were not of in terest to the officials. The people who do live in Bikolandia, the Bikols, are contented and happy; there is cer tainly no lack of employment, and small reason for anyone to work very hard. The principal crops, of course, are abaca, coconuts (turned into copra), and rice. The data of the bureau of agriculture are published for 1910, 1919 and 1926: Ambos Camarines Year 1910............... Piculs 269,202 Copra Piculs 67,341 Rice Carans 525,770 1919............... 230,019 91,348 608,780 1926............... 341,370 Albay 171,200 1,388,100 1910............... 24,563 14,663 209,420 1919............. 415,738 229,907 503,980 1926............... 463,310 Sorsogon 198,900 1,002,400 1910............... 387,172 95,753 120,400 1919............... 324,534 94,024 161,630 1926............... 282,300 75,700 383,400 The incursion of rinderpest contemporary with the American occupation of the Philip pines, or just preceding it, decimated herds of breeding and work cattle and carabaos through out the Bikol region and forced owners of even Main Street in a Philippine Town: Legaspi at the Siesta Hour considerable estates to let their lands go for taxes, they having lost the means of keeping their tenants in the fields. Cultivation has never since reached its former proportions, and into the region that, if tilled diligently, would supply the archipelago the rice it is compelled to buy abroad, whole shiploads of rice are an nually imported from Saigon. Yet the tendency of owners of large estates is away from rice, not toward it; they look to the ready cash to be had for copra and abaca and prefer these export crops to the principal food crop, rice. Rice is an owner’s crop, the small-holder with children and a spouse to help him can do best with it. Yet the rice lands of Bikolandia are rated above abaca lands. Remote from con venient transportation they are comparatively cheap, but the rice lands the visitor sees along the railrpad and the highways, like those ad: cent to the navigable rivers, bring fro;- .jU to 1*250 the hectare. Abaca lands mange hands at 1*50 to 1*100 the hectare, and coconut groves are sold by the tree, prices ranging be tween 1*1 and 1*5, according to location, in part, but more in accordance with the seller’s neces sities. From what was learned, it would seem that bargains are often on the market, that bearing groves on single large acreages can be had for cash frequently at a fraction of their ordinary market value. With a cash capital of P100.000 one miglu expect to double it quickly by judicious trading, always confining his deals to coconales, unless experienced in rice and hemp. Mortgages even on big holdings that occasionally go under the hammer are usually less than 1*100,000, nor need they be fully redeemed by the purchaser, so that with such a sum a man might find a good deal of profitable entertainment in a region so wanting in cash capital. Unless he demanded city pleasures he would also find it a delightful place to live. Among the world’s farm crops copra stands almost unique, in that while the cost of producing it is very moderate, there never seems to be a sufficient supply and the market is therefore always several times the production cost. The stuff turns out about two thirds of its gross weight in coconut oil, and there is left a highly prized animal feed in the copra cake or meal. The oil is a prime vegetable oil and the market for it is governed by the world’s demand for vegetable fats, which increases as the world fills up, and, especially in the United States, towns turn into industrial cities. The current quotations for both copra and meal will always be found in the Journal. It is only necessary to say that the stuff has always been on the free list of American tariffs, and that the cost of production is below 1*3 the picul. Exceptional palms sometimes fruit within three years after planting, whole groves are in bearing in eight years, and 100 to 120 palms to the hectare are the optimum number. From a very moderate acreage one may be assured of a decent livelihood. Competition is such in the conversion of copra into com mercial products that the maximum market is always assured the grower. It is good bulk cargo, stows well, and enjoys low freight rates. One enemy, the coconut beetle, attacks single trees. The experienced eye can detect its presence in the crown of the palm and destroy it before the damage spreads. Care in reason able amount maintains groves in full bearing, the life of the palms being longer than the life of man. Much is being claimed for the African palm, that it is superior to the coconut; but no alarms need be felt, for if this is true the African palm too can be grown in the Philippines. The break in the Manila Railroad line into the Bikol region extends from Aloneros to Pasacao, about 141 kilometers. It is planned gradually to narrow and finally eliminate this gap altogether, in the next few years, the road issuing its debentures for the purpose. Resi dents of the region say that this improvement will open wide new areas of fertile farm lands little cultivated at present because of isolation from transportation. It would be regrettable for the road to undertake the expense unless its efforts were supplemented by an immigration and homeseekers policy that would populate the new hinterland with thrifty farmers. Once more the Journal points out, referring to its paper on this subject in the May issue this year, that the compulsory migration from the Ilokano region is 25,000 persons annually, that these people are farm peasants and that they would prefer to go to places in the islands where they could get small farms, rather than to go abroad for mere wages and leave their families behind. 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 9 .As to highway transportation in Bikolandia, it is thoroughly organized by the Ammen Trans portation Company, owned by A. L. Ammen, whose trucks run on schedule over all routes at two centavos the kilometer per passenger. Truck express service is maintained over the long routes, the public enjoys the greatest as surance of courteous and reliable service. The highways are well maintained, travel is cheap and comfortable. The road from Pamplona, Camarines Sur, into ^asacao, on Ragay gulf, is to be completed, after which it ought to be possible to leave Legaspi in the afternoon by train or express truck to Pasacao, and get a night boat there to land one in Manila the following morning. It is not want of trans portation that will make the region advance slowly, but lack of population. An advantage of linking up the railroad ought to be the direct shipment of cattle by night trains into Manila. The region has extensive grazing lands and might produce large quantities of beef, but at present the cattlemen deliberately limit their herds because transportation facilities beyond the region’s boundaries practically exclude them from the Manila market. “I have about 500 head of grade Indian beef cattle,” one planter said, “and could just as well have 5,000 head, but it doesn’t pay.” Mean time 60 per cent of Manila’s beef supply comes from abroad. If the contract, 20 per cent, for cattle importations from Indochina is forfeited, as the holder has announced, this would leave 40 per cent of the supply coming from Australia, chiefly because of the mean facilities offered local cattlemen to ship to Manila. Listing the lands of Bikolandia by the forestry bureau’s classification, in hectares: Albay. Commercial forest, 53,308, alienable 20,408; noncommercial forest, 98,679, alienable 75,179; cultivated, 89,294 (35.4%); open land, 11,004, alienable 11,004; mangrove, 240; total, 252, 525 hectares. Camarines Norte: Commercial forest, 140,120, alienable 55,320; noncommercial forest, 38,560, alienable 35,560; cultivated, 20,824 (10.3%); open land, 480, alienable 480; man grove, 1,860; total, 201,800 hectares. Camarines Sur: Commercial forest, 193,876, alienable 78,676; noncommercial forest, 105,276, alienable 96,476; cultivated, 141,717 (26.3%); open land, 91,641, alienable 88,641; mangrove, 4099; total, 536,609 hectares. Catanduanes (elsewhere included with Al bay): Commercial forest, 112,242, alienable 45,142; noncommercial forest, 2,925, alienable 2,425; cultivated, 28,205; open land, 2,720, alienable 2,500; mangrove, 1,020; total, 147,112 hectares. Sorsogon: Commercial forest, 27,798, alien able 10,998; noncommercial forest, 50,840, alienable 42,340; cultivated, 101,811 (53.9%); open land, 6,240, alienable 4,040; mangrove, 2,122; total, 188,811 hectares. In this magnificent timber region few mills are operating, though the ordinary run of the cut will lay down on the Atlantic seaboard at $130 or thereabouts per 1000 board feet, freight less than $30 all told. Such are the opportu nities. The Cadwallader-Gibson company oper ates two mills, combined capacity 57,000 board feet daily. Worrick and Payne have a 3000foot mill; the Catabangan Sawmill’s capacity is 10,000 feet, that of the Pinagdapian Sawmill is 12,000; Ruiz and Rementeria’s mill cuts 8,000 feet at capacity, that of M. Dy Liacco 5,000, that of the Albay. Gulf and Pacific company 8,000, and that of the South Catanduanes Lumber Company 2,000. The sawmill business is evidently in its infancy. Again the railway extension would be of assistance. Visitors are astounded at the condition of the ocean ports, Tabaco and Legaspi. They have been opened to ocean vessels, there is a customs service, but the ports are unimproved, the harbors likewise. Engineering difficulties are presented. If these are insurmountable then the business of handling cargoes will always take a heavy toll. Depths are great, in the harbors, even near shore; in anchoring, hundreds of fathoms of cable must be paid out ; there are no riding lights, so that the utmost vigilance on the part of masters is required during heavy weather when ships may drag their anchors, to prevent their piling up shore. Against emergencies a good head of steam must be maintained, so that at any moment ships may put out into the open roadstead until calm waters make the approach to shore safe again. Even the approach to Tabaco is not marked, delays are encountered by mariners in ascer taining the passage. Once in, the poop of a vessel is rammed up to a bamboo runway set up on bamboo stilts and supporting a wooden-rail track on which men push small flatcars back and forth to a bamboo slat platform next the ship, where a dump is maintained from which teams of pingamen, with their palmabrava porter’s staves and rattan loops for the bales or cases, carry the cargo to the hold. It is same in unloading, the process merely being reversed. All these men must draw at least one peso each per day, the labor expense and the time involved are surely excessive. The bamboo runway is supplemented by an odd device. Lighters are brought to shallow water, where sea-going carts pulled by teams of three carabaos each lurch up alongside and fill them. Then these lighters are polled over to the ship’s side and the cargo is placed aboard. Of an inter island ship it was observed that a shoreboat had been made of one of the lifeboats and a temporary tackle for hoisting copra and abaca aboardship was devised on the davits with some spare hooks, blocks and cable. Nothing could The “Negros”: Drown the Women and Children First The interisland steamship Negros, 312 gross tons, coastguard vessel built for the insular government about 25 years ago and purchased some five years ago by the Yangco company, capsized and sank May 26, two hours out from Romblon bound for Manila “through the north channel of Romblon steering toward Banton island,” according to Chief Officer S. de Guz man’s sworn statement, who saved his life. The Negros, Guzman says, developed a heavy list to starboard two hours out of Romblon. In the heavy weather, coming on suddenly, a maneuver to starboard and then to larboard (which he says the captain, Juan Altonaga, ordered) served but to accentuate the list so that the vessel could not be steered dead ahead again, and toppled over, sinking within two minutes. The heavy list caused panic among the passen gers. The lifeboats were not got down for them, most of them either drowned or were eaten alive by sharks; and of these helpless victims of the tragedy, many, if not most, were women and children, it appearing from accounts to date that only seven women and girls were saved. Yet the Journal feels in recounting this fact that much may be forgiven the men, the danger seemingly having appeared without the least premonition and the con sequent panic having been sudden and terrible. Guz man himself, seeing all was lost, made his way from the bridge through a port and onto the last of four life rafts launched, and largely occupied, by frantic mem bers of the crew. In his own affidavit as published in the Tribune he does not say that he rebuked the crew or tried to restore discipline so that the obligat '-qs to the passengers eoulu. undertaken, the panic „ ms wholly to have possessed him: “As the sailors were crowded on the four life rafts while others were still swimming here and there, I ordered them to distribute them selves equally on the four rafts and to give room to those still in the water.” Altonaga and his two sons, returning to school with their father from vacation in the provinces, be more cumbersome. It was learned, too, that for an ocean vessel to discharge a cargo and load another spoils the better part of two weeks, during all which time, through a great part of the year, she must be on the alert against squalls and the necessity of pulling out into the road stead. Such is the neglected condition in which the insular government, extracting large revenue from the products of Bikolandia, has, up to date, left its leading ports. The aspect of all the towns is pleasing, be speaking the languid contentment of the people with their ample prosperity and their trust in their ancient culture as influenced by their adoption of Christianity. There is the broad open plaza, the brooding church and convento beside it, and for the rest, the rows of two-story buildings, stone below and lumber above, some times arcaded over missing sidewalks where pedestrians take to the streets or step gingerly among the broken granite slabs. It is indeed much like districts still found in Manila, and it is alluring—in character, something to be modi fied without ever being destroyed. Agents and factors of Manila houses occupy some of the build ings on main street in port towns of Bikolandia, their warehouses are below and their living quarters above. There are a few Spanish establishments, the rest are Chinese almost exclusively. Chinese, it is seen at a glance, have the business of the region; they are Dives in Bikolandia, and others get the leavings. went down with the ship. It is abundantly testified he had his pistol in his hand, and the absuidity that he killed his children and then himself cannot be believed while there is every reason to surmise he was desperately trying to enforce discipline, perhaps, if not certainly, to get the boats down and the passengers into them. About eighty-seven persons seem to have saved themselves on the four rafts. The Tribune of June 5 fixes the crew at 29, and 22 are among the saved, together with 13 student officers. An official of the company has been quoted as saying, in effect, that these men were experienced and could keep their wits about them, so that they were able to save themselves, while the inexperienced and terrified passengers were not. This may be taken as an unconscious cynicism, or as a testimony to the cheapness of human life in the islands. The saved to the number of 87 were taken on to Masbate on the company’s ship Sontua making her regular run one week after the catas trophe, with a committee of investigating offi cials aboard. The Sontua brought these passengers and the committee back to Manila June 7. The saved drifted two days on the rafts and were naked and famished. They drifted^to The ".Negros" points on Bondoc peninsula, Tayabas, where the inhabitants succored them until the tardy relief from Manila and other points was prof fered. Bodies of the lost had already drifted (Concluded on page 1 ?) 10 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1927 EDITORIAL OFFICES American Chamber of Commerce 14 CALLE PINPIN P. O. Box 1638 Telephone 1156 GENERAL WOOD’S DEPARTURE Major General Leonard Wood became governor general of the Phil ippines October 15, 1921, six days after he was 61 years old, hi$ birthday being October 9, 1860. On May 28, this year, when he had been at the job of the executive administration of these islands five years, seven months and thirteen days, he left Manila with Mrs. Wood for a foiirmonths’ visit to the United States, expect ing when he departed to return to Manila in September. His plans were to visit the Presi dent at the summer Whitehouse in the west, to go to Washington and confer with the secretary of war, and to go to New York and other points on more personal matters—af fairs of business and visiting with relatives and friends. General Wood’s memoirs, if he decides to put them into ma nuscript, are a matter of great concern in the publishing world. It is quite possible that some bid for them will be accepted and some announcement made while he is in Amer ica. Moreover, he is not physically so hearty as he once was; he un derwent two surgical operations late last year, his paralysis grows no better; though he was mentally in fine fettle when he left, and though he then had every intention to return to Malacanang, there exists the inevitable con jecture that circumstances may combine to alter his plans and cause him to remain irf the United States. Come October 9, he will be 67 years old. The accompanying photograph of him was taken May 27, the day before his departure. The bust in the lower corner is a reproduction of the painting by Amorsolo made in the early period of his administration. On the afternoon of May 28, General Wood had the foreign corre spondents up to Malacanang. He sat out on the west veranda and talked to them. They shook hands, took seats in a semicircle and were almost like bashful boys. They knew, of course, it was a precious moment—which General Wood extended into more than half an hour—but their questions were few and diffident, far from the point. “Do you plan to get a great deal of rest in America, General Wood?” This brought out the humorous twinkle of the eye and the quizzical wrinkles. They knew, he said, how much rest he should have, whatever his plans might be. But the ice was broken. General Wood began to talk. The subject was his administration and the present condition of the islands. There was an interlarding of remarks on politics. "You have not seen my annual report for last year, it isn’t out here yet. It tells of conditions. I find the country prosperous, the people contented and happy, willingly cooperating. I say that there has been cooperation from both the people and officials, including the legislature; any talk of a stalemate here is absurd. The legislature passed quite a number of bills, some of which I could not approve. This only signifies an honest difference of opinion; it occurs every where ■-everywhere that men have a right to their opinions. Such differences can’t be construed into noncooperation. We were able to agree on a great many things.” He was assured by correspondents recently in the provinces that international feeling was good, that the people never had held him in higher esteem. (While the subject was not mentioned, this really referred to opinion developed by the board-of-control incident and the procedure of Malacanang subsequent to the decision of the supreme court sustaining his abolition of the board last November.) Stating that the finances of the government were satisfactory, the cash surplus large, General Wood adverted to the fact that taxes can be made no higher, nor the government revenue much increased, until there is further economic development. “I am opposed to exploitation, which must not occur, but we need more capital here to develop our natural resources, not to exploit them, and the people need to be informed that American capital is not foreign capital. The people have made tremendous progress in the past 25 years, I don’t recall an historical parallel to what they have done, with our assist ance and encouragement; but notwithstanding this, much remains to be done—in health, education, public improvements—and it can only be done with greater revenues, to be had from greater development and utilization of our resources.” This reminded him of a letter he had received recently from a Dutch expert who had visited the Philippines, who wrote that under the Dutch system of administration the tobacco crop of the Cagayan valley would be worth hundreds of millions of guilders a year. He remarked a mere beginning in improvement of the crop, he had recently been shown premium leaf grown from the same seed as was the leaf in an adjacent field but bring ing ten times as much on the market because of care in growing and curing. A great obstacle exists, he found, in reaching the people, for the want of a common language. About a third of the school population was to be found in the public schools, the people manifested eager desire for education and the schools were packed, but the time hadn’t arrived when an under standing and use of English was universal. Differences in native dialects were marked; he had more than once taken the Apo, with a command of half a dozen dialects as well as English and Spanish among her officers, into towns where they found no one to whom they could talk—until some body who had been away to school and was able to speak English turned up. “I wish to give a wide distribution to the President’s letter on the plebiscite bill, the only way this can be done is through translations. It is a question of time, this medium to reach the people. I think the radio will help. Those who have knowledge of English or Spanish can receive infor mation and news and convey it to the people in their own language.” Reference to the Apo elicited a query as to how many miles he had traveled on the trips of inspection during his administration. No exact record had been kept, single voyages had been 3,000 miles; altogether they would total several voyages around the world. He had been 17 times to Culion alone, purposely going there frequently to relieve the dull routine of the patients’ lives. Culion was now far different from what it was five years ago; its drab aspects were gone, the people had an air of genuine cheer fulness; there were seventeen doctors where there had been two, and some 3,000 patients under treatment where there had been 17. More than 1,000 patients have been discharged, cured. In the United States he didn’t want to make many speeches, but he certainly would speak in behalf of the lepers. He had con fidence in the commit tee now engaged in rais ing money for the col ony at Culion, he want ed to help too. Leprosy could be stamped out, and a great humanita rian work accomplished like that of ridding America and the West Indies of yellow fever. It must be done. He appreciated what the legislature was doing, out of all the money voted for public health work more than a third had been voted to Culion. The trouble was that the revenues were too low to meet all the claims upon them, yet it had been found that 70 per cent of leper cases found and treated in the early stages could actually be cured. Ninety per cent respond to treatment; the work was approved and admired by the medi cal scientific world, with success in sight success must be achieved. One old Filipino he wished to mention, Cas tanovas, who had done a June, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 11 great deal for the colony and yet was never in the publicity. He had gone down there and opened truck farms that were now supplying the colony abundantly with vegetables—more than could be consumed. An excru ciating duty was the isolation of the children born to leper parents, since they are all born clean. This thought brought unstinted praise of Dr. Fabella of the welfare bureau, who is charged with responsibility for the care of the 300 children brought up to Manila and is looking after them well. Eventually they must have homes, better an ordinary home than an in stitution—such a place, as he had found with the orphans in Havana, was the last place in which to bring children up. Roads were required on Culion, since it isn’t a small place, as many suppose, but is 18 miles long and eight or nine miles wide, a sizable island; and when roads are built and jitneys installed to carry the patients into the colony center for treatment, then the patients not too far gone can live out on little acreages of their own and enjoy home surroundings. Finally, everything in the Philippines was going well; he had just wanted to get the correspondents together for a little farewell chat. Play the game, boys; everyone must always play the game. He had absolute confidence in Vice Governor Gilmore, “your new governor general.” Good bye, then, until September; and carry on, there’s nothing like seeing the thing through. The pleasant attitude of imperturbable patience and the restive purpose to accomplish great designs were equally manifest as General Wood rose at last from his chair to bid his visitors adieu and receive their good wishes for a happy trip and early return. He rose slowly, painfully—“that dashed auto accident was pretty bad after all, I told Read to get me out carefully, for I believed I was broken somewhere!”—but he had a light word of jest or raillery for each scribe as they filed by the table against which he leaned for support. That was General Wood on his last afternoon in Manila. Journal readers see him here as he then looked. The motor accident had happened three weeks before, when he was returning to Manila from summering in Baguio. South of Baliuag the driver lost control of the car, which bolted into a deep ditch and turned part way over. General Wood was badly bruised and jostled. Major Burton Y. Read, U.S.A., was with General Wood in the car. AFTER FIVE O’CLOCK A. T. Sylvester, acting director of public works, has denied permission to the Manila Yacht Club to lease Fort San Antonio de Abad for a clubhouse for 50 years. He says the action would conflict with the development of the Bumham plan of the city in that locality, but that the club may build a clubhouse of its own there. Rear Admiral Sumner E. W. Kittelle, U.S.N., commanding the naval forces in the Philippines, is informed of recent soviet activ ities respecting the tranquillity of the naval station at Cavite, and believes it will not suc ceed, the movements of radicals being closely watched in the Philippines. Soviet emissaries, at a meeting of Legionarios del Trabajo of Cavite, broached the question of destroying the arsenal supplies; but among the 2,600 Fili pinos employed by the navy in civilian capaci ties, all who were Legionarios have been com pelled to drop their membership and give per sonal pledges of loyalty. Of course the naval authorities feel confident of protecting their stores. Judge Anastacio Teodoro of the court of first instance has been exonerated for respon sibility for the death of a Japanese struck by his automobile on the road to Baguio, the maim ed person dying from his injuries. There was but one eye witness. Secretary of Justice (acting) Luis P. Torres held the evidence insufficient to warrant charges, and ordered the case dropped. The Japaqese, Chiojiro Nagay, was riding a motorcycle which collided with the judge’s car. The witness was Onofre Manipor, a Fili pino, riding behind Nagay on the motorcycle. Torres says conviction on his evidence would be impossible. Fidel A. Reyes, director of the bureau of commerce and industry, sees hope of reviving the pina cloth industry of the Philippines in the reversion of local fashion in dress to the fiber cloth jacket for men, instead of the cotton coat, and the balintawak dress for women. He also hopes the market in America will demand pina cloth, and that the art of making the fine qual ities will revive. Admiral Clarence S. Williams, U.S.N.. commanding the Asiatic fleet, has issued orders for the air squadron to base at Zamboanga during the summer, with the tender Jason, for bombing and gun nery practice. On Oc tober 1 the planes and tender are to repair to Manila. Dean Charles Ful ler Baker of the col lege of agriculture has referred to data origi nally published in the JOURNAL in replying to criticisms that a re grettable number of the college graduates seek salaried positions and do not go into farming. There is a demand upon the col lege for men to become agricultural inspectors and other technical employes of the gov ernment, but in spite of this and the usual necessity of young men to accumulate money to back their plans, a larger percentage of the graduates are in farming than the per centage in the same occupation from col leges of agriculture in the United States. Far from being satisfied with what has been accomplished, Dean Baker is less satisfied with what he considers unfounded and misleading criticism. His resignation has finally been accepted and he has been made dean emeritus of the college. J. B. Heilbronn has been elected president of the Bataan Sugar Company, other officers being W. J. Shaw, vice-president, and Miguel Scott of Washington Star Likes Manila Wm. R. Scott An alert and influen tial visitor to Manila in May was William R. Scott of the Washing ton Star, on an informa tive trip to the Far East and Europe. He tarried nine days in and about Manila. He rates the city the first in the Far East—not in everything, of course, but as a tout ensemble. Notsomany fine business blocks as Shanghai boasts, but compensations of this in other pleasing features: a waterfront to which the adjective beautiful may be accurately applied, a most preposses sing welcome to the visitor from abroad; and the great parks with their fine green catpets, and decorative tropical vegetation that gives them such an attractive appearance. “Manila is really wonderful,” confessed Mr. Scott. “She should get more tourists from America. She has, of course, the facilities to accommodate the first class trade, and this trade is increasing. Alone, however, it is not enough. Even Europe rates it of secondary importance. Crowds are the thing, each spending somewhat less, but all spending a great deal more than the more limited wealthy traveling class. “One city in the Orient can’t do much on the problem alone; it would seem to be a problem for all of them, on which they ought to get together, for the American who travels can certainly be induced to journey to the Orient. Though the trip can never be made as cheap as trips to Europe, because of sheer distance, it Cuademo, secretary-treasurer. R. Renton Hind, who left Manila recently for a business trip to Hawaii and the United States, and Jose P. Banzon, planter, complete the directorate. The company has a sugar central property in Bataan. Patrick McCrann of Stotsenburg has a dandruff cure formula for which he has applied for a United States patent. McCrann is a retired ordnance sergeant. Colonel Aurelio Ramos, P.C., chief of the intelligence division of the constabulary, has reported the end of the Bais (sugar central) strike in Negros. He was on the ground for several weeks, giving the question his personal attention. Licensed pistols in the ownership of strike sympathizers were taken up during the heat of the movement, but returned when feel ing quieted. A. M. Castro, special agent of the agricul tural department handling the million-peso rice and corn aid fund set aside by the legislature in 1918 to encourage small farmers by means of loans to augment their crops, reports the fund as of May 1 to be 1*1,332,250, a profit of nearly a third of the capital having been made during nine years. The money is loaned at six per cent, often through rural credit associations. On May 1 the outstanding loans were 1*771,072. Repayments from commencement of operations amount altogether to 1*599,930. George I. Frank, proprietor of Frank and Company, returned to Manila three weeks ago after a visit of eight months in the United States. This company’s store has been enlarged and removed to the Escolta-Pinpin corner. Mrs. C. R. Zeininger, wife of the former managing editor of the Manila Daily Bulletin, arrived in Manila June 9 and will remain in the city a month or more attending to business matters, including sale of their residence in Santa Mesa. Mr. Zeininger is with the United Press, making headquarters at Chicago. They are not returning to Manila to live. might be made cheap enough to draw a large volume of travel this way. “To get Americans of moderate means, who travel regularly, it will be necessary to put in a steamship service to the Far East that is less expensive than the existing ones. This must also include hotels, some good ones that are less expensive than the few first class but highpriced hotels available to the traveler in the Far East at present. The cost of travel to the Far East is such at present, that only Ameri cans of considerable means and ample leisure can make the trip. Hotels of moderate rates are needed, clean and serving good food, places such as travelers will feel dignified in patronizing. Providing such hotels, and steamships quoting reasonable rates, Europe gets an enormous volume of American trade; for an American can spend a month in Europe for $350. You can’t . tell in advance of coming out to the Orient what your bill is going to be—you can hardly approxi mate it. “The Orient today is not organized to attract many tourists, it would break them to make the trip. The facilities don’t reach the average purse. The principle that has made Ford wealthy, something to reach the average purse, has not been put into practice at all. First class hotels by all means, but others too: and a steamship passage that offers comfort and pleas ure without bankruptcy. The trip has many compensations, quite as many as Europe offers. Civilizations much older than those of Europe are to be studied, and the region of the world that is bound to become the center of greatest interest. Cooperation is the solution. If trav elers go to China and Japan they can be drawn to Manila and the Philippines as well. But the accommodations must be provided, here and in China and Japan and India.” 12 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1927 The Negros—(Concluded from poge !)) ashore, dispatches have said, and no account has been seen as to what was done with them. Guzman says the Negros ‘‘was completely loaded with coprax both in her hull and on deck (italics ours) front New Washington, Capiz and' Romblon,” and that she had, more or less, 100 passengers. It appears, however, that there may have been many more passengers; the rating permitted 132 passengers and there are statements about a special permit on this trip for 58 more, it being a time when students were being sent back to Manila. All rescue was delayed a week, no special ship was sent. As the press closes for June, there is nothing to show that less than 100 were lost when the ship went down and the major portion of the crew aban doned it. “I saw that to remain any longer on the wheel meant death,” swears Guzman, telling how he left Captain Altonaga alone there, took refuge on the fourth raft and momentary com mand of the four. Truth seems to be that the rafts floated away from the sinking ship, and required no launching. It is clear that terror possessed the crew, or that they fell short of the ethics of the sea. Many college and high school students were lost, youths for whom their parents had made unmeasured sacrifices. It has been said that the captain tried to turn back to Romblon when the squall came on, but Guzman’s account seems straight enough, and relates that the ship listed until she toppled over, going down screw-fashion, stern first, twisting to starboard. A shifting of the cargo, particularly the deck cargo, in cluding bags of chipped Romblon marble, aided by an overweight of passengers, might account for this. If the ship listed as badly and sud denly as Guzman says, no passengers could remain on the port decks, nor does Guzman describe fatal weather, while he does say “the A Bikol-Express Trip into the Mule’s Neck By Walter Robb In the balky Philippine mule of which Zam boanga peninsula and Palawan are the legs and the top of Luzon the ears, the Bikol region figures somewhere in the vertebrae of the neck. It embraces the provinces in southeastern Luzon, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Albay and Sorsogon and certain coastal islands, some of which are already independent provinces, while others merely have ambitions. The whole region, however, has great natural beauty. The broken topography is an enchanting mosaic of valleys, piedmont terrain and ranges landmarked with bulking volcanoes—the interstices being brooks, creeks and genuine rivers sup plemented with innumerable inlets of the sea all round the rugged coasts. Bikolandia, the Luzon region inhabited by the Bikols and Senator Juan B. Alegre, is now readily accessible in a very few hours from Manila, but remains little known to Manilans, a condition this paper is designed to put an end to; for the trip is one of the most desirable out starboard lower deck was working level with the sea,” just before the final maneuver and his desertion of the wheel when he could not steer dead ahead according to his orders. He left Altonaga on the bridge. Query would no doubt show that the rafts got off to starboard. An official probe is under way. The picture is that of the Negros, a wooden vessel. Designed by naval architects, the upper cabins were added about 1909 and were no part of the original plans, according to reliable report. They made her topheavy, a defect somewhat overcome, in the beginning at least, by ballasting her with pigiron. Other coastguarders, sister ships, were sold off and are in the interisland commercial service. Though it seems evident that the Negros capsized because she was over loaded and poorly trimmed, so that at least a good deal of her heavy deck cargo shifted and gave her the fatal list that toppled her over inside three minutes’ time, she is supposed to have left Romblon between 1:30 and 2 p. m. on May 26, while the weather was uncertain. Guzman says Altonaga first planned to remain in Romblon until the next day, but received reports of the weather from the postoffice that decided him to put to sea, Guzman protesting but not seeing the telegram. Another account is that news.reached Romblon about the sailing hour that typhoon signal No. 2 was up in Manila. If this warning came even a few minutes after the ship sailed, she had no wireless and could not be apprised of it. Live carabaos were a part of her deck cargo, dumped into the sea along with the passengers. Two brothers mounted two of these aquatic beasts, clung to their horns through two days and nights, and were finally brought safely to shore. This seems the only comic relief to one of the islands’ most dismal sea tragedies. ings imaginable. Daily the Bikol Express over the mainline south of the Manila Railroad, leaves Paco station at 11:52 a. m. on the first lap of the trip to Bikolandia. At sunset the train pulls into Aloneros, at the head of Ragay gulf, the end of the line. During the afternoon it traverses the world’s richest coconut region, spurns the little stations, but pulls up at points like Los Banos, San Pablo, Lucena and Gumaca. It crosses the mountain range between Lucena and Siain, and puffs busily along the very edge of the coast from Siain into Gumaca at the tag end of the afternoon, when the shadows are long on the hills and the fishing boats are scud ding back to harbor with the brown nets piled high between the outriggers and the glint of the sunset on the catch. Beyond Gumaca, a shouldering away from the coast a bit, more rumbling through hills, and clean across the peninsula, into Aloneros and the early twilight. The boat, operated by the railroad, waits placidly at the Aloneros wharf. Its hour of departure is 9:30 p. m.. there is ample time to transfer luggage, select a cabin or confer with the boy about a cot above decks, partake of an excellent dinner and stroll uptown afterwards. If you dance, there is a pleasant cabaret; the girls wave as the train pulls into town, but the place is said to be under good management. The boat leaves on schedule. The traveler remarks its cleanliness. Uniforms of the crew are clean, the table linen and cutlery invite the appetite, and you do not share your cabin with the roach family and the cimex Jectularius. The railroad has found means of relieving its patrons of these nocturnal torments common to most of our interisland craft. You read late, ample lights are kept burning, or retire early, at your pleasure. Comes the dawn, the movies say; the boat has pulled up at Pasacao, the southern port on the gulf, and motors are on the dock to whisk you away for a half-hour's ride to Pamplona, for the train through Cama rines Sur and Albay, into Legaspi or Tabaco, at your choice. Both are ports on the inner waters of Lagonoy gulf that the inhabitants designate as Tabaco bay and Albay gulf, all the same arm of the giant Lagonoy gulf, but separated by a chain of islands as emerald as Ireland in bonny May. Legaspi is reached about 10:40 a. m., and Tabaco is 30 or 40 minutes farther up the coast. Albay, the provincial capital, is hard by Legaspi; Camp Daraga, the American suburb, is distant a few minutes’ motor ride; upon business errands one would get down at Legaspi. The train is accommodating, pulling up on a “Y” and letting you off at main street, officially called something else, of course. Legaspi has good accommodations for the traveler. Miller’s hotel has clean, airy rooms and serves first rate meals. Next door is the International Club, with billiards, pool, a lounge, a reading room and a barber shop stocked with at least one good barber. He gave us a good shave, and over at Miller’s we present ly had as appetizing a lunch, with sufficiency and as good and unobtrusive service, as we ever desire in Manila. We lunched with Captain Goddard, well known attorney of Legaspi, whom we had been hoping to see, along with Governor Betts and the other old-timers, for many years—not in Manila, where they come on hurried business, or in Baguio, where they manage to stop longer, but in their habitual rendezvous, this Biko landia they praise so much. The lunch was therefore a distinct event in our prosaic life, we hoped we might honor it with a festal cup or two. Proprietor Miller rose to the occasion, he actually had a capital champagne on the ice. To find it in the prosperous homes of the country would not have been surprising, but it was even astonishing to find it in a provincial hostelry, properly cooled and professionally served. We could ill afford it, that is why we wanted it—a sacrifice to friendship. Miller’s place should be better known, soon; it is at least most of what an inn in the provinces ought to be, hospitable and resourceful. Miller looks the region’s prosperity; no doubt he has been there since the earlies, like the rest of the Americans down that way; no doubt he Now at the Astonishing Price of F2,700 ERSKINE SIX TOURER You can look over the top cf this great little car but You can’t overlook its real value ECONOMY — EFFICIENCY — ELEGANCE PHILIPPINE MOTORS CORPORATION IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL shares their sentiment about the place. * * * A character, no doubt, but our time that day was Captain G’s. He drove us out to Daraga after lunch. It is like a country club, which it is, except in name. It is up on the slopes of the hills, the proper place to have been converted into an army camp when the American troops occupied Albay in 1900, so that in name it remains Camp Daraga and is still a reservation. But the officers’ quarters are civilians’ residences, offices, etc., the grounds are golf links, tennis courts and the like. The place is in fact a country club with all essential accoutrements. Teachers are there during the school year. Unless we have the place confused with other points, the high school is nearby, and one or more Catholic seminaries. Of these latter, Bikolandia boasts many; in that old and still partially isolated extremity of Luzon the Church is by no means neglecting the business of higher education. For mountain views from Daraga or any neighboring towns, one chooses among the magnificent volcanoes, finally resting his eyes on the matchless crest of Mount Mayon. (The old legends of this mountain, and the superstitions still extant among the peasants, are related elsewhere in this issue of the Journal.) Going down to Albay, our immediate purpose was to visit with Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Oesch on San Miguel Estate, which Oesch manages, so we got off the train at Tabaco, the shipping point and postoffice for the estate. There we found our host. What about luncheon at Tiwi-Tiwi? Nothing could be finer. This celebrated mineral-springs village is 15 kilometers from Tabaco by motor road. Americans who soldiered in Albay or were stationed there in the earlier period of the civil regime recall the springs in the nude wild state of nature, but a little enterprise on the part of somebody has installed the essential improve ments. A number of pools capped over with dressing rooms have been improvised, some with cement, some with the natural stone and mortar; and there is even a small hotel, with clean bedrooms quite decently furnished. Tiwi-Tiwi is remarkable. The springs, mineral and furiously hot, bubble up through a lava blanket spread over the coast at that point by ancient eruptions of Mount Malinao. Cool streams of sweet water meander over the surface and fall into frequent pools. The people who have arranged the baths have simply made a hot stream and a cold stream run parallel in artificial canals leading through their bathing pools. Above these pools they have put in sluice gates, raised and lowered at will, to make the bath as hot as desired, or as cool; for the surface streams, fresh from Malinao’s magni ficent elevations, are quite cold. Entering the dressing room, one sees that the bathing pool is steamy clean; it is flushed with the scald ing water each time it is used, for the supply is abundant enough to bathe a nation. Get ready, and name your temperature; the at tendant does the rest. Af4s caliente? Bueno. MAs frio? Bueno. Warmer or colder, as you specify. During the bath, you are brought tumblers of tepid mineral water to drink. You down them, pint after pint; perspiration smoth ers you; you don a towel and rest on the bench, where the attendant plies you with more tum blers of mineral water; you perspire still more, and resort to the pool for refuge. This time you want cold water; a huge sluice rises on the downstream end of the pool, the warm water pours out "in a moment, down goes the gate again, and you are soon waist-deep in a cold bath as invigorating as a needle shower. That is Tiwi-Tiwi, hard by a gentle beach. Now you lunch. Afterward you may have a quiet siesta, or you may stroll about the place, making your constitutional any length—from a brief inspection of the lava-bed springs to an afternoon’s mountain climbing. On the op posite slope of Malinao are the Buhi springs, duplicates of Tiwi-Tiwi. A spot like this would be just the place chosen by primitives like the Philippine Negritos, our diminutive negroids, long ago driven from all the valleys by the later Malayan immigrants, and into the mountains—■ where they build great fires, let them burn out, and compose themselves for sleep in the warm ashes. At Tiwi-Tiwi, the ground is perpetually warmed by the springs; for Negritos, who are naturally valley-dwellers, it would be a ready made camp. In our fumbling dialect we asked an old villager what the local name for the place was, and he replied, “The place of the aborig ines, ang n aging tao madilim! The former black men!” The casual statement was dumfounding. How old this tradition, indubitably true, is—and how persistent it is has been in the mordant lore of the people. The Negritos that came to that part of the Philippines, Dr. H. Otley Beyer assures us, came up from New Guinea by the media of land bridges: the Negrito builds no boats, not even the simplest dugout, nor does he cross streams, to say nothing of large bodies of water. Having reached the Philippines by land and found himself lord of all he surveyed, he would gravitate immediately to natural camping spots like Tiwi-Tiwi, with the adjacent good hunting grounds, and brooks in which fish could be speared. Settlement by the Negritos is bou: been very long ago, but when they v. into the mountains is more prol... though comparatively recent, not lo than a millenium, possibly not more Along this coast of Lagonoy gulf is gigantic volcanoes that figure pror.i the poetry and legends of the people of which are seen elsewhere in thi? Journal. When, toward sunset of the our arrival, we put off across the bay . for San Miguel island and the San f.' tate, Bulusan, down in Sorsogon, cot seen because of the intervening lar begins the chain, and Mayon, Malinao, Iriga and Isarog were all in sun was sinking behind Malinao, the still, the bay calm, its purple waters li! carpet. Clouds flared out behind M. the loose laces of a veil tossed light! shoulders of a goddess or some proud AN OUTING TO BIKOLANDIA GARDEN SPOT OF THE PHILIPPINES Through a Gorgeous Setting of VALLEYS, HILLS, MOUNTAINS AND VOLCANO? s Under the Reign of Queen Mayon, The World’s Most Perfect Volcano MT. MAYON See the Quaint Ports of LEGASPI AND TABACO with their sea-going carabao carts and bamboo piers The Sunset on Tabaco Bay, or anywhere on tl Gulf of Lagonoy MILLER’S A Perfectly Good Hotel in Legaspi Next Door to International Club This Trip Through the Most Exquisite Portion ot | Luzon Can Be Taken with Comfort via the I MANILA RAILROAD : Starting on the Bikol Express Daily from Paco | Station at 11:52 a. m. and going to Aloneros by same i train; then a comfortably appointed Night Boat to , Pasacao, down the picturesque Ragay Gulf; then by Motor to Pamplona, a thrilling morning ride of half an hour; and then the Railway into either Legaspi or Tabaco. Unless You Have Seen Bikolandia , You Have Not Seen the Philippines. Out in Less Than 24 ( Hours; Back in Same Time. The Manila Railroad Compan 943 AZCARRAGA MANI1 IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 14 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1927 in history. The one end was tinted flame, the other green as old Nile; and then the red turned slowly darker, merging at last into a black as dead as burned-out embers. The green faded too, into blue, black-blue, dead black. Night shadows claimed the universe, the mighty heights—yes, even Mayon’s glorious self— receded into them. The sunset had been Cleopatra, sending herself as a royal present to young Caesar of Rome; the hurrying night was the captive last blood of the Ptolemies, in fetters for a Roman holiday. The sunset had been Troy, fortifying against the mighty Greeks, and the night was Troy’s anguish. The sunset had been Ahab’s rendezvous with Jezebel, asking Naboth’s vineyard to be added to the royal gardens; the night was the quick wrath of Elijah cursing the awful crime: “Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood; * * * the dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.” The sunset was Jerusalem’s defiance of Babylon, and the night was the long captivity. Hemp and rice are the other principal crops. Judge Manly lives downtown in Naga, in a spacious old Spanish house of his that serves as well for offices for the firm, Manly and Reyes. Our motor ride and calls upon the officials revealed Naga as a thriving city. It is the seat of the bishopric, Nueva Caceres, and the provin cial capital. It is a noted educational and com mercial center. Everywhere in Bikolandia one is struck with the peaceful isolation from Manila enjoyed by the people of that region. Few Manila news papers are seen, little serious attention is paid to the local sheets, copying their lesson from the metropolis and preoccupying themselves with politics. With all their efforts, Manila’s fierce debates reach the place as echoes too faint and distant to be of consequence. It is not alto gether unfortunate that this is so, nor are the people unaware of the fact. They have a very pardonable local pride and a region worthy of this good opinion. We boarded the night boat at Pasacao, another, with the same good service as the one that took us down, caught Mayon’s Towering Heights from Camp Daraga Amid such phenomena of nature the noble passages of the psalms also recur to the memory; the valley of the Jordan, which was their in spiration, is but a paltry show beside Tabaco bay at sunset. The East is a spiritual land, the Philippines partake of this pervading mys ticism, and it is possible even for the Westerner to merge his senses into such scenes and catch the constant mood of the people. Poetry is still their popular medium, and their first prose writings date only from yesterday, the latest years of the 20th century. Two nights and a day were spent on San Miguel Estate, a large plantation which was one of the Dean C. Worcester projects and is devoted to coconuts and high-grade cattle. These cattle graze in great pastures fenced off in the palm groves, there is abundant water in the springs and brooks, while the grasses are luxu riant. The same thing is practiced on other plantations. It is said to be advantageous, the cattle helping to keep the growth down between the palms; on San Miguel at least tfie cattle were fat and the groves burdened with nuts. The stop with Judge Robert E. Manly at Naga was made on the return trip to Manila. He came with the troops, like the rest, stayed to practice law and wound up by dividing his time between the bar and his farms, where he is now planting coconuts at the rate of 10,000 to 20,000 per year. Many are already bearing. the train next morning at Aloneros, and before 3 p. m., we were_back in Manila from one of the most beguiling outings the islands have to offer. I NEW Smith PremierTypewriter Writes Like “60” C. Alkan, Inc. 109 Escolta Manila, P. I. Let GAS Do Your INDUSTRIAL HEATING If you require heat—and lots of it - in YOUR business we would like to submit facts about gas. May we? MANILA GAS CORPORATION Main Office: Calle Otis, Paco. TEL. 289 EXCELENTES ESPECIALES CORONAS DE LA ALHAMBRA HALF-a-CORONA None Genuine Without the Name ALHAMBRA on Rings and Labels IMITATED BUT NEVER EQUALLED! IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL tine, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL I! The Demigods of Bikolandia MACLEOD HOISTS First among the demigods of Bikol folklore is Tulisan, who was a great chieftain at the period when the Spanish conquest of Luzon occurred, late in the 16th century. He refused to submit to the Spaniards, although most of his people did so, and with the rebellious remnant he retired to the fastnesses of Mount Isarog, warning the lowland population to the last not to welcome the Spaniards and declaring their doctrines false. When Tulisan governed peacefully in the lowlands, the region experi enced an idyllic epoch. There were no taxes, every request was granted; so runs the tradition, by no means wholly antiquated by time and experience. With the establishment of the Spanish rule, came tithes, taxes and public labor, while re quests were entertained as the governors saw fit. Lamenting the change, a contemporary narrator asks, “Those happy days of the Tulisan reign, will they ever come again?” Hardly, for the modern world presses ever heavier upon all its remoter regions, and gradually stocks them with excise men and constables. But Tulisan lived on through the Spanish days, at least in the people’s fancy, and when he walked abroad on the mountain’s slopes the earth trembled under his heavy tread. Against the intruders he waged continual war, and his guerrillas made frequent forays on the peaceful settlements. His name went into the vernacular, tulisanes signifying guerrilla bands of irreconcilables every where in the islands even now. Mount Isarog itself and the Rangas river were Tulisan’s arms. He caused the first to erupt upon the valleys at will, and the second to lay them waste with floods. Every Spanish expedition sent against him ignominiously perished, the people say, but since the Americans bombarded Legaspi nothing has been heard of Tulisan. Three detachments of constables cleared out the place in 1906, ending forever the strange enchantment, and relieving the population from terrors that had always seriously restricted communication between communities and even discouraged parents from sending their children to the col leges in Naga—since in making trips to school, and home again for vacation, they would be exposed to tulisan attacks on the lonely roads. But Tulisan was hardly supernatural, only a man befriended of the gods because of his patriotism. The real demigods of the Bikolandian galaxy dwell upon Mount Mayon. They are the incantos, hairy men walking up side down and as tall as the lawaan tree; the tambaloslos, the aswang, the calag, the patianak, and the dwende. They are all very terrible creatures, but of course the peasants have means of circumventing their malevolence. For in stance, the incantos live in talisay trees, growing at a high elevation on Mayon; and to become their friend one may have a talisay growing in his own garden. Pos session of “the white stone from the newly opened banana flower,” that of the saba ba nana, is another open sesame to their good opinion. This stone is the mutya. It must be taken during holy week, because one must have the aid of heaven in all such matters. Let it fall softly into a silken handkerchief, close the kerchief around it and run around the plant seven times, calling out all the while to the incanto that you really have the mutya. At last he says he will come and get it, and so he does. He has livid crosseyes and a revolting countenance altogether, so that you are afraid of him with good reason. But he laughs jovially when he sees the mutya, and then he invites you to his house on Mayon. You must go; whatever duties may be pressing upon you, nothing is so imperative as this visit to the incanto. You go along with him, at last entering the enchanted house with the big golden room and the colored glass windows. You dine with him there. When the feast is over you yield to his request, give him the mutya, and are sent away home with a gift of both money and food. Ever afterward you are the incanto’s friend, he your protector. But in dining with him you must be very careful to drink the white wine instead of the red, and eat the white rice instead of the red too; for the red rice and the red wine will magically turn you into an incanto and you will never get to ride OUTFITTED WITH MAKES HEAV LIFTING EAS A powerful yet ligh weight hoist much in demand by hacen deros, contractors lumber men, anc other industrie: where heavy lifting is a daily problem. It does the work, easily, INTERNATIONAL ENGINES quickly dependably. Send for our Machinery Catalog Macleod & Company 154 M. de Comillas, Manila ILOILO BRANCHES IN: CEBU — DAVAO VIGAN MANILA. S0-94LSC0LTA PL MASOtliC TEMPLE HEWING TO THE LINE CLARK & COMPANY was organ ized more than a quarter of a century ago with but one sole pur pose, to give a superior eye service to those in the Philippines. They have never deviated from that policy. They are exclusively Optometrists and Opticians and have no distract-side lines. it stands to reason that their eye service must be exceptionally effi cient. Always the best in quality but never higher in price. home in the golden chariot with the pra gray team and the harness with the silver on the bridles. It is dreaful to offend the incantos. •_ c was once a family of them living in a tc'.'sav tree that stood in the yard of the little erm"'. in the barrio of Bigaa, of the town of Le-. as: i. It was long ago, of course, when Iroy wr s ! barrio aiderman, the cabezang de bara.^ay These old-time officials were very dig.-.ir fellows; often they could speak Spanish, pc. -vw even read a little, and they always felt n r importance. Only the government a' Hr capital was above them, in the villages '! e; were responsible to none. They turned it. hated taxes, and aside from that they gene nl.y did as they pleased. Iroy pleased one have the talisay tree cut down. Protest: r. ■ the villagers availed nothing, down th must come and down it did come—thou(.. ■ ■ standers heard voices speaking from the bra n•;' ■ asking “Gently, please, you axe-men, f r are wounded!” “Down with the tree!” cried Iroy, i - axes paused momentarily. At last the tree was down, the incanti longer had a house in which to sup at ease smoke their long-stemmed pipes in the moonlit evenings. Their dishes all crashed when the tree fell. But Iroy soon repented of his obstinacy, though it was too late. The incantos’ venge ance was swift. Iroy sickened next day and the mediquillo couldn’t cure him with all the herbs he knew. Iroy was soon laid with his fathers, for cutting down the talisay tree. • The tambaloslos is as big as a man and double his weight. He has a carnal mouth, is bald and has ugly protruding eyes. His nose is big and fat, his tongue short and round; otherwise he is as amorphous as some of the notorious Olympian sprites that even famous poets sing about without ever drawing toe finely. But he has queer feet, one leg much shorter than the other, and a deformed barrel belly. He doesn’t live so high up on the slopes, either; he haunts the caragomoy swamps, where the people gather the leaves to make baskets. You can get the leaves, all right, but you have to go about it in a certain way. so as to do so with the tambaloslos’ strict permission. You IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTiON THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 16 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1927 have to tell the nodes, bottom to top, saying all the while, “Let me have some leaves of the caragomoy. Do not let me have leaves.” If at the very last node it is the turn to say “Let me have some leaves of the caragomoy,” then you may take them away. Net otherwise. Long ago, Tian Mandarusay, a widow with many children at home, went hurriedly to gather caragomoy leaves in the swamps of Mayon, because she wanted to make the baskets that very day and be off with them early next morning to market. She forgot to ask per mission of the tambaloslos, who confronted her with the dereliction right there in the big sprawling swamp. She was a modest woman, too, but all she could do was to disrobe complete ly—before the very gaze of the tambaloslos. This distracted the wretch; his wife, too, came waddling out on her short-and-long legs to see what was keeping him so long, and Tian Man darusay, seizing the moment, gathered up her clothes and caragomoy leaves and made her escape while the two stood there in the swamp facing each other as if they would quarrel. Even nowadays the tambaloslos will often cause you to lose your way in the woods or swamps, especially if you are a lone peasant girl whom he catches out on some belated errand. Then there is nothing for it, you must disrobe before he will show you back to the path again. The tambaloslos has most erotic propensities. The aswang is a familiar spirit everywhere in the Philippines, so of course it is among those of Mayon. It is like any person by day, but at night it brings out its wings by rubbing the body with unguents, first the right hand high in the air, then the left, and all the while telling off the toes, joints and fingers with a ritual about “I must stick to the dawog tree. No, I must not stick.” If it comes out right, all right; then they won’t stick to the dawog tree, which is covered with spines and a natural enemy of anyone flying about at night and alighting in thickets—such as those that commonly screen the peasants’ cottages. The aswang destroys children, and will devour them eagerly at birth or even before. To ward them off during an accouchement, the husband may keep whipping about in the shad ows with his bolo until morning comes. The aswangs leave off haunting at daylight, of course, but they are very cruel at night, as the infant mortality figures of the Philippines will show to any skeptic. Aswangs are, indeed, witches that haunt the sick and the helpless, which is why they are so bad on babies; and they assume queer shapes to escape detection, turning them selves into black animals hardly to be seen in the dark at all, pigs, chickens and cats. By day the aswangs are often very handsome men, or very beautiful women. They are just like other folks. There was once a whole bevy of aswang girls living with their parents in the forests of Mayon. Eligible young men wished to marry them, they had such fair skins and were so lovely—as if they were very aristocratic mestizas. But then the young men found out they were aswangs after all, and perhaps some jealous village damsels were the ready infor mants. One young chap went ahead anyway, he married an aswang girl who got him up beI Ex Toe Jjolcproof ffosierg GIVES 3 to 4 times more wear HAMILTON BROWN SHOE STORE AND HABERDASHERY 55 ESCOLTA 55 hind her one night when she flew to Bataan island to go to the market at San Ramon. Next morning, while she was buying things in the market, he went into a grove and plucked some fine lemons, thinking to take them home. But aswangs can’t fly or exercise any of their witch craft where there are lemons. When the young couple were flying home that evening, the bride felt her strength leaving her wings and suspected her husband had ignorantly filled his pockets with lemons. He told her this was so, and threw the lemons all away just in time to prevent their falling into the bay. Then her wings lifted buoyantly and they flew safely home. When her husband was helping her take the things out the basket, as young husbands some times will help, horrible relics of her deviltry among the children of San Ramon were revealed. She had snuffed out their lives and taken trophies of her witchery. Her sisters all died spinsters, no one would marry them, beautiful as they were. (Of course there are frequent cases of individuals and even entire families being suspected of witchcraft in the islands, though this tale is taken from the Mayon leg ends.) Aswangs can’t bear the light, fearing discovery and swift revenge; so when they are suspected of being about, all that is really neces sary is to keep a light burning under the house. Are the patianaks pretty young babies like wee painted dolls living in the flowers of the lotus, so abundant in the brooks around the base of Mount Mayon? It is said, but if so they can certainly assume other forms, and very horrible ones too, for they have been seen in the shape of creatures half bird and half man, uttering a doleful whine like that of a sick and petulant child. They prey upon infants, they .......„__ ,____ ___________ are born, to take them to the priest for baptism have had that awful are worse than aswangs for that sort of wrong doing, and they are the authors of abortions. The way to ward them off is to burn sulphur out of the windows and under the house. They abhor burning sulphur. When babies it is best ‘ ' ' '' ’ ” . ' ‘ r as soon as possible, for if they should happen die before they are baptized they might " into patianaks. Some ' ' J ' fate. The dwende is not knows it is bad enough. _ _____________ batang trees in the lower forests of Mayon. They visit pestilences upon the settlements, and often fetch to Legaspi and Tabaco epi demics of influenza. The howling of dogs at midnight and the crowing of roosters warn of Increase the value of your house —Use PLATE GLASS windows— Save your Furniture —Use PLATE GLASS table tops— Het more light in factory or home —Use CORRUGATED WIRE GLASS skylights— Ask us for prices i Squires Bingham Co. SPORTSMEN’S HEADQUARTERS MANILA IS Plaza Goiti IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 17 the dwendes’ approach, when bamboo cannons may be fired at regular intervals to keep them away. An aurora procession will also do this. It is held at midnight. “In the aurora can be heard the songs of the maidens, and a multitude of people singing pass from house to house.” The girls carry the cross, and the dwendes fear it. Their purpose to bring the town low with pestilence is thwarted. Another good way to do with the dwendes, especially before an aurora procession can be organized, is to take an empty oil can, one of these five-gallon tins, cut crosses in all four sides, and turn it over a quinque, or taper, or a burning candle, so that the light will shine through the crosses. This will protect a devout household from the prowling dwendes, who fear the cross. Ghosts prowl about in Bikolandia the same as they do in all countries. They are unwonted visitors, one has to be very careful about them. They may be the restive souls of unbaptized persons, or of criminals buried in the unhallowed ground, or again, of relatives to whose memories no proper respect has been shown. They come on the wings of the wind, these disturbing apparitions of the night. Their presence may be detected by the taper kept burning for days and nights after their earthly bodies have been buried. When they come back, the light of the taper turns suddenly low and the flame shows green, flickering to one side and the other. Prayers must be hastily said, then the ghosts will go away and the light will burn bright and red once more. The prayers ask that the soul of the dead may be given rest and absolved from torment in hades or purgatory. Ghosts may also be kept away from a dwelling they wish to intrude upon by swishing a coconut broom, made of the midribs of the fronds, at the foot of the stairway. Each broom has 100 midribs in it, and if the broom brushes the ghost it will have to descend to purgatory and stay there a year for every midrib—a round century of punishment. But however perilous it may be to come back to haunt the living, the ghost of any peasant dying with a debt over his head will certainly roam back to earth to im portune surviving relatives until the debt be paid. It was! so with Panching, the little weaver of Dona Teresa, in Legaspi, who made the fine pina cloth for her Spanish mistress. Poor Panching’s frail health gave way over her tasks at the loom, she died owing Dona Teresa Pl.50, which her parents did not pay—even refused to pay. Then Panching’s ghost had to come back through the lonely night and appear in the dreams of her parents, asking them to please pay that Pl.50 so she could get into her grave and get some rest, of which she was sore in need. When her mother awoke next morning, there on the mat beside her was the burned imprint of Panching’s hand. Forthwith, of course, she went and paid Dona Teresa, and thereafter Panching was evidently very con tented, in paradise, for her little troubled soul never came back to make any further requests. “When anyone dies in debt, the soul returns to earth and requests the living to pay up the account.” Therefore, as debts are certain to be paid eventually, why all this fuss and impa tience about paying on stipulated due dates, an idiosyncrasy of modern times? The peasants little understand it; but the Chinese surely understand the peasants, bearing with them and cinching their trade. In Main Street of every Bikijl town there are parallel rows of thriving shops, all Chinese. Establishments of other nationalities, and conspicuously those of Filipinos, are the rare exceptions. At Tiwi-Tiwi, the boiling hot mineral springs on the shore near Mount Malinao out 15 kilo meters from the town of Tabaco, are both hell and purgatory. Streams of cool sweet water meander along the flat lava flows among the hot springs, and fall into pools here and there. On many nights the villagers at Tiwi-Tiwi hear the moans of tormented souls, some asking to be removed from the scalding springs, some to be taken to them, away from the chilling pools. The night wind carries their plaintive petitions, about which nothing can be done. Now the wise and the educated know nothing of the origin of Mount Mayon, which is most miraculous in peasant lore. Where the gigantic THE HEART OF A GOOD COCKTAIL Kuenzle & Streiff, Inc. SOLE DISTRIBUTORS 343 T. Pinpin Phone 113 For More Than 27 Years Discrimi nating men have found that we do the best tail oring and have the largest selection of good suitings. New York-Paris-Manila Phone 706 12 Escolta volcano lifts aloft its perfect cone, was, in olden times, a wide alluvial plain, the tobacco plan tation of Don Baltazar. When this feudal proprietor grew old and journeyed the way all mortals must, he was buried in the midst of his tobacco fields. But he was so powerful that he actually overcame death itself, in a way, for his body kept growing and pushing up the grave higher and higher, until at last this bulg ing grave became Mount Mayon. It is a meta physical explanation of a natural phenomenon, perhaps, but simple faith is all that is required to credit it, all depends upon one’s capacity to believe. -JSTor is this all of the story. I Don Baltazar had a beautiful daughter, ^Magosgos na Doncella, who never married, but still dwells in the crater of Mayon and is 7,700 years old. She is still prettv. though. This was seen as recently as 1814, v May ■> erupted. Magosgos na Doncella ha . .pi.md.d palfry, a golden-skinned bull, on sli journeys abroad when Mayon grow; - oul m and in 1814she mounted this palfry i. < ■ pairqp to San Miguel island on him, he br; . . Ti ming the bay without the least mish c vas then that the people all saw that &’,■■■; ra Doncella was still a lovely creaturt li the years had never touched her at all. ft -vas i:cr father’s stubborn will that prevente-. her njar riage. She loved a neighboring young planter, ' Colacog, whom her father dislike-’ because he was forever neglecting his fields t- hurt ;h. wild boar and track the deer. Forb' -is union, her fathe’" said she should mar-y Soln cog’s ploddinr . ral, Paluntog. Th- :ted girl refused ■ de this, Colacog an’ >e fought, and Colacog was killed. More han ever, now, Magosgos nj Ila determined she would not be mated ■ « t.ris brute of a Paluntog; and so, in time i log wooed Area, another virgin of the vt ’. . cele brated for her beauty, purity and c .. His suit at last successful in this qi wedding was solemnized and the sturdy couple went over to Cagraray and opened a new plan tation, first lumbering off the primeval forest to make room for the fields. Three sons were born to their union, Miguel, Bayani and Juan. Paluntog became a great cacique on Cagraray, and his sons grew up to be of great help to him. Then disaster befell the family. Father and sons and hundreds of their men were one day ferrying logs over to the mainland, and fishing as they floated along. A mermaid rose out of the bosom of the waters and protested against such a heavy taking of the fish. “Why do you catch all my fish?” st isked. But the proud and murderous Paluntog, for reply, merely struck at her with a hea y paddle. This angered the mermaid, who turn-, i into a ravenous shark and utterly destroyed the- ex pedition. Paluntog and his three s ns .vere drowned when they jumped into tl 1 -ay to escape the maddened shark. After’ urd, the people saw three islands rising in the midst of the waters, the bodies of the three sons of Pa luntog; so they named the islands San Miguel, Batang and Tinatian. Mount Katumpvkar has the shape of a human form, it is th - bod old Paluntog washed ashore. When Fulutn. , people learned his fate, they gathered in the church at Cagraray and immolated then - -Jvcs in faithful honor to his memory. Their tons are still to be found in the burn ms, and the place is called Minaroso. M-. illuminations are visible there during hi-’. . - Ghosts move in silent procession arc 1 e awful pile, the lines of flickering candles . obbing up and down to their invisible steps. If a living person enters Minaroso, a storm of which there may have been not the sfigntesu premonition drives him to perdition. When there is thunder over Minaroso, the peasants in all that region hurriedly brace their houses with bamboos against the terrors of the storm that is sure to descend upon their villages. It is all very well to scout such notions if you are rich and live in stone houses, but the peasants in their thatch huts can’t afford such learned skepticism: disaster follows their disbelief. One of the wonders of old times at Legaspi was the horseless calesa of the miser Hugo, who grew rich by cheating the people in buying their hemp and copra. God afflicted him with a TN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 18 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1927 gross corpulence, finally he could no longer walk at all, and could only get about in his calesa. At last his high-blown pride broke under him, like Wolsey’s, his fat old belly burst after a prodigious banquet. There was an ostentatious funeral, but crows hovered over the bier, and never a flower would grow on Hugo’s grave. His soul, of course, was in the utmost anguish; he knew he must make amends, and at night he would get into his calesa and go on phantom rides from house to house, where the peasants lived that he had cheated in the weights. He was always trying to return his ill-gotten gains; one night a Spanish guard heard the money bags jingle as the calesa jolted over the rough streets, and he plainly saw the rig, too. Like Chief Tulisan of Mount Isarog, old Hugo’s ghost yielded to the American bombardment; the nocturnal errands in the phantom calesa have never been renewed since those Yankee cannon roared out the old regime and in the new. Nowhere else in the islands are Americans and Filipinos living in greater harmony and mutual prosperity than in Bikolandia; and the peasant folklore and traditions are nowhere more intriguing. RAIL COMMODITY MOVEMENTS By M. D. Royer Traffic Manager, Manila Railroad CompanyREVIGATOR ! THE RICE INDUSTRY By PERCY A. HILL of Vufloz, Xurin Ecija, Director, Hire Producers’ Association. Prices for both palay and rice remain about the same. Transactions in palay average from 1’3.25 to 1’3.35 per cavan of 44 kilos with rice at consuming cen ters at approximately the same as our last quotations with little chance of enhancement. Shipments from Cabanatuan alone over the railroad were 139,812 sacks of milled rice for the month of April. From the central plain 212,187 sacks were shipped to Manila, outside those amounts carried by truck and shipped north. The recent estimates for the crop of Nueva Ecija, including areas previously omitted, bring it up to some 9,230,000 cavans of palay, the entire Philippine crop being estimated at some 54 millions of cavans. The outlook for the new crop is not so favorable, as the rains coming too early promise later periods of dry weather, which generally retards the preparing of seed beds and fields for transplanting at the proper time. Prices of the cereal will vary little this year. A certain small amount of rice has been imported, but this is due simply to advance contracts and will have no effect on present prices. The carryover should be ample this year, so that in case of a shortage in the coming crop this will allow of stabilization of supply. Due to the banner crop, there is more money in central Luzon, and this money is better distributed than at any time in the history of the Philippines. With the price at the level of 1926 it would really have been a banner year. However, this distributed wealth has resulted in extensive building operations, field improvements and the purchase of mechanical needs that has thrown a considerable volume of cash into the channels of trade, while at the same time it has reduced, to an amount of over 25%, the usual food bill of those engaged in producing the export crops, which amount is substantially that of the price reduction of this year’s rice to the consumer, and this amount should also swell general mer cantile operations. In accordance with our custom, we are furnishing to readers of the Journal our latest data on move ment of commodities into Manila over the Manila Railroad. The following commodities were received in Manila April 26 to May 25, 1927, both inclusive, via the Manila Rail road: The best HEALTH INSUR ANCE that you can possibly have for your entire family is the Radium Ore Revigator. It creates radio-activity, Health Spring Strength, in your drinking water. No upkeep ex pense. There are now thousands of satisfied users in the Philippines. 1927 May April Rice, cavans...................... 243,875 239,250 Sugar, piculs...................... 35,504 194,096 Tobacco, bales.................. 11,880 5,600 Copra, piculs...................... 85,400 65,296 Coconuts.............................. 1,834,000 2,114,000 Lumber, B. F.................... 312,500 456,300 Desiccated coconuts, cases 11,234 6,478 The Radium Ore Revigator Agency P. O. Box 377 Telephone 2-56-22 313 Pacific Building . The Philippine Guaranty Company, Incorporated (Accepted by all the Bureaus of the Insular Government) Executes bonds of all kinds for Customs, Immigration and Internal Revenue. DOCUMENTS SURETYSHIPS For Executors, Administrators, Receivers, Guardians, etc. We also write Fire and Marine Insurance Low rates iberal conditions ocal investments oans on real estate repayable by monthly or quarterly instal ments at low interest Call or write for particulars Room 403, Filipinas Bldg. P. O. Box 128 Manila, P. I. Mgr’s. Tel. 2211 Main Office Tel. 441 WELCH - FAIRCHILD, LTD. SUGAR FACTORS AND EXPORTERS Hawaiian - Philippine Company Operating Sugar Central Silay, Occ. Negros, P. I. Mindoro Sugar Company San Josi, Mindoro, P. I. MANILA, P. I. Cable Address: WEHALD, Manila Standard Codes New York Agents: Welch, Fairchild & Co., Inc. 135 Front Street San Francisco Agents: Welch 8s Co., 215 Market Street OXYGEN Electrolytic Oxygen 99% pure HYDROGEN Electrolytic Hydrogen 99% pure ACETYLENE Dissolved Acetylene for all purposes WELDING Fully Equip ped Oxy-Ace tylene Weld ing Shops BATTERIES Prest-O-Lite Electric Stor age Batteries IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 19 IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 20 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL SHIPPING NOTES SHIPPING REVIEW By H. M. CAVENDER General Agent, Dollar Steamship Line The freight market in the Philippines conti nues firm. There have been a few changes in rates of freight and while there is a firm ness in the rate situa tion, there is a tendency toward higher rates. Even with increased tonnage on the berth in all directions, there is a fairly brisk move ment of export cargo. To the Atlantic sea board there is practically no available space to accommodate bulk cargoes for immediate ship- ’ent. Space can be had for shipment thirty ■ sixty days hence. In reviewing the position -if freight moving to the Pacific coast, we even find in some instances, and this is quite unusual, a scarcity of space for early shipment of our bulk commodities, such as lumber, copra and the r THE YOKOHAMA SPECIE BANK LTD. ■ (ESTABLISHED 1880) HEAD OFFICE: YOKOHAMA, JAPAN Yen Capital (Paid Up) - - - - 100,000,000.00 Reserve Fund - . . . 92,500,000.00 Undivided Profits ... - 6,142,357.99 Towards the end of May the Associated Steam" ship Lines announced an increase in freight to the Pacific coast: Lumber and Logs from SI5.00 to 818.00 per 1,000 board feet; Coconut Oil in Bulk, Copra Cake, Copra Meal, and Desiccated Coconut saw an increase of Si.50 per ton on each of these commodities. These increases became effective June 1 but the Association announced at the same time that shippers, by signing a contract, could protect themselves until the end of the calendar year at tariff rates current on May 31. In other words, the increase did not become effective for those shippers taking advantage of the contract rate offered. Passenger travel continues heavy and it is not always possible to secure class of accommo dations desired for immediate travel. Steam ship offices report, however, that any amount of accommodations is available for sailings three or four weeks hence. During May a total of 2,952 passengers, all classes, are reported to have departed from the Philippines (first figure represents cabin passen gers, second figure steerage): To China and Japan 310-540; to Honolulu 7-505; to Pacific coast 225-1314; to Singapore 24-19; to Europe and miscellaneous ports 8-0. Filipino emigra tion during the month to Honolulu decreased slightly, while the movement to the Pacific Coast increased somewhat. The comparison shows: Honolulu, April 534—May 505; Pacific coast,. April 1251—May 1314. From statistics compiled by the Associated Steamship Lines there were exported from the Philippines during the month of April: To China and Japan ports 14,149 tons with a total of 36 sailings, of which 9156 tons were carried in American bottoms with 15 sailings; to Pacific coast for local delivery 32,356 tons with 16 sail ings, of which 25,800 tons were carried in Ameri can bottoms with 11 sailings; to Pacific coast for transhipment 1,910 tons with 12 sailings, of which 1,685 tons were carried in American bottoms with 10 sailings; to Atlantic coast 95,124 tons with 20 sailings, of which 40,226 tons were carried in American bottoms with 7 sail ings; to European ports 6,487 tons with 14 sail ings, of which 95 tons were carried in American bottoms, with 2 sailings; to Australian ports 553 tons with 6 sailings, of which American bottoms carried none; or a grand total of 150,579 tons with 104 sailings, of which American bottoms carried 76,962 tons with 43 sailings. SHIPPING PERSONALS M. J. Wright, we learn, was recently elevated to the position of vice-president of the Luckenbach Steamship Company. This is welcome news to “Monte’s” many friends in the Phil ippines. Mr. Wright, during 1919 and 1920, was general agent for the Admiral line in Manila. J. E. Gardner, Jr., assistant general agent of the Robert Dollar Co., Manila, returned to Manila June 1 aboard the President Pierce after a three weeks’ business trip to China. W. B. Barney, formerly assistant passenger agent, the Robert Dollar Co., Manila, returned to the United States aboard the President Madison, May 28, accompanied by Mrs. Barney. MANILA BRANCH 34 PLAZA CERVANTES, MANILA K. YABUKI Manager PHONE 1759—MANAGER PHONE 1758—GENERAL OFFICE Neil Macleod of Smith, Bell & Co., left Manila, May 28, aboard the Empress of Canada for England via Canada. Mr. Macleod will be away from Manila about a year, dividing his holiday between England and Spain. J. F. Linehan joined the Robert Dollar com pany May 13 as assistant in the freight depart ment. Mr. Linehan has been in the Far East for a number of years, at one time manager of the Roger-Brown Co., Kobe. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 21 REAL ESTATE By P. D. CARMAN San Juan Heights Addition The total of sales of real estate during May is the smallest for that month since 1921. May sales were below April sales by more than 1*70,000, but this year’s total real estate sales from January to May inclusive reached a value of 1’4,817,846. The comparison with other years appears below. Sales, City of Manila April, 1927 Map. 1927 HUNTING IN BIKOLANDIA The Philippines are one of the world’s best big game grounds, too little known by nimrods in other countries. In provinces such as those of the Bikol region, game of course abounds. The cover is good and foraging abundant. Deer, wild boar and wild carabaos are to be had in the hills. Ducks resort to the lakes and swamps, the rice fields attract snipe, and the shooting is always good throughout the season. Real enthusiasts would even enjoy some of the hunt ing practices of the natives, who must generally get along without firearms. Deer and wild boar are often tracked down with packs of dogs, among whom even a mongrel hound is highly prized, and the use of the pack may be supple mented with nets or lassos, set so as to enmesh the game as it seeks its favorite paths and tries to escape the dogs. The boar can be caught without dogs. For them the native, having spied out their rendezvous, sometimes digs pits set, over the bottom, with sharpened bamboos. Lighter bamboo strips support the covering, thatched over and baited with yams or com. Attracted to the bait, the boar plunges through the pit covering and is impaled on the bamboos. For rifle and shotgun hunting, on field, stream or lake, it is always possible to obtain reliable native guides at very moderate fees, as in other parts of the islands. Sta. Cruz............................. 1’108,606 1’143,763 Malate.................................. 64,094 66,213 Paco....................................... 27,168 17,090 Sainpaloc............................. 96,476 89,417 Ermita.................................. 48,888 5,000 Tondo................................... 48,508 93,703 Sta. Ana............................... 10,950 43,978 San Nicolas......................... 89,600 12,410 Binondo............................... 57,200 74,014 Quiapo................................... 78,300 16,868 Intrainuros.......................... 33,000 20,270 San Miguel......................... 10,750 5,500 Pandacan............................. 220 871 Sta. Mesa............................ 11,450 1’673,760 1’600,547 The totals January to May inclusive since 1921 are as follows: 1922 ...................... P 3,020,551 1923 ...................... 4,611,242 1924 ...................... 5,337,373 1925 ............... 6,011,542 1926 ...................... 5,469,699 1927 ...................... 4,817,846 Manila to New York via Suez and Europe See the Old World on your trip home. Stops of several days in many ports. You can travel through Europe and catch our boat for New York via Southampton, England, at Bremen. “The Most Interesting Trip In The World.” NORDDEUTSCHER LLOYD Zuellig S’ von Knobelsdorff Agents 90 Rosario, Manila Phone 22324 AMERICAN MAIL LINE (ADMIRAL ORIENTAL LINE) DOLLAR STEAMSHIP LINE COMBINED TRANSPACIFIC SERVICE SAILING ONCE A WEEK The “President” Liners Offer Speed—Service—Courtesy—Comfort Excellent Food, Comfortable Cabins, Broad Decks, American Orchestra, Dancing, Swimming Pool, Sports SAILING ONCE A WEEK TO SAN FRANCISCO AND LOS ANGELES Hongkong, Shanghai, Kobe, Yokohama, and Honolulu SAILINGS ON ALTERNATE FRIDAYS ROUND THE WORLD President Wilson - - June President Van Buren - July President Hayes - July President Polk - Aug. President Adams - - Aug. President Garfield - - Sept. President Harrison - Sept. Sailings every fortnight VICTORIA 24 AND 8 SEATTLE 22 vla Hongkong, Shanghai, Kobe, and Yokohama 19 16 SAILINGS ON ALTERNATE SATURDAYS 24 Calle David MANILA Telephone No. 2-24-41 IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 22 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 19V REVIEW OF THE HEMP MARKET By T. H. Smith Viee-Pre»i<hnl aryl General Manager. Macleod &• Company This report covers the markets for the month of May with statistics up to and including May 30th, 1927. U. S. Grades: New York market opened quiet with export houses offering on a moderate scale down to a basis of F, 15-3/8 cents; I, 13-5/8 cents; J-l, 103/4 cents. By the second week of the month a better tone became ap parent and offerings were sparing at 1/4 cent advance. Values further appreciated on I and J-l to 14 cents and 11 cents respectively; F however remaining around 15-5 8 cents. Mid May showed a quiet but steady market basis F, 15-7 8 cents; I, 14 cents; J-l, 11—1/8 cents. By purchasing only their bare and immediate requirements buyers were able to refrain from stiffening the market; further business being of a retail character and values basis F, 16 cents; I, 13-7/8 cents; J-l, 11-1/2 cents at which prices market closed steady. Manila market for U. S. grades opened on the quiet side D, 1’38; E, 1’37; F, 1’36; G, 1’21; H, 1’20; I, 1’31; J-l, 1’23; S-l, 1’35; S-2, 1’30; S-3, 1’23.4; there being more inclination on the part of buyers to operate than of sellers. Market ruled steady until the second week when tone turned firmer to values E, 1’38; F, 1*37; G, 1*21; H, 1*20; I, 1’32; J-l, P24; S-l, P36; S-2, 1’31; S-3, 1’24.4. Offerings were scarce and market continuing firm, values appreciated about 4 reales with exception of J-l which moved to P25. A fair amount of business was put through at the advance, supplies being absorbed readily. At the close there is a moderate quantity of hemp coming on the market which still finds ready buyers and the average basis of prices closes E, 1’39.4; F, 1’37.6; G, 1*22.4; H, 1’21; I, 1’32.6; J-l, 1’25.6; S-l, 1’37; S-2, 1’32; S-3, P26. Fine grade hemp is scarce. Here and there substantial premiums are being paid for prompt supplies. American demand is still slow, how ever, on fine hemp. U. K. Grades: London opened quiet with very little business passing in any position. Values basis J-2, £40; K, £39; L-l, £38.10; L-2, £38; M-l, £37; M-2, £34. Shipping houses, however, were only offering sparingly at this range of prices. The reticence of sellers soon made itself felt and early in the month the tone turned firmer with buyers at J-2, £42; K, £41; L-l, £40.10; L-2, £39.10; M-l, £39; M-2, £36 May-June shipment. An active market ruled at £1 to £1.10 advance, according to position, until the middle of May when buyers cooled off, the market turning on the dull side to J-2, £43; K, £42; L-l, £41.10; L-2, £40; M-l, £37; M-2, £34.10 May-July. Toward the end of the month market has con tinued firm for the near positions and actual spot, substantial .premiums being paid for these positions. Forward shipment remained fairly steady but was offered at J-2, £42.5; K, £42; L-l, £41.15; L-2, £40.15; M-l, £40.5; M-2, £37, prices swinging 10/- each way according to position offered. The close of the month shows a firmer tone all round, values having the last four days appreciated rapidly to a basis of J-2, £44; K, £43.10; L-l, £42.15; L-2, £41.15; M-l, £40.15; M-2, £37.10. Manila market for U. K. grades opened quiet in tone at a valuation of J-2, 1*19.4; K, 1*19; L-l, 1’18.6; L-2, 1’17.4; M-l, 1*17.2; M-2, 1’16; DL, 1’15.4; DM, 1’13.4. Market turned firmer on small arrivals in the second week and a moderate business took place at J-2, 1’20.6; K, 1*20; L-l, 1*19.6; L-2, 1’18.4; M-l, 1’18.4; M-2, 1’17; DL, 1’16; DM, 1’14. Supplies of lower grades were by no means freely offered and prices continued to appreciate, parcels being bought up to J-2, P21; K, 1’20.4; L-l, 1’20; L-2, 1’19; M-l, 1’18.4; M-2, 1’17.4; DL, 1’16.4; DM, 1’14. Market closes at about this basis but sellers scarce. Demand from Japanese sources has improved somewhat during latter two weeks of the month but cannot be called normal yet. Freight Rates: Freight Rates remain with out change. Statistics: We give below the figures for the period extending from May 3rd to May 30th, 1927. Stocks on January 1st. . . . Receipts to May 30th........ Stocks on May 30th........... Shipmen t s 1927 1926 112,382 153,181 529,666 559,130 140,256 205,633 To May To the— lia Ire' United Kingdom............... 133,410 Continent of Europe.... 54,101 Atlantic U. S..................... 118,800 To May 121,665 66,773 146,793 Manila-made Rope makes a name for itself By United Press WASHINGTON, June 3.—Senator Edward I. Edwards, Democrat of New Jersey, requested the Tariff Commission to investigate the free entry of Manila rope and its effect on the American rope industry. The move is the first of what promises to be a con certed attack on the policy which allows the Manila pro duct to enter the United States free of duty. Agents of the Ajax Rope Company have arrived on the scene with formal protests against “unfair compe tition” with the Manila rope industry and demanding that the whole question be raised and argued before the tariff commission. Their plan is to bring it eventually before Congress. They say that free trade between the Philippines and the United States was originally adopted on the basis that raw products alone would be allowed to come in duty-free. Those behind the movement say that the question will be decided on the basis of whether the rope factories of the Philippines are to be financed by American or foreign capital. —Manila Times, June 5, 1927 Johnson-Pickett Rope Company 301 Muelle de la Industria Manila, P. I. U. S. via Pacific.............. 54.535 51,682 Japan..................................... 95,528 86,226 Elsewhere and Local. . . . 45,418 33,539 Total............................ 501,792 506,678 CHINA OFFICE CLOSES The Shanghai office of the Northern Pacific Railway will be abolished on June 1, 1927. R. J. Tozer, formerly general agent for the Orient, is now located in Seattle, Wash., 200 L. C. Smith Building, as assistant general pas senger agent, and will continue to be in charge of solicitation in the Orient. The Northern Pacific Railway operates the New North Coast Limited, one of the newest and finest all-steel passenger trains between Seattle and Chicago. The schedule of this train, leaving Seattle at 9:30 a. m. daily, offers patrons the opportunity of passing through the beautiful Cascade and Rocky mountains during the daytime. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL Jtne, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 23 MAY SUGAR REVIEW By George H. Fairchild New York Market: (Spot). During the month under review, the American sugar mar ket was dull and un interesting with only slight fluctuations in values, the lowest point reached being on the 2nd instant when some 3,000 tons of Cubas afloat were sold at 231,32 cents c. and f., which is equivalent to 4.74 cents landed terms, duty paid, for P. I. centrifugal. There was a slight improvement in the market on the 3rd and 4th instant, and sales of Cubas for May shipment were effected to operators at 3-1/16 cents c. and f. (4.84 cents 1. t.), but shortly after wards the market eased and showed no tendency to operate with only insignificant transactions made at prices ranging from 3.00 cents (4.77 cents 1. t.) to 3-1/16 cents c. and f. (4.84 cents 1. t.). After fair sales of Cubas had been made at 3-1/8 cents c. and f. (4.90 cents 1. t.) on the 11th, buyers retired, and the market was again quiet throughout the third week, with only small sales of Cubas at 3-3/32 cents c. and f. (4.87 cents 1. t.) and 3-1/16 cents c. and f. (4.84 cents 1. t.). A distinct improved tone in the market was evident towards the close of the month, there having been large sales of prompt Cubas at 3-3/32 cents c. and f. (4.87 cents 1. t.) and small sales for July shipment at 3-1/8 cents c. and f. (4.90 cents 1. t.), but, as was the case in the previous weeks, immediately after the market had shown slight improvement, buyers with drew, and prices again declined to 3-1/16 cents c. and f. (4.84 cents 1. t.) at the close of the month. The disappointing course of the American sugar market during the month under review was apparently due to a great extent to the practice of the refiners of making their purchases only for their immediate needs. By delaying their purchases for their future requirements they depressed the market and in this way were able to buy at lower prices sugars afloat and nearly due. It is the general opinion, however, that the refiners cannot delay much longer to provide for their summer require ments if the statistical position alone were the guiding factor. Stocks in the U.K., U.S., Cuba and European statistical countries at the end of the month were 3,940,000 tons as compared with 4,463,000 tons at the same time in 1926 and 3,397,000 tons at the same time in 1925, while the Cuban stocks in Cuba on the 23rd instant were 1,480,000 tons against 1,522,919 tons in 1926 with seven Centrals still grinding against 35 mills at the same period last year. The stocks in the Atlantic coast on the 26th were 258,000 tons against 366,196 tons at the same time in 1926, showing an improvement in the statistical position over that of last year. With better weather, there should be greater demand for refined in the United States, were it not for the reports of a poor fruit crop due to unseason able weather which it is believed will materially curtail the fruit output which requires annually large quantities of sugar for canning purposes. As brought out in my previous review, the present low prices might also be due to the financial embarrassments of a heavy operator in Japan, whereby distressed quantities of Java sugar were forced to seek a market in Europe, seriously affecting the European demand for Cuban sugar. (Futures). Quotations on the Exchange have fluctuated slightly and quite independently of those of the spot market. Spot quotations for prompt shipment of Cubas have on several occasions been slightly higher than those for May delivery on the Exchange. The following shows the fluctuations of the quotations for futures during May: Ili'jh Lou- Lntf't May.......... .................. 3.03 2.91 2.95 July......................... .................. 3.10 2.97 2.97 Sept........................ .................. 3.20 3.07 3.07 Dec............................................. 3.26 3.15 3.15 Jan.......................... .................. 3.11 3.00 3.00 March..................... .................. 2.95 2.82 2.82 (Philippine Sales). Approximately 49,000 tons of Philippine centrifugals, afloats and near arrivals, were sold in New York at prices ranging from 4.74 cents to 4.90 cents landed terms. These make a total of Philippine sales of the 1926-27 crop in the United States since Sep tember 1926 to May 31, 1927, of around 310,000 tons or about three fifths of the 500,000 tons available for exports. Recent advices received from New York stated that Porto Rico has already sold in that market 70 per cent of its 1926-27 sugar crop, while Cuba so far has made sales aggregating only 50 per cent of this year’s crop. THE NEWEST EQUIPMENT IS ON THE NORTH COAST LIMITED SEATTLE TO CHICAGO (DIRECT CONNECTION TO THE EAST AND SOUTH) “NEWEST” means an Observation-Lounge Car surpassing all others heretofore designed. Barber, Valet, Ladies Maid, Bath, Library, Smoking and Card Rooms, Writing Desk, inviting lounge and wide observation platform. “NEWEST” means Pullman sleeping cars different from any you have seen on any other train. Permanent head-boards divide the sec tions for greater privacy. Interior Decorations in soft, new colors. Here is luxury unlimited for sleeping car passengers. All Steel Construction Means Safety. In the Dining Car are those “famously good” Northern Pacific meals, served with deft courtesy and skill at low prices. Daily from Seattle to Chicago IN 70 HOURS. No change of cars. For rates and literature write R. J. TOZER Assistant General Passenger Agent NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILWAY “2000 MILES OF STARTLING BEAUTY” Local Market: Influenced by the course of the American sugar market, only insignificant sales of centrifugal sugar have been made in the local market during the first three weeks of the month under review, at prices ranging from 1*10.87 to 1*11.75 per picul. During the last week of the month, however, the local market had been fairly active with sales aggregating 125,000 piculs at prices ranging between 1*11.50 and 1*11.75 per picul. The Chinese have in variably been the traders in the muscovado market on the basis of from 1*6.40 to 1*6.85 per picul for No. 1. The rainy season set in during the latter part of May with pouring rains, followed at times with strong winds which, fortunately, did not develop into destructive typhoon proportions. While the first rains in May benefited the cane, increasing stooling and growth, the continuous downpour during the last week of the month has made cultivation operations very difficult, resulting in a rapid growth of weeds which, if not promptly remedied, will seriously affect 200 L. C. Smith Building Seattle, Washington, U. S. A. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 24 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 192: the prospects of all backward cane. Records show the volume of rains that fell in May has so far been the largest in previous years at the same period. With the exception of two or three Centrals in Negros which are still grinding and will prob ably not finish until some time in September or October, the 1926-27 milling season has ter minated. The results which have been received from some of the centrals indicate that the final production will approximate the last estimate of the Philippine Sugar Association of 535,000 tons. Of this amount, 349,823 tons have already been shipped to the United States since November 1926. The following are detailed shipping statistics of the Philippine centrifugal sugar from January 1 to May 28, 1927: TOBACCO REVIEW By P. A. Meyer Alhambra Cigar and Cigarette Manufacturing Co. Centrifugals 254,754 Muscovados-----Refined. . . .-----V. S. ( 'and Pacific Japan Total 46,212 -- 300,966 43 14,035 14,078 810------ 810 Raw Leaf: The ex port business, with the exception of China and Japan, continues mod erately active. However, consignments of leaf to bacco and scraps to the United States fell off considerably, due to very low offers from Porto Rico. Shipments abroad during May were as follows: 254,754 47,065 14,035 315,854 LCn!l Scrap'1' Java Market: This market was dull and uninteresting during the first half of May, undoubtedly due to the apprehension as to the normal liquidation of the Japanese operator in Java as a result of financial embarrassments. Recent advice, however, to the effect that a Japanese syndicate has been formed for the purpose of liquidating the position of the Jap anese operator has restored confidence and the Java market showed an improvement in the latter half of the month with advancing prices for Head sugar. Latest quotations for Head sugar are as follows: Australia..................................... 192 Belgium...................................................... 26,750 China. . . . .'............................................... 1,428 Czechoslovakia........................................ 1,036,095 France......................................................... 478,400 Germany.................................................... 13,584 Holland....................................................... 17,177 Hongkong................. 26,113 Java............................................................. 384 Spain............................................................ 240,120 Straits Settlements................................. 2,617 Tonkin........................................................ 74 U. S. A...................................................... 9,302 Heal Sugar Per Picul 1,852,236 Spot...................... June..................... July, Aug., Sept. Gs. 16-1/2 = Gs. 16-1/4 = .Gs. 16 P 8.71 8.58 8.45 The second estimate of the 1927 crop has been issued showing that the crop this year will aggregate 1,959,948 long tons, being slightly less than the previous estimate. This compares with the 1926 production of 1,784,647 long tons, or an increase of 175,301 long tons. Grinding for the 1927 crop has already com menced. Several mills have already been grinding since April and the result so far obtained showed that the average weight of the cane was practically the same as last year, while the rendement was much better. However, due to the rains which fell during the first half of May, a few mills have temporarily stopped grinding owing to the low rendement. European Prospects: The recent estimate of European beet sowings issued by Dr. Gustav Mikusch showed an increase of 11 per cent over those of last year. Dr. Mikusch placed the total area in Europe under beet this season at 2,425,000 hectares as compared with 2,182,000 hectares last year, or an increase of 343,000 hectares. The following table gives the area estimated for the principal countries together with the actual sowings last year. Cigars: As borne out by the statistics at foot, a very sharp decline in the export to the United States is again registered for May. The situation for most of the Manila manufac turers is growing from bad to worse, a number of establishments having been compelled to close their doors, waiting for an improvement in business. Comparative figures for the trade with the United States are as follows: May, 1927. . April, 1927. May, 1926 . Hectares Germany..............’.............. 395,000 Danzig.................................. 5,000 Czecho-Slovakia................ 271,000 France................................... 227,000 Belgium............................... 67,000 Netherlands........................ 65,000 Poland.................................. 194,000 Jugoslavia............................ 45,000 Russia................................... 640,000 Other Countries................ 516,000 Hectares 374,000 4,000 258,000 219,000 62,000 60,000 187,000 43,000 542,000 433,000 Total............... 2,425,000 2,182,000 It is reported that the consumption in France has fallen off by 125,000 tons during the period from October 1, 1926, to April 30, 1927. The consumption in France for the same period in the previous year amounted to 619,436 tons, making the consumption for the corresponding period in 1926-27 approximately 494,500 tons. 10,175,602 14,038,283 17,584,906 COPRA AND ITS PRODUCTS By E. A. Seidenspinner Vic,-President an<l .Manager, Capra .M.lling COPRA April firmness in this commodity continued throughout the entire month of May, despite the fact that buying pres sure was eased tempo rarily by local mills and exporters for the purpose of ascertaining whether prices could be reduced to bring them in line with for eign market quotations. Although production in Laguna and Tayabas has been very low, southern island arrivals by steamer have been well maintained, consequently average receipts at Manila while subnormal have been slightly in excess of expectations for the month of May. Total Manila receipts for the month were 172,114 sacks which compares favorably for the same month during 1925 but lacks 97,000 sacks of equalling May arrivals during 1926. The U. S. copra market improved slightly during May and closed with buyers bidding 4-7/8 FOR SALE Second Hand Machinery One Alternator, 250 KW; 2200 volts; 60 cycle, 3 phase, direct connected to cross compound Hamilton-Corliss Engine 12-24X36; with generator panel and rheostat. Two 100 KW Alternators; 2200 volts; 60 cycle, 3 phase; belted, 18" pulley; direct connected exciters; with gen erator panels. Two Venn-Severin Crude Oil Engines, 60 H.P. each. One Worthington surface condenser, 400 H.P. One Scotch Marine Boiler, 400 H.P. 50—100-kilo Ice cans; new. (Knocked down.) 4 Galvanized steel brine tanks; 2500 kilo capacity each; ammonia fittings. Steam pipe and fittings up to 10". Tube bender for sterling boiler tubes. Tube cleaner, Lagonda, water driven, for 4" tubes; with extra parts, new. Steam and Oil separator. Steam Traps. Marine Engines: (1 Union, 50 H.P., distillate) (1 Quayle, 25-35 H.P., crude oil.) Meters, Electric, Transformers. For Prices, etc., Apply BRYAN, LANDON GO. Cebu or Iloilo INFORMATION FOR INVESTORS Expert, confidential reports made on Philippine projects ENGINEERING, MINING, AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY, LUMBER, ETC. Hydroelectric projects OTHER COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISES BRYAN, LANDON CO. Cebu, P. I. Cable address! “YPIL,” Cebu. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 25 cents c. i. f. Pacific Coast Portsand sellers asking 5-1/16 cents to 5-1/8 cents. There is nothing of interest reported from London and the Continent in connection with copra and closing quotations were E26/2/6 for Cebu and £25/12/6 for F. M. M. Manila. Latest cables follow: San Francisco: Buyers, 4-7/8 cents to 5 cents; Sellers, 5-1/16 cents to 5-1/8 cents. London— Cebu, Buen Corriente, 1’11.375 to 1’11.50; Resccado, 1’12.75 to 1’13.00. COCONUT OIL The U. S. market for coconut oil has remained practically unchanged throughout the entire month of May with buying pressure well con trolled and available stocks sufficient to meet normal demand. Nearby offerings carry a penalty of 1/8 cent over futures. With compet ing fats and oils sluggish and in ample supply, buyers are not keen on heavy forward purchases of this item. The government report released about the middle of the month covering con sumption of refined cottonseed oil showed a disappearance of 205,000 barrels which was interpreted by the trade as bearish. Latest cables: San Francisco. 8 -1/8 cents f. o. b. tank cars New York............ 8-3/8 cents f. o. b. tank cars London..................No quotation. COPRA CAKE Both the U. S. and Continental markets for copra cake continued firm and, with the closing of this report, business can be done at $32.50 c. i. f. West Coast Port and C8 c. i. f. Ham burg, both quotations for any position. Manila stocks have been well cleaned up and offerings from mills are light. Latest quotations: REVIEW OF THE EXCHANGE MARKET By Stanley Williams Manager International Banking Corporation. This report covers the months of April and May, the report for the former month having been unavoid ably withheld from pub lication in the May is sue of the Journal. Telegraphic transfers on New York were quoted at 3/4% pre mium on March 31st. On April 2nd the rate was raised to 7/8% premium at which level the market remained unchanged and steady until May 5th when the rate was raised to 1 % premium. The market was unchanged on this basis with some banks asking 1—1/8% premium until the close on May 31st. Sterling cables were quoted at 2 '0 1/2 on March 31st with buyers at 2/0 5/8. On April 2nd the rate was lowered to 2 0 7/16 and buyers were not inclined to do better than 2 0 9/16. The market was unchanged until May 4th when rates were lowered to 2/0 3/8 sellers and 2/0 1/2 buyers. On May 17th rates were again raised to 2 0 7 16 sellers 2/0 9/16 buyers and the market was unchanged on that basis until the close of business on May 31st. Three months sight credit bills were quoted at 2 1 1 '4 with 3 m s D P bills at 2/1 3/8 on March 31st. These rates were lowered to 2/1 3 16 and 2 1 5 16 on April 1st and to 2 1 1.8 and 2 1 1 4 on April 2nd. On May 5th they were again lowered to 2 1 1 16 and 2/1 3 '16 and remained unchanged at that level until the close on May 31st. The New York London cross rate closed at 485 11 16 on March 31st. It touched a high during April of 485 13 16 on April 2nd, 4th and 5th, and a low for the month of 485 9 16 on the 11th and 22nd, closing on April 30th at 485 3 4. The high rate for May was 485 15 16 on May 3rd, 4th and 5th and the low was 485 3 8 on May 17th and 18th. The closing rate on May 31st was 485 13 16. London Bar Silver closed at 25 7 8 spot 2 5 11/16 forward on March 31st. The high for the month of April was 26 3 4, 26 1 '2 on April 6th and the low was 25 11 16 spot and forward at which the market closed on April 30th. The low rate for the month of May was 25 3 4 spot and forward on May 2nd and the high was 26 9 16 spot 26 7, 16 forward on May 30th. The rate at the close on May 31st was 26 3 8 spot 26 1 4 forward. New York Bar Silver closed at 56 1 4 on March 31st. The high rate for April was 57 1 4 on April 6th and the low rate for that month was 55 5, 8 at which it closed on April 30th. The low rate for May was 55 3 4 on May 2nd and the high was 57 1/4 on May 26th and May 31st. Giant Oil-Burning Locomotives Speed You Across America The Oriental Limited a 9ootless, cinderless trip in the finest train between Seattle, Vancouver, Victoria, and Minneapolis, St. Paul and Chicago. No Extra Fare. Through Some of the Finest Scenery in the United States past the lofty peaks of the Great Northern Cascades and Rockies alongside Glacier National Park Our descriptive literature will help you plan your trip. It’s free. Ask A. G. HENDERSON. AGENT. Chaco Building AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. Manila, P. I. Great Northern A Dependable Railway Telegraphic transfers on other points were quoted nominally at the close on April 30th and May 31st as follows: April May 30th 31st Paris 11 95 12 05 Madrid 179 3 4 179 1 4 Singapore 113 3 4 114 1 4 Japan. 97 94 1 4 Shanghai. 79 78 1 4 Hongkong. 101 100 1 4 India 135 1. 2 135 Java........ 123 122 1 2 IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 26 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, ^927 MAN-POWER Four millions of the best man-power of Europe perished in the Napoleonic conquests. Military conquest is noncreative while industry is always creative. In the last ten years one American manufacturer has created machines having a man-power forty times as great as that of all the lives lost in the Napoleonic wars. The laboratories and shops of industry are the sources of many of the endur ing attainments of our times. In the United States, there is an organization with an army of 75,000 persons, co operating to make electricity do more and better work for you. Manila Electric Company (MERALCO) 134 San Marcelino TEL. 2-19-11 Light Transportation Power YOUR LOGGING PROBLEM can be solved readily by some type of WASHINGTON LOGGING ENGINE The Washington Simplex Yarder above leads all Yarders in ease of operation and low cost of upkeep. Washington Iron Works, Seattle, U. S. A. Agents for the Philippine Islands The Edward J. Nell Co., Ltd.,—Manila. WASHINGTON ENGINES STATISTICAL REVIEW of Countries Total Tc April, 192 7. OS 55 55 13 391,914 Bi Bi 3:864;725 ..........................................„„ ............................................... ■ —....................... ~.....................afe™ «-».......................S IS::::: Average for April, 1927. ........................................... as a„„ .....- . . . SB Note: Monthly average is for 12 jnonthsjprejrious to Anr.l, 1927. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 27 Commodities PRINCIPAL EXPORTS Quantit April, 1927 Value 43 16 13 7 2 3 7 S 8 5 2 Quantity April, 1926 Value % Quantity Value 33 22 8 9 4 5 8 9 6 5 6 3 Desiccated and Shredded Coconut. I Hats (Number)................................... {Lumber (Cubic Meter) ................... Copra Meal.......................................... Knotted Hemp..................................... *Pearl Buttons (Gross)....................... (Canton (low grade cordage fiber).. All Other Products............................. Total Domestic Products................. United States Products..................... Foreign Products................................. 4 5 5 8 8 3 8 6 7 9 0 0 GrandTotal. Cotton Cloths................... Other Cotton Goods.... Iron and Steel, Except Machinery..................... Rice..................................... Wheat Flour..................... Machinery and Parts of.. Dairy Products................ Gasoline.............................. Silk Goods......................... Automobiles....................... Vegetable Fiber Goods.. Meat Products................. Illuminating Oil............... Fish and Fish Products.. Crude Oil........................... Coal.......... ,.. .................... Chemicals, Drugs, Dyes, Etc................................... Fertilizer............................. Vegetables.......................... Paper Goons, Except Tobacco and Manufac tures of.. . ................... Electrical Machinery.. .. Books and Other Printed Matter............................. Cars and Carriages, Ex cept Autos..................... Automobile Tires.............. Fruits and Nuts.............. Woolen Goods.................. Leather Goods.................. Shoes and Other FootBreadstuff's Except Wheat Flour................. Eggs..................................... Perfumery and Other, Toilet Goods................. Lubricating Oil................. Cacao Manufactures, Ex cept Candy................... Glass and Glassware.... Paints Pigments, Var nish, Etc........................ Oils not Separtely listed.. Earthen Stone & ChinaAutomobile Accessories. . Diamond and Other Pre cious Stones Unset.. .. Wood, Bamboo, Reed, Rattan............................ India " ’ Soap..................................... Matches............................. Cattle and .Carabaos.. .. Explosives........................... Sugar and Molasses........ Motion Picture Films... All Other Imports........... Rubber Goods.... P27.913.808 99 120,695 0 28.561 0 7 0 5 P28.063.064 100 1 P20,505,501 99 73,858 0 49,963 0 s 3 NOTE:—All quantities are in kilos except where otherwise indicated. PRINCIPAL IMPORTS April, 1927 April, 1926 IMPORTS Value 304,747 140,069 215,887 305,204 448,618 480,982 115,991 143,919 113,322 32,333 56,089 164,088 113.257 0 % 10 Value 8 P 2,800,364 0 1,207,487 %' .3 9 Value ( 5 3 2 2 1 3 1 3 0 9 5 9 0 9 4 3 7 3 7 7 7 0 1 0 9 9 . 3 1 9 2 2 7 9 7 0 1 0 0 1 2 9 3 0 0 8 8 0 8 9 0 0 7 3 0 4 1 0 8 7 0 0 6 8 0 8 0 0 0 0 8 8 9 0 0 0 7 P17.172.402 100 2 1 8 0 2 6 4 5 8 7 7 6 3 9 8 2 2 2 P24.379.743 100 6 3 1 0 16 6 3 3 2 1 2 4 3 2 2 1 2 0 2 5 5 5 9 8 5 3 3 7 8 5 3 P 3,196,487 1,158,348 16 5 9 7 3 ' 4 3 2 3 3 3 2 2 6 6 2 5 2 2 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 9 0 Nationality of Vessels April, 1927 Value 334,018 86,934 209,682 252,429 258,727 484,475 52,399 260,941 120,669 154,164 181,775 142,547 181,934 91,523 253,853 117,584 125,147 78,039 108,509 1 0 1 9 5 2 1 3 0 5 1 6 8 American......... Japanese.......... Dutch............... German............ Norwegian. ... Philippine........ Spanish............. Chinese............. Swedish............ Danish.............. Portuguese.... Belgian............. By Freight.. .. By Mail........... Total. 7,909 1 1 5 5 2 8 0 0 0 3 5 7 9 0 1 8 0 0 7 6 0 1 5 5 0 7 7 0 0 7 7 0 5 6 0 6 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 2 3 3 0 353,367 329,614 226,893 176,513 153,286 103,194 135,296 141,813 118,644 111,748 122,737 51,260 1 8 1 2 0 1 0 0 1 3 1 8 8 1 0 0 9 8 1 0 7 0 0 5 3 0 5 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 3 2 2 0 Nationality of Vessels American.. British.. .. Japanese.. Swedish.. . German.. . Norwegian. Spanish.... Dutch........ Philippine.. Chinese.... Argentine.. Belgian.. .. Panaman.. PORT STATISTICS TRADE WITH TIIE UNITED STATES AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES April, 1927 Value Value Value Monthly average for April, 1926 12 months ending April, 1927 Value Value P29.709.825 9,111,959 4,992,288 264,101 50,214 803,425 303,654 64 21 11 0 0 1 2 3 2 6 2 8 7 0 9 3 9 0 P38.067.761 100 2 5 0 2 0 3 2 0 P43.869.790 100 2 0 50 26 6 5 6 0 0 0 5 7 2 7 0 0 2 8 74,733 53 27 5 3 2 0 0 6 5 3 0.< 0 0 5 8 2 8 5 2 8 8 1 5 1 1 2.< P17,172,402 100.0 P17.438.439 100.0 P19,520,211 100.0 EXPORTS April, 1927 April, 1926 Value % Value I Monthly average for 12 months ending April, 1927 Value P12,685,624 9,148,070 3,659,324 1,231,490 607,974 77,933 125,354 42 33 13 2 9 1 5 8 2 0.6 0.7 29 3 3 2 7 2 4 3 7 7 1 5 3 % .2 S 49. 31.. 9. 2. 3 1 1 1 0 2 3 5 3 1 3 3 7 6 7 8 6 By Freight......................... By Mail............................. 527,293 2.2 19,692,154 96.1 23,011,727 93.9 937,168 3.9 1,368,014 6.1 Total................... P28.063.064 100.0 P20.629.322 100.0 P24.379.743 100.0 TRADE WITH THE UNITED STATES AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES Countries . April, 1927 Monthly average for April, 1926 12 months previous to April, 1927 Value % Value % Value % United States........... United Kingdom..., Japan.......................... China.......................... French East Indies. Germany.................... Australia.................... British East Indies. Dutch East Indies.. Netherlands.__ Italy.................... Hongkong.......... Belgium.............. Switzerland........ Japanese-China.. Denmark.............. Other Countries. Total... 72 4 5 6 5 0 0 9 5 9 7 0 5 1 0.3 65 4 9 8 8 0 6 5 5 2 7 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 3 68 5 2 3 1 9 6 8 6 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 7 28 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1927 BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY B. A. GREEN REAL ESTATE Improved and Unimproved City, Suburban and Provincial Properties Expert valuation, appraisement and reports on real estate Telephone 507 34 Escolta Cable Address: “BAG” Manila Manila, P. I. Philippine Islands Myers Buck Co., Inc. Surveying and Mapping PRIVATE MINERAL AND PUBLIC LAND 230 Kneedler Bldg. Tel. 1610 PHILIPPINES COLD STORES Wholesale and Retail Dealers in American and Australian Refrigerated Produce STORES AND OFFICES Calle Echague Manila, P. I. MACLEOD & COMPANY Manila Cebu Vigan Davao Iloilo Exporters of Hemp and Maguey Agents for INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER CO. Agricultural Machinery Rosenberg’s Garage TELEPHONE 5-69-55 $8 ® CHINA BANKING CORPORATION MANILA, P. I. Domestic and Foreign Banking of Every Description “LA URBANA” I (Sociedad Mutua de Construcci6n y Pristamos) | Prestamos Hipotecarios Inversiones de Capital 111 Plaza Sta. Cruz Manila, P. I. P. O. Box 1394 Telephone 22070 J. A. STIVER Attorney-At-Law Notary Public Certified Public Accountant Investments Collections Income Tax 121 Real, Intramuros Manila, P. I. HANSON & ORTH, Inc. Manila, P. I. Buyers and Exporters of Hemp and Other Fibers 612-613 Pacific Bldg. Tel. 2-24-18 BRANCHES: Phone “El Hogar Filipino” 2 - 22 - 33 Building WARNER, BARNES & CO., LTD. Insurance Agents Transacting SANITARY ■ CONVENIENT - SATISFACTORY! Five European Barbers Special attention given the ladies Shampoos, facial massage and hair cuts under skilled management LA MARINA BARBER SHOP Davao All Classes of Insurance 117 Plaza Goiti MADRIGAL & CO. 8 Muelle del Banco Nacional Manila, P. I. Coal Contractorsand Coconut Oil Manufacturers MILL LOCATED AT CEBU Derham Building Phone 22516 P. O. Box 2103 MORTON & ERICKSEN, INC. Surveyors AMERICAN BUREAU OF SHIPPING Marine and Cargo Surveyors Sworn Measurers M. J. B. The Quality Coffee F. E. Zuellig, Inc. Cebu Manila Iloilo A A -£Tl Jl 73 Escolta 73 Quality ffi Shirts TOYO 3HIRT FACTORY 104-4 A^CAfifiAGA, MANILA. | IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL Manila Choicest Cigarettes 30 for 10 CENTAVOS AND 20 for 8 CENTAVOS ROSIT AS Made with Isabela’s finest tobacco which is under the supervision of experienced tobacconists from the field to the factory. NO FINER CIGARETTES MADE YOU TOO WILL LIKE THEM LA NOBLEZA H CIGAR AND CIGARETTE FACTORY 409 Tayuman, Manila ; 1 Cable address L.N. Tel. No. 2-78-53 ' I ) > RIU HERMANOS 7 CALLE DAVID Manila Wine Merchants, Ltd. 174 Juan Luna Manila, P. I. P. O. Box 403 Phones: 2-25-67 and 2-25-68 WEANDSCO Western Equipment and Supply Co. Excluiive diitributers in the Philippines for Western Electric Co. Graybar Electric Co. 119 Calle T. Pinpin P. O. Box 2277 Manila, P. I. Recommended By Leading Doctors Drink It For Your Health’s Sake TEL. 1106 Nature fs Best Mineral Water CHRYSLER 50 60 70 80 Luneta Motors Co., Inc. 54 San Luis TEL. 370 THE AMERICAN EXPRESS CO.. INC. Internationa/ Banking, Shipping, Trave! CITY TICKET OFFICE Manila Railroad Company American Express Travelers Cheques IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNA