The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

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Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

Title: The American Chamber of Commerce Journal
Issue Date: Volume 7 (Issue No.9) September 1927
Year: 1927
Language: English
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extracted text: Left to Right Admiral Kittelle E. A. Perkins Gregorio Araneta ' B. M. Consul General Thomas Harrington Acting Governor Gilmore Ions. Piani, Apos tolic Delegate, ad interim Archbishop of Manila Reverend . ames B. Rodgers Major General [ohnson Hagood, U. S. A. Mourning the Death of a Great Insular Executive: Wood Memorial Services, Manila: August 13, Groups of Notables and Soldiers Throughout the Islands on August 13, Anniversary of the American Oc cupation of Ma nila in 1898, and on other days immediately fol lowing General Wood’s Demise in Boston August 7r the People Paid Tribute to His Beloved and Hon ored Memory. PARTIAL CONTENTS, SEPTEMBER: How the Navy Got the Americans Away from Nanking The Milk in the Coconut: The Money Too “Judge on the Bench” Judge Harvey Eugene A. Gilmore: Acting Philippine Governor Franciscan Missions in the Philippines: Mission Trail Series—III It’s a Way They Have in New Guinea: Quite Odd Editorials—By Walter Robb Comment of Timely Interest and Permanent Value: Trade Reviews Manila’s Choicest Cigarettes The fine flavor and exquisite fragrance of these cigarettes will win your instant favor SOLD EVERYWHERE You too will like them II ii ;i 3 >! i ii !! I; ii ii II i| ROSITAS CIGARETTES 30 FOR IO CENTAVOS AND 20 FOR S CENTAVOS WHEN TRAVELING CARRY NATIONAL CITY BANK OF NEW YORK LETTERS of CREDIT ^=ANDz it TRAVELERS CHECKS ii ;i SAFE - - CONVENIENT - - SELF-IDENTIFYING i| INTERNATIONAL BANKING CORPORATION PACIFIC BUILDING MANILA, P. I. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 1 Improvements Produce Still Finer Results A new five-bearing crankshaft of finest alloy steel, together with other improvements announced at the same time, has literally revolutionized the performance of Dodge Brothers Motor Car. You must go far higher in price to find its equal in zest, flexibility and smoothness of power. The best proof of this statement is personal experience in the car. We will be glad to provide you an opportunity at your convenience. Sole Distributors: ESTRELLA AUTO PALACE LEVY HERMANOS, Inc. 536 - 568 Gandara ILOILO — MANILA — CEBU Dodee- Brothers MOTOR CARS IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 19 A cool glass of sparkling San Miguel A glass a day will give you physical energy and vigor! ' San Miguel Brewery CORONAS DE LA ALHAMBRA i I HALF-A-CORONA EXCELENTES ESPECIALES BELLEZAS PRESIDENTES Etc., Etc. Watch For The Name ALHAMBRA On Rings and Labels It’s Your Protection i Alhambra Cigar and Gigarette Mfg. Co. I 31 Tayuman Manila, P. I. I MIT A TED BUT NEVER EQUALLED! IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL eAmerican Chamber of Commerce Journal PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS (1 Chamber or of States) LOCAL CENTAVOS Sizing Up the Acting Governor General... 5 Sinclair Lewis Attends a Vienna Revolution........................... 6 —Franciscan Mission of San Francisco del Monte: Mission Trails Series—III............................................................................... 7 New Guinea Contrasts.................................................................. 8 How the Navy Got the Americans Away from Nanking. ... 9 Editorials: Expansion................. 10 Quizzing the Governor.......................................................... 10 Sugar....................................................................................... 10 The Genesis of a Pier............................................ 10 “Judge on the Bench”—Judge George R. Harvey........ 11 Bidding the Carabao Good-By from the Paddies (By W. A. McKellar)............................................................................... 11 Philippine Commerce and the Panama Canal.................... 13 Personnel of “National” Companies’Directorates,,etc., Listed. 13 Church Bells New and Old in Manila (By Seddie L. BurkThe Milk in the Coconut: The Profit Too....................... 17 Page Reviews of August Business: Sugar (By George H. Fairchild)...................................... 12 Lumber: First Half-Year (By Arthur F. Fischer)........ 14 Shipping (By H. M. Cavender)......................................... 20 Commodities into Manila by Rail (By M. D. Royer). ... 22 Manila Hemp, Abaca (By T. H. Smith)......................... 22 Tobacco and Cigars (By P. A. Meyer)............................ 23 Rice (By Percy A. Hill)...................................................... 24 Exchange (By Stanley Williams)..................................... 25 Real Estate (By P. D. Carman)...................................... 25 Statistical Summary of Overseas Commerce: Ports by Nationality of Carrying Vessels......................... 26 Principal Exports.................................................................... 27 Principal Imports................................................................... 27 Port Statistics......................................................................... 27 Carrying Trade....................................................................... 27 Foreign Trade by Countries................................................ 27 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 FOR YOUR HAULBACK —the latest development for roller bearing blocks No. 1123 No. 1103, 10"x2", wt. 68 lbs. No. 1123, 12"x2", wt. 80 lbs. 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Lightering, Marine Contractors Towboats, Launches, Waterboats Shipbuilders and Provisions SIMMIE 8s GRILK Phone 302 Port Area IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL Eugene A. Gilmore: Acting Philippine Governor Many men would like to be named governor general of the Philip pines. The place is open, the candidates arous ed, their friends impor tunate. Meantime, how ever, we have a gov ernor general in our Act ing Governor, Eugene A. Gilmore, continuing the policy of the admin istration. That policy in its broad outlines was the clarification of Eugene A. Gilmore the organic act. It res tored the legal author ity of the governor general. Upon this ground stands Gilmore. Some suspect him of weakness of spirit, which has not yet appeared. Did his message to the Legislature show weakness? Rather it showed a full and powerful grasp of the public situation. Did the budget display weakness? It was the height of wisdom to base appropriations upon average revenues over a period of ten years instead of taking narrower and more optimum periods as a basis—palpably false and unstable. And what about Gilmore’s appointment of a committee to probe the interisland shipping situation? Was it not wise and timely? Was it not well received, in quarters where its recep tion counts? Do we not stand to have improve ments effected? Another outstanding incident was the Tan Malaka case. Observe how Gilmore proceeded. He had, of course, summary power to deport the man. But it would have been a grandstand play to exercise this power, for there was power enough elsewhere. Tan Malaka was deported by the customs authorities because he had il legally entered the Philippines under a false name and without a passport. Not only the law, but the utmost de gree of the law was ob served. We know, therefore, already, how Gilmore will proceed. He will proceed according to law. Who would ask more? Are we not all in one political community? And if he sets the example of meticulous regard for the law, is it not reason able to surmise that others will be held to like standards? In short, is America here for a day, or is she here indefinitely, establishing a commu nity of law-governed citizens? It was said on August 27 that Gilmore, though a candidate for the governorship, had no plat form. This is what has been led up to; for the Journal is unable to learn that he is more than a receptive candidate, and he is certainly a logical candidate to continue an administration in which for five years as vice governor and secre tary of public instruction he had a paramount part. Ten days before it was said he had no platform, he had issued a statement to the United Press. It is here reproduced from the daily press. It will certainly stand a second reading by any one. Immediately upon reading it. Captain H L. Heath, President of the Cham ber of Commerce—and who will accuse him of timidity?—punched out an interview in which he endorsed the statement as the best ever made by any governor of these islands. It is pretty near that, if not quite; and if it isn’t a platform, then the Journal doesn’t know one when it sees it. Here it is: “The Public Press is one of the most potent agencies in creating and directing public interest in any particular subject. What the commu nity thinks and talks about is largely determined by what appears in the newsand editorial columns of the Press. The Press, by selection and em phasis of news items and by editorials, can bring certain subjects to the attention of the people and stimulate interest in them. “The first thing, therefore, that the Press can do to create an atmosphere favorable to economic and business development is to adopt the policy of giving this subject special emphasis in the news items and frequent and extended treatment in editorials. “At present too much attention is given to government and politics and too little to econom ics and business. As the poet said, ‘The world is too much with us, early and soon'; likewise, government is too much with us, early and soon. The government is looked to as the source of wealth and opportunity, as the agency for the solution of all the problems of the community. There is too much paternalism and not enough individualism. The people should be led to think of something besides government and politics. Important as these may be, they do not constitute the chief end of community life. Government does not produce anything; it is the result of something else; it can rise no higher nor be more wealthy nor more’efficient jthan the individuals composing it. The resources* of government and its efficiency must come from the people back of government. What is needed is more dependence upon self and less dependence upon government. There should be more people with an economic base outside of and independent of government. “Too many people are looking to government as the source of support. The principal function of government, however, is to preserve order, protect life and property, and to create favorable conditions, available alike to all, in which trade and commerce can thrive, and then let the indi vidual, by his own merit, industry and applica tion, devote his energies to his own develop ment. “At the foundation of every successful gov ernment there must be economically capable and efficient individuals. There should, therefore, be emphasis on the importance of individual thrift and development. The cost of govern ment is already laying a heavy toll upon the products of individual enterprise. Until there is a greater economic and business develop ment, in which the mass of the people parti cipate, the exactions of government can not be largely increased. Until each individual is able to earn more money he can not be expected to contribute more to the government. Gov ernment expenses, measured in terms of daily labor and the value of the principal crops, show that before government activities can be increased the sources of government revenue must be increased. “To bring this thought home graphically, the following figures, approximately correct, are worthy of contemplation: Almost 10 centavos out of every peso an individual earns goes to the government. A little more than one-half the entire value of the annual rice crop goes to government employees in the form of salaries and wages. The total annual expenditures for government, both Insular and local, are more than 137 million pesos. This represents almost the total value of the entire annual crop of abaca, sugar and maguey. In other words, all that the individuals engaged in culti vating these three important crops can produce goes to defray the cost of government. The annual cost of the Insular Government alone equals the total annual export value of coconut oil, copra, copra meal and other coconut prod ucts. Likewise, all that is derived from the export of embroideries, hats, cigars and sugar is about equal to the amount which is spent annually by the Insular Government. “The total government expenditures represent the income of 1,832,677 persons on the basis Fordsorv THE UNIVERSAL TRACTOR Turning Loss to Protit Ford Trucks and Fordson Tractors are everywhere noted for their ability to change the tide from loss to profit. They are low in cost, dependable, extremely economical to operate and stand up against years of hard and continuous service. "After we Sell we Serve’’ Manila Trading & Supply Co. Main Office -MANILA Iloilo Cebu - Bacolod Legaspi THE UNIVERSAL CAR IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 6 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 of an average per capita income of P75.16. It requires 573,833 men working 300 days each year, at the rate of 80 centavos per day, to earn the money needed for the operation of the govern ment. “Another way in which the Press can assist in creating a favorable atmosphere for business development is to preach the doctrine of toler ance, mutual confidence and good will. No community can develop its business in an at mosphere of discord and suspicion. Trade and business are founded on good will and fair dealing. The Philippine Islands possess great resources. The opportunities for business are great. Common participation in the enjoy ment of these opportunities will improve the Gilmorc at Work at the Executive Building welfare of everyone and prejudice no one. Amer icans and Filipinos should realize that in the material prosperity of these Islands, there is mutual advantage, and that this advantage can be realized only by mutual cooperation. There should be more consideration given to those interests which Americans and Filipinos have in common and less to those which they have apart. “The Press will serve best if it emphasizes at all times the common interests rather than the diverse interests; if it stresses harmony rather than discord, confidence and good will rather than suspicion and prejudice.” Since this was issued Governor Gilmore has himself taken effective steps to have it complied with in so far as the press is concerned. He has adopted the rule of seeing the reporters but once each week, no oftener than the President does; and surely insular news is no more vital than Washington news. He will see morning news men one day a week, and evening news men on another day. The Journal is inclined to suspect that it is precisely because Gilmore Sinclair Lewis and the Vienna Summer Revolution Into Vienna at last at 1 in the morning—and never have I sden a more quiet, spacious, un revolutionary city. Oh, yes, they had killed a few people that day while we were flying, but not even the volatile Viennese can revolutionize twenty-four hours a day. And about us Vienna slept and dreamed of cakes and whipped cream while we whirled up to the hotel—and our old friend, the night porter at Sacher, greeted us as though he had never heard of a revolution. I am going back to the life of the wild, en chanted, romantic novelist again and cut out these humdrum newspaper men. * * * It all seemed like a courteous and gentlemanly revolution until that scene at Central cemetery, where they buried the dead. A mass burial for men and women who died in a mass movement. A string of sixty coffins, hidden under flowers. The flowers were the true Vienna of light hearts and waltz tunes. They were bright, like these sunshiny days which have followed does have a policy and is carrying it out, that some are displeased with him. Others are in a better category. They have honest misgivings which do them credit. But the press rule will surely redound to the benefit of the press and the public alike. The columns must be filled, and news will prove to be superior to thoughtless political gossip. On August 26 the regents of the University elected Dr. Gonzalez acting dean of the college of agriculture, vice Dean Baker, deceased. Headlines the next morning shouted, almost glee fully, Gilmore Loses! The regents’ vote was 6-3, Bewley and Pond were absent. Now it is no doubt true that Gilmore did have a personal choice for the deanship, in Dr. Pendle ton. He is not only qualified, but there was keen rivalry between Gonzalez and Dr. Roxas, which argued, for' the welfare of the college, the selection of a third man. This was no doubt Gilmore’s advice, which was not followed. The advice, however, was confined to proper limits. The regents were free to choose a dean; the University is a republic of letters, enjoying a charter; and the legitimate steps a governor could take were only those of counsel. It was misleading to say that Gilmore lost, there was but one nomination. Gilmore followed the law, and while he did not hesitate to counsel, still the onus of the choice rests upon the regents who made it. If things turn out badly, the public knows exactly whom to blame: those who exercised their right of choice and used bad judgment. If they turn out all right, the regents have a feather in their cap: no victory over Gilmore, who wasn’t in the lists, but victory for their judgment. Confidence in Gilmore is quite general now. Nothing has occurred since he assumed the duties of acting governor to inspire any other opinion. the quickly ended revolt, but under them were the coffins. And in these were bodies of children and young girls. As my companion and I shot along the Rennweg—the ancient road in Vienna where two hundred years ago gay nobles of ancient Vienna raced horses, not noticing the silly peasants who got under their hoofs—we found ourselves in the midst of a newly formed citizen’s guard in awlcward, shambling uniforms of ill-dyed green buckram. There weren’t more than 2,000 people stand ing there at the funeral ceremony. The city was afraid of the bullets of the communists and of the police. Only the lowly realized that on the long plat form before the gates, concealed under the splendor of flowers, red banners and black streamers, were no less than sixty coffins. From three torches wavered the dim flames of gas, burning not to unknown soldiers but to unknown citizens shot by police. The crowd was firm in Viennese traditional politeness and seemed no more emotional than a bored group about a Fourth of July orator. Then one saw that most of them were in mourning. But it was the pathetic mourning of the very poor—ragged arm bands made from black petticoats and pathetic black hats of the cheapest. And when the citizens’ guard made way for a woman who walked blindly with her head buried on the shoulder of her son one saw that the quietness of this crowd was the quietness of a wire leading to Sing Sing death house. And then the speakers started. Two thousand broken-hearted persons were standing for this last glimpse of the coffins and Austria’s orators -got up and oozed words. Such learned words! Such measured, useful and reasonable words! And they were generous. They permitted not only the social democrats but the communists also to speak. Words uttered by bearded and clever men—the whole proceeding like a nice debating society. Explanations that they really were quite sorry that people had been killed but that it could never happen again. And the well-bred crowd in their agony listened consider ably more politely than certain American cor respondents. When the coffins were carried off the crowd didn’t sob. Curiously, it only swayed a little. I stood there with three American newspaper men, very hard-boiled ones, indeed, and I saw that all three were crying shamelessly. I saw them, that is, after I had wiped away my own ludicrously sentimental tears. In the midst of all this came inevitable comedy. Among red-eyed women following the baby’s coffin came an eager youngster. A red guard held him back. They had exactly as lively a jaw contest as any Irish policeman and Irish street cleaner ever had at a Yom Kippur parade. The crowd split suddenly. Until then I hadn’t seen the half-dozen stretcher bearers waiting there, somber men with the blessed red cross on their arms. I followed them as they kicked their way through the crowd and saw them head off and place on a stretcher a screaming woman who hid her eyes behind an upflung arm. This was only the first of six occasions when I saw the stretcher men working. Once it was a big man who had fainted and was carried away. Once it was a youth of fine features and clear eyes, standing beside one of the glittering coffins, who, after a moment when his face worked in grief, went literally mad. Once as I was briskly following a stretcher away, a man standing alone, sobbing, seized my hand and said: “He was my brother. Are you alone, too?” Then, seeing suddenly that I was a foreigner, he explained: “Thanks for your handclasp. I had no one but him. He didn’t have anything to do with the riots. He was shot while bringing me a Mozart score last Friday evening which we were going to play together in duet.” I don’t know why that crowd should have been most gripped by sorrow when the coffins were taken away—not to the quiet fields of a cemetery, with those cursed sparrows always so cheerful everywhere, but to a crematorium, where in half an hour all these victims of love of life would crumble in flame. Then we started home. And on the way my guide showed me the charming new brick houses which the socialists have been building to make Vienna laugh again.—Chicago Daily News. JOLO DEER PRESERVE Mrs. Caroline S. Spencer has applied for a lease of the land comprising the top of Bagsak mountain. This is the historic battle ground where General Pershing fought several thou sand rebel Moros in 1913. However, Mrs. Spencer’s purpose in leasing this tract of land has no connection with its historical appeal, nor does she expect to cultivate it, but it is her desire to control this section of territory in order to give protection to the beautiful Jolo deer and save them from extinction. Unless some re servation like this is provided, the famous fallow deer will soon be of the past owing to the present rate of hunting.—Mindanao Herald. September, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 7 Franciscan Missions in the Philippine Islands San Francisco del Monte: Mission Trail Series ‘ ‘A lay brother of the Franciscan order of friars, ’ ’ says an old chronicle, “was the foundation stone of the Holy and Apostolic Province of St. George the Great which has produced such abundant fruits of honor and uprightness. The venerable Fray Antonio de San Gregorio, for such was the name of the brother, desiring to go to evangelize in the name of Christ the people of the Solomon islands, and overcoming innumerable obstacles, obtained permission from the prelates of the order, from our Catholic Monarch, Philip II, and from the Roman Pontiff, to enlist mission aries for his purpose. He quickly found sixteen fervent companions who, departing from the Holy Province of San Jose, situated in the two Castillas, happily arrived at Seville in the year 1576, where, capitularly congregated, they named as their first prelate the Son of God Fray Pedro de Alfaro. From that date they remained organized under the name of San Felipe, whose name was retained until the following year, 1577, when our Holy Father Gregorio XIII denominated the organization that of San Gre gorio (St. George), and in 1586 Sixto V erected it into a province by his bull Dum ad uberes fructus, etc., honoring it likewise with the titles of Holy and Apostolic. “Our zealous missionaries were on the point of departing for the Solomon islands, when Philip II, informed by the Augustinian, Fray Diego de Herrera, of the urgent necessity for missionaries in these islands (the Philippines), issued a royal decree that the Franciscan mission then in Seville should sail for the Philippines— which therefore was done in the harbor of San Lucar de Barrameda in the first part of July, 1576. “Happy and contented, they voyaged toward New Spain (Mexico), when an epidemic broke out on the ship and afforded them an opportu nity to demqnstrate their fervent charity. Four missionaries died, and another in Vera Cruz and another in Jalapa. To replace these, six others were recruited in the province of the Santo Evangelio de la Observancia. The venerable founder, Fray Antonio de San Gregorio, returned to Spain from Mexico upon urgent errands relative to the mission, and another friar was left sick in Jalapa when the mission embarked; so that, although in the first mission there had been twenty-three religious, there did not arrive in these islands more than fifteen, whose arrival here was on Tune 24, 1577a, “The enthusiasm, jubilation and extraordinary pleasure demonstrated by the Very Noble and Ever Loyal City of Manila for the sons of the seraph of Assisi, clearly revealed the abundant blessings expected from their unquestioned apos tolic zeal. The city received them in a manner so singular that it has never been equalled. The Master of Camp, Don Pedro Chaves, who gov erned the islands at the time because of the absence of the Sr. Governor and Captain General Don Francisco de Sande, ordered all the troops into parade formation along the route the evan gelists would have to take to enter the city. Accompanied by Sr. D. Pedro Chaves himself, by all persons of distinction, and by a multitude of the native inhabitants, amid a din of vivas, acclamations, music, salvos .of artillery and universal rejoicing, the missionaries repaired to the monastery of the Augustinians, where they were cordially and generously made welcome.” ^Jiuch then was the coming of the first Fran ciscans to the Philippines. Their history in general since that time must be taken up in a later paper, and this one confined to the sanc tuary of San Francisco del Monte, now devel oping into a beautiful suburb of Manila. No one need be reminded, perhaps, of the fanatic character of the faith of the Franciscans: the hardships heroic individuals among them have endured on a hundred borders of civiliza tion throughout the world attest this. Pathetic figures indeed are, therefore, the few robed zealots who still occupy the ancient monastery in Manila; who, under circumstances and inno. vations they can in no wise comprehend, but which they fear are fraught with terrible con sequences for the human soul, are all aging in restless desuetude. They attend the bells, they chant the solemn service, they confess the contrite; but as they no longer evangelize the heathen and the pagan and sustain the neophyte in his moments of early doubt, they are like men lost in their way. The world has moved on and they have been unable to follow its wayward prog ress. They question the saints that of old banish ed epidemics and labored in the very sight of men to repulse the armed attacks of heretics upon the city, and the saints give them no counsel. Aim less, but with undiminished faith, they live their last complaining and impotent years. But the reader is now looking upon the Fran ciscans, a strict schismatic branch of the Augus tinians, their patron St. Francis of Assisi, in another age—an age. when the church was the state; for all practical purposes, and the aims of government were to promote the work of the missions and maintain the authority of the evangelizing friars. Thus, concerning San Francisco del Monte estate, one sees: “On February 17, 1590, the Sr. Governor and Captain General D. Santiago de Vera gave to this province of S. Gregorio in the name of His Franciscan Church and Ruined Chapel, San Francisco del Monte: Now a Beautiful Manila Suburb Majesty a small encomienda (a country estate, with the inhabitants thereof) situated a little more than a league from Manila, toward the northeast, for the founding of a monastery where the religious might retire from time to time to en joy a vacation and for prayers and meditation. “Certainly the site is admirably adapted to its purpose, its thousand marvels impel one to dedicate himself to virtue. It is truly a wilder ness, though so close by Manila, and thoroughly delightful because of the grateful shade of its trees, the varied bird life, and the river, meander ing through it in the form of a horseshoe from northwest toward the southern boundary. By virtue of the donation, the Franciscans took pos session of the encomienda the same year, 1590; and there was constructed, by order of the holy prelate Fray Pedro Bautista, who selected the site, a small monastery and hermitage of bamboo and nipa palm, under the advocation of Our Lady of Monticello. Later it took the name of San Francisco del Monte, vulgarly applied to it from the beginning. “In 1593, the monastery and hermitage was rebuilt, of wood, and in 1599 from stone at the expense of two generous and pious gentlemen, Captains D. Pedro Salazar and D. Domingo Ortiz de Chagoya. “In the rebellion of the Chinese in 1639, the structure suffered the diabolical fury of these savages, who destroyed it almost entirely in their retreat from Manila. At last, in the years from 1639 to 1699, the structure still in existence was built, the cost being borne by D. Tomas de Endaya, its patron. The building, although of simple design, is, notwithstanding, quite solid. It is cemented upon an enormous rock on the crest of a small mountain and is large enough to accommodate twelve religious, which number it has had in it at times when the missionaries were numerous. “It was even a house for novitiates in ancient times. “The church was dedicated in the year men tioned, 1699, to the holy protomartyrs of Japan, San Pedro Bautista and his companions, in memory of their having sanctified this solitary retreat. A thousand recollections of devotion awaken the attention of the Christian in this famous sanctuary. He may see in its church a most revered image of Our Lady of Sorrows, which in ancient times was in a little stone chapel which served as the last station of the via crucis, which, commencing in the courtyard of the monastery, continued toward the north the exact distance that the Mount of Calvary is distant from Pilate’s palace in Jerusalem. The chapel was built upon a tiny hill, at the foot of which, some hundred paces from the chapel, is the fountain of the Virgin. The waters of this fountain, not quite clear in the stream, when left to settle for a time are exquisite and very healthful. “Time, which consumes all things, and a poverty which a little or nothing can repair, have been the reason why the chapel is now beheld a total ruin. “A very curious cave below the main altar of the church also attracts the attention. In this cave the martyrs who are justly glorified in this holy province of San Gregorio, in the fierce clutches of the stern discipline, rehearsed the letting of their noble blood, which shortly should be poured out in torrents in honor anil defense of Christ crucified. Here were prepared with holy exercises all the missionaries who went from this apostolic province for the kingdoms of Japan, China, Cochinchina, Cambodja, • Siam, Ternate and a hundred other parts. Now there is left but a single friar, as a custodian.” How pale beside this record are those which tell of the missions in America, supported and in the midst of powerful colonies; whereas in the Philippines, distant from Spain by half the circumference of the world, there was but a feeble colony supplied and munitioned by a single ship a year—this often never reaching port either because of storms or successful attacks by the British or Dutch. It was under such conditions that the missions sent forth their evangelists to proud empires like China and Japan: to no nomadic but not unfriendly tribes, such as the Indians of America, but to ancient, rich and resourceful nations boastful of their prowess in war and jealous of their pagan deities. From such a place, into such places, went the Christian zealots—Spanish, and believing that Philip ought to add to his realm all that they conquered with the cross-—with the startling message, “Thou shalt have no other gods.” THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 It’s a Way They Have in New Guinea: Quite Odd There used to be German New Guinea. It was the middle part of the mainland together with hundreds of coastal islands. New Guinea is a large island with many coastal islands lying west of northern Australia and separated from it by Great Barrier Reef. West of New Guinea lie the Celebes, and northward are the Carolines. Some three times a year, a ship plying between Hongkong and the capital of the quondam German New Guinea touches at Manila, both on the outward and homeward voyages; and the territory is developing so rapidly that there is said to be a good chance for trade between it and the Philippines. Anyway, it is a strange land; and as it lies in our part of the world, it is particularly worth knowing something about. When the World War broke out in 1914, Australia took over German New Guinea. It remained under military administration until May, 1921, when it was mandated to Australia by the League of Nations. An expropriation board created by Australia thereafter took over all the old German interests and set up head quarters at the capital, Rabaul. Quite a decent attitude seems to have been maintained toward the German owners. If they were married to British subjects, Australian or Samoan women, they were allowed to retain their plantations and remain in the country unmolested. The sons of Germans who had died were also allowed to retain their inheritances. All other German properties, however, were taken over by the board, to be sold off to bona fideBritish subjects. The Returned Soldiers’ League, correspond ing to the American Legion, asserted its influence in the drafting of the regulations. In June, 1925, the first of three groups of the German plantations were offered for sale on terms. Returned soldiers were to pay 5% with tender and 10% upon allocation of the property to them; all others were required to pay 30% with tender and 10% .upon allocation; and both soldiers and nonsoldiers were given 20 years in which to pay the balance of the purchase price, in equal quarterly installments. Some trick sters got in their work, which brought a probe commission from Australia; they a organized finance companies and bought some of the soldier-purchasers’ rights. It is reported that by this device some of the plantations fell back into the hands of Germans. Soon, however, the lid was clamped down. Prior to the war, Germans had developed a very successful type of plantation on which cocoa palms were planted between coconuts, the latter giving the former shade and protection from winds. This was done on the coastal island of Witu, where there are four plantations and abundant virgin lands for more like them. It seems that the Germans were not successful with rubber on New Guinea. Kanakas are the natives of New Guinea, varying greatly in their advancement toward civilization—from the very low and backward bush Kanaka in the Sepik river region (inland) to much higher types in the Manus and Western Isles groups, and also the Anchorite islands. The Anchorites are dying out; they have marked ly European features and are said to be the descendants of men of European stock, marooned seafarers, perhaps. Their customs and laws are distinctively their own. Cannibalism still exists on New Guinea; and as in Mindanao, the coast peoples prey upon the peoples of the interior, levying toll upon their petty commerce, exacting tribute for passage to the trading posts, etc., the old coast-tribe game throughout Malay sia and the whole south seas. Christian missions are as yet very scattered. American Lutherans have succeeded to the work of the German Lutherans; their missions are practically if not quite supported by the plantations the German Lutherans developed. Methodist missions are found at some of the coast points, while Roman Catholics have established some industrial missions. The mis sion work is being extended. The country is large, and largely undeveloped. The native Kanakas have always fought among each other, hunted and fished when they had to have meat, but planted and traded little. They now bring in trade copra from wild palms, but the missions are teaching them to dwell in regular settlements and plant fields of their own. The mandate government administers native affairs very conscientiously. The territory is divided into districts under district officers who have patrols of native police boys commanded by themselves and their assistants. They are officers of justice as well as administration; they make the rounds of the settlements reg ularly, exposing themselves constantly to malaria and black water fever. They hear complaints and administer summary justice, but the natives have an appeal from them to tribunals of higher and final jurisdiction. Under this system, the original hearing is always at the point where the crime was committed or the civil dispute arose. The hearings are open. Fortunately, though the tribes all have their distinct dialects, pidgin is universally spoken. It is a conglomerate of dialect, English and other languages; it is fairly easily mastered, so it has become the means of understanding between the government and the people. Tobacco is the native’s chief incentive for intercourse with the whites. It goes into the Squad of New Guinea Police “Boys” country as trade tobacco and takes the place of money, having a fixed value. It is Virginia tobacco, reaching New Guinea via Australia and the Australian and New Guinea customs; and therefore it is an important source of revenue to both governments. It is moist and black, in twists six inches long having the value of a shilling. The Kanakas got to know the German mark, and the British shilling has taken its place; but other denominations are not familiar to the native, who might be grossly cheated in them, so tobacco is an expedient of commerce. The natives cut it into bits with their trade knives and make it into cigarettes, rolled in newspaper. These cigarettes are large ones; they are passed around and smoked in common in the cold hill villages, where the natives feel they impart warmth to their naked bodies. Tobacco has no value in New Guinea save in the form described. Kanakas are recruited for the plantations. Labor agents visit the villages and sign up the young men, who know not what they are doing, with the permission of the chiefs or headmen. The contracts run from one to three years, the agent getting 12 pounds for a three-year man, 7 for a two-year man and 5 for a one-year man. At the end of his contract a boy must be returned to his village at the expense of his employer, and remain there three months before he may be signed up again. Upon going to a plantation a boy is given a trade box, of standard size and make, charged to him (the law can not prevent this) at 10 shillings. The box is provided with a lock and key; it is prized above all other pos sessions; into it go a blanket, a spoon and a bowl. Tobacco is also kept in it. When a district officer or his assistant visits a plantation, he says, when the boys are all lined up before him: “Have you any complaint to make against your master? And let me see your trade box.” These trade boxes are carefully inspected periodically, in order that the government may know at all times that the boys are not being ill treated. Moreover, the questions about complaints are not idle or perfunctory: the officials really wish to know of any grievances the boys may have. Nevertheless, an abuse has developed relative to returning the boys to their villages; there has been carelessness about this in some cases, boys have been put off of coast boats and left to continue their journey home alone—with the consequence that they have been waylaid in enemy villages and either killed or robbed, perhaps both. These abuses have been resented and they have made recruiting difficult in the villages affected. “Three years ago we gave you 50 boys,” says a chief, “and 20 of them have not returned. Where are they?" Wages are six shillings a month, with which go, in ad dition, 1-1/2 pounds of rice per day, one tin of cheap sal mon per week, and one new lava-lava per month. The edu cational tax of 12 shillings per year (taken out of each boy’s wages because the law can not prevent the shifting of the obligation) must also be added to the labor expense. This tax goes to the support of an industrial-academic school at Rabaul, enjoyed by Kanakas recommended and selected by the district officers. It has an enrollment of 150 to 200 pupils and the matriculation lists are filled for years ahead. Educais not general; aside from the little provided by the gov ernment, some is also provided by some of the missions. There is little tendency to wean the natives away from their native customs and habits of life. The Germans were wont to pay no wages at all, and the Germans who are left in New Guinea still have the least trouble of any of the planters in getting and keeping native labor. Instead of paying any wages, the Germans filled the boys’ trade boxes at the end of their contract with everything the boys wanted to take back to their villages—up to a maximum amount; and then they carefully saw to it that the boys got back to their villages safely. Thus the boys had, for their three years’ work in the valleys, presents for their parents, their sisters and brothers and their sweethearts. The Germans today continue this practice, while paying the fixed wage stipulated by the government. On other plantations things are different, the thrifty Chinese (who are middlemen in New Guinea just as they are in the Philippines) get in their work. The boys are paid off under the eye of the district officers, everything is regular so far as this goes, but, money in hand, they step over to the neighboring Chinese general stores to stock their trade boxes, and * * * up go the prices of everything they wish to buy. Trinkets priced at one shilling, sell to the home going boy for four and five shillings. The government does not permit the Kanakas to change their mode of dress or adopt European fashions. They can not wear shoes, nor even shirts; they are restricted to the breechclout called the lava-lava, a cotton strip three yards September, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 9 long and wide enough to reach from the waist to below the knees. The illustration shows a group of Kanaka police boys posed fo>\ their picture; the shirts are the property of the pho tographer. Only about the mission settlements may Kanakas wear shirts and coats. There is a reason, which may be a sound one; it is said that experience has shown that where the native of the tropics is permitted to adopt the ways of Europeans, in dress and diet, degeneracy of the race ensues. The strict regulation is, therefore, intended for the Kanakas’ own good. While old German New Guinea is an agri cultural land preeminently, and copra and cocoa the principal crops, last year some very rich gold strikes were made and mining has already become very attractive, several wealthy com panies, one American, being engaged in it. Gold had always been washed out by the Kanakas, but the genuine richness of the streams had never been realized until some Australians made bonanza discoveries on the Ramu, Markham and Warrior rivers at their headwaters in the How the Navy Got the Americans Away from Nanking When southern Chinese fall to fighting north ern Chinese the fiercest combat always centers around Nanking, for which, of course, there is a reason. Perhaps it wouldn’t be a reason in the West, but it is in the East. It is sentiment, the sentiment of old traditions. That is why things were so hot for Americans in Nanking last March, when the Cantonese forces of the South took the city and caused the hurried retreat of the northern troops that had been defending it. Nanking! Why does each side want so badly this whosit on the Yangtze? It is just the provincial capital of Kiangsu. True, but Nanking was not always thus. Between the 4th and 6th Christian centuries Nanking was the seat of six successive dynasties in China. In 1368 it was once more made the metropolis of China, lasting as such until 1421. In Nanking, through many centuries, young Chinese sat in their low-roofed narrow cells and studied the ancient classics in preparation for the examinations qualifying them for the service of the government and the title of mandarin. See the rows of these youth-killing cells! Tradition preserves, and racial conservatism would even restore them! China has a glorious past, espe cially in the realm of literature and philosophy. Like other nations with a glorious past, she would, if she could, fashion the present in the mold of the past and live apart in splendid isolation. She can’t, because she has tea, silk, porcelain, beans and bakers’ eggs to sell, and the world wants to buy—and will buy, too, whether China’s rulers will or no. But nations are like individ uals, so it isn’t a bit hard to sympathize with old China. A gray but stubborn old baron lives his frugal days out in his castle, surrounded by a ruined estate, and wins one’s pity and respect because he holds so fast to his cherished traditions and honors the teachings of his fathers. China is just like the impoverished baron— impractical, unable to meet the world in a world ly way, but full of pride in all that she has to be proud of, her ancient past. Nanking is a big part of that past. When Europe was but a savage land of petty rulers warring with one another, and the only true authority was that of Rome, the Church, when the ambitious could not defeat their adversaries with the sword they sometimes chose the poison cup; and the envied had tasters at their little courts to sample both wine and viands before they dared eat or drink. But they had another means of detecting the poison, the celebrated celedons of Nanking. These porcelains, it was believed, were of such sensitive clay that when poison touched them they responded with a ring of warning. Pick one up today, cap it over your fingers and thump it ever so lightly, and it will ring like a silver bell. In medieval times these wares were priceless. mountains of the mainland. The real El Dorado seems to be on Eddie creek and the Watut and Bulolo rivers; indeed, the whole country ap pears to be impregnated with gold. Leaving his ship, a captain went gold panning in the region of the richest strikes and brought out 10,000 pounds in four months. It is reported that an American company gave a million sterling for one big property after their engineer examined it and made a report. To obviate the necessity of the tedious overland journey to the mines, consuming more than a week and exposing one to malaria and black water fever, the companies employ airplanes between Rabaul and their supply posts nearby the workings. One company is working a rich vein, other holdings are placer projects. Such is a brief sketch of New Guinea under the mandate. The Journal's information is from Murdo N. McDonald, who was employed in the district police force. His duties fam iliarized him with the country and the people as well as the' administration of public affairs. Besides its porcelains, Nanking has its damask silks and the famous Nanking fans; in the sur rounding province is a great production of raw silk annually; in the traditions the Empress left her throne in Nanking every spring and enacted the ceremony of caring for the silk worms. Nanking has always been a political, educational and military center as well as an industrial and commercial emporium. Its walls are 32 miles in circumference and from 30 to 50 feet high. They are furnished with 13 gates, four of which are opened only for ceremonials. The magni ficent tomb of Ming-hsiau-ling, founder of the Ming dynasty, adorns a venerated hillside inside Nanking’s protecting walls, and all the virtues of Drum Tower Gate, Nanking, and Ancient Examination Sheds, Dismal Monuments to China’s Effete Past the Chinese race can be traced in the classics that were preserved in Nanking and imparted to generation after generation. Japan received her own culture from this foqntain. Its waters ran freely over the Orient in the 14th and 15th centuries, making wild peoples gentle with the cultured learning of Confucius and his brilliant disciples. No wonder, then, that when the never-ending campaigns are on between North and South, Nanking is the particular goal of each army. The fact made the situation of Americans in Nanking very dangerous when the southern troops poured into the city last March. It gave the American navy a chance to distinguish itself, and the chance was eagerly seized. If a foreign navy is operating in China (and several always are operating there, our own included), when crises arise, the way to win distinction is to get out your nationals with the least amount of actual firing and loss of life, sb that the minimum offense only is given to the Chinese, who would like nothing better than to build a Great Wall around the whole coast of their country—not against the Mongols, this time, but against western barbarians. When a modern people think like that there is nothing to do but remain patient until they come out of it, and our navy in the Far East is always under the command of a man who can be firmly patient and who knows his China. This time it is Admiral Clarence S. Williams. However, it was not his business to be at Nanking last March. That was the business of a gunboat, the Noa, relieving the Simpson. The British had the Emerald there under Captain England, and the Japanese had three destroyers. England was senior officer in com mand, the three powers were acting together and all had nationals in the city. The foreign settlement at Nanking lies along the bank of the Yangtze outside the walls, but for lack of space the foreign consulates are within the walls. The site of the city is hilly, one hill inside the walls is called Socony Hill because it is occupied .by the residences of American employes of the Standard Oil Company. The residence of the manager of this company’s Nanking office is quite a pretentious house built flush with the city wall, a circumstance that saved many American lives on Thursday, March 24. Two days before, the southern troops had poured into Nanking and began their systematic looting. It seems that at that time there were some 220 Americans in the city: teachers, mis sionaries, officials and business people, most of the men married and having their families with them. By the most extreme patience and mili tary strategy, on March 22 no less than 175 of these beleaguered Americans were safely taken aboard the Noa and the Preston, the men going later on board a British hulk anchored in the river. That night several stragglers added to the number of the saved, but all these were from the foreign concession outside the walls. * There remained the grim situation of the Americans within the walls, who had gathered together to encourage one another and taken final refuge in the Manager’s House on Socony Hill. It was in the defense of this house and evacuation of Americans from it that the heroic work was done. The Noa landed a squad of unarmed men under .the command of Ensign W. Phelps. The squad was to be armed ac the American Consu late, inside the walls, where there were 24 rifles and plenty of ammunition—and where it would be Phelps’ wits and the men’s against uncounted thousands of victory-mad Cantonese! The men were G. M. Tounsend, T. C. Garbray, Electri cian Charzotte, O. M. Gree, E. Hatew, D. L. (Conclude,! on pope //) EDITORIAL OFFICES American Chamber of Commerce P. O. Box 1638 Telephone 1156 EXPANSION It is very fortunate that the project to expand Manila by taking in five towns of the 27 embraced in Rizal was submitted to the legislature apart from the project for revising the city’s charter and improving its finances. To our way of thinking, whether the five towns or any of them wish to leave Rizal and come into the corporate limits of Manila or not ought to be left to them: all talk that they should be taken in, so as to give them a moral cleanup, is hypocrisy: that doctrine would, in the final analysis, make Manila embrace the islands. Property interests are the paramount consideration, and not big properties, but small ones. Taxes are another; and it seems probable that instead of adding anything to the city’s rev enues, the five towns would be an actual and considerable drain upon rev enues already too low. But in these five towns, Caloocan, Pasay, San Felipe Neri, San Juan del Monte and San Pedro Makati, with taxable real property valued at P22,617,520, a small bonded debt, 1’55,200, a population of 62,838 and voters numbering 12,029, are thousands of families with equities in homes which they are buying on the easy-payment plan. They have made careful calculations in order to undertake these obligations; their incomes are either salaries or wages and any unwonted expenditure would swamp them. Their tax rate now is 7/8%, taken into Manila it would be 1-1/2% or almost double; yet it is probable that the actual growth of population followed by greater demands for houses would not be such as to raise the level of rents in these distant places perceptibly, or the level of real estate values. Would such a procedure be due process of law? Perhaps not. Considered from the viewpoint of Rizal, the project appears in no better light; if anything, it appears in a worse light. Rizal now has 27 municipal ities. It is proposed to deprive her of five of her best ones, merely because she is adjacent to Manila—and quite unfortunately so, it would appear. If the legislature can do this without the consent of the people and province involved, then the towns and provinces have no political integrity and are all of them at the mercy of the capital. This absurdity may be the fact, but it ought not to be; and if it is and while it is, it certainly operates all the time to affect adversely the value of property. It should not be possible for the legislature to move a boundary an inch, or take one town or any portion of it and add it to another, without the formal consent of the people concerned. Rizal now has a revenue income of 1’572,012. She may have outstanding bonds; and if not, she should be .in a position to vote them for obviously necessary public improvements. Take away five of her best towns; deduct the revenue she has from them, and then try to imagine how she is to survive the blow. If these five towns are actually taken away, reason suggests that the legislature should not end its depredations there, but that it ought in mercy to go much farther and obliterate Rizal alto gether by portioning it out to the various adjoining provinces. The half measure would be ruinous all round. The Journal believes the suburbs are needed as they now are, and as they may slowly be able to improve themselves. It does not behold them sunk in crime, it would take no joy in sharing the expense of vice squads to adorn them with pretended purity. Manila formerly had a district for its Mrs. Warrens. It was done away with. The Mrs. Warrens thereupon domi'.iled themselves in suburban cottages, where their Manila clientele visits them and where it would be best to leave them alone. They no doubt have to pay the police hush money, as they did in Manila, but they have a chance to take care of them selves and keep off the public streets. OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 QUIZZING THE GOVERNOR There is a rule of ethics at the Whitehouse biweekly interviews of the President with news men, that all questions are submitted in writing and if the President makes no comment they are treated as not having been submitted at all. If a similar rule prevailed at Malacafiang, the public would have had a straighter account of Governor Gilmore’s statement on the parliamentary government scheme, which, explicit and complete, follows: “Pending the appointment of a permanent governor general, I think it would be inappropriate for me to express publicly any views concerning the so-called ‘semiparliamentary’ form of government or concerning any policy of administration which would affect a change in the present form of government for these islands. As acting governor general, I am en deavoring to the best of my ability to carry on the executive department in keeping with the proper discharge of the responsibility imposed upon the governor general to see that the laws of the islands are faithfully executed and in accordance with what I understand to be the definitely announced policy of the President of the United States. Any change in the organic act is properly for Congress; any change in policy, for the President. I am more concerned about the practical administration of government and its results than about its precise form. Beyond this statement I do not care to say anything." Some of the papers dimmed the clarity of this by appending comment and surmises of their own, in the morning editions of September 2, and some of them had already said that Gilmore had forwarded a dispatch to Wash ington on the subject, which was later ascertained to be incorrect, for Gil more hadn’t. In brief, the public was given an erroneous impression of this whole affair, that better ethics respecting interviews with the executive would have made impossible. Gilmore’s stand is stated. Stet. SUGAR The Journal welcomes to Manila the members of the Philippine Sugar Association gathered for another annual meeting. Though sugar is not the most widely beneficial of our agricultural industries, it is by far the best organized. For this reason it forges ahead steadily, in good times and bad. Each succeeding year it attracts more capital, the crop regularly increases and new mills are built to take care of it. Prices have been low this year, yet it is reported the best in the islands’ history. The mill at San Fernando has paid off its indebtedness to the Philippine National Bank and the owners are making extensions. If they will, the Negros mills can do likewise. The more of these home-capital mills the better, since a larger share of the net profits from sugar will remain in the country for further and greatly needed farm development. After a while, who knows, the planters may find it possible to pay their help living wages. Sugar has a black history behind it. In some respects it seems to be like democracy, for which some one once said the only cure was more democracy. In Hawaii, for instance, they have apparently demonstrated that the remedy for the evils of the sugar industry is merely more sugar—more to the acre, to the plantation, to the mill. Paying the highest wages and employing the costliest land, Hawaii makes big dividends on sugar by making its yields so high and its mills so economical. The Philippines are most for tunate in having Hawaiian leadership in their own sugar industry. It’s far behind now, but it is catching up. THE GENESIS OF A PIER In Pier No. 7 which may be put down at 1’15,000,000 the islands have at Manila one of the world’s best units for the rapid handling of freight and convenient handling of passengers and baggage. But men complain of the cost, which seems to them, as it does to us, extraordinarily high. However, the rule holds good: the best comes high. With a good deal of asperity the legislature has often been blamed with the expense of this pier, fathering the project, etc., and while it is guilty of many excesses, blaming it with this is to miss the mark. Pier No. 7, if the Journal is correctly informed, was born in Washington and only adopted here—on the understanding that Washington would undertake other port improvements for its own account. But with Pier No. 7 provided, the policy of the ship ping board and fleet corporations changed under the Harding administra tion and the grandiose plans were left in abeyance or abandoned altogether. Quibbling about the pier might well cease, but taxpayers have a right to inquire why, if it is possible to find so much money for a pier in Manila, it is not possible to find a like sum or something near it for numerous piers for which there is much need at lesser ports throughout the archipelago. Pier No. 7 is bonded. It seems to us that the others might be too, and their earnings could be made to pay for them in 30 years. September, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 11 “Judge on the Bench”--Judge Harvey Judge George Rogers Harvey came to the Philippines in 1901. He was, therefore, among the first Americans who came out on their own. since he had no connection with the government. He and Mrs. Harvey have just left the islands, to go to California. It is on account of Mrs. Har vey’s health, no longer robust in this climate; and though Judge Harvey is on leave of absence, having five months’ accrued leave, which might be extended in an emergency, there is also a possibility that he may resign at the end of his leave and not come back to the Philippine bench. He has honored it for a long period, thirteen years, having been appointed a judge of the court of first instance in 1914. Judge Harvey embodies justice; there has always been the public feeling, and the feeling among litigants, that the law would be accom modated to the ends of justice in his decisions if it lay within his power. For the law is not always just, it is more consistently so when administered by the judge who exalts justice and tempers it at times with mercy. Perhaps if there were jury trial in this territory, it would be in Judge Harvey’s court more than in others that the privilege would be waived by both parties. Certainly he has been little harassed by litigants seeking favors: none has dared violate his sanc tum. The government, too, has been kept as aloof as the plain citizen. Men have disagreed with Judge Harvey, and he, like other judges, has been reversed on occasion, but no reversal and no personal pique has ever impeached his honor. If a tale may be told with sufficient delicacy, it may be told out of school. Judge Harvey took over the duties of his sala in Manila on a Monday. The first business presented was a motion for dissolution of a receivership, which his predecessor had just granted without notice. The man whose business had been placed in the hands of a receiver was now in court asking dissolution of the receivership. Puzzled by the circumstances, Judge Harvey consulted the man who had granted the receivership. “What shall I do?” he asked. “Oh, if I were you I’d dissolve the thing. Blank told me himself he thought the other people would settle if they were threatened with a receivership!” There was no way out of the nasty mess except to dissolve the receivership, but no one has ever attempted to utilize Judge Harvey’s court as a bill collecting agency. Harvey was born near Athens, Alabama, some years ago. His parents were both Virginia people, from old colonial families. The first Harvey encountered in Virginia’s history is Sir John Harvey, who settled at Jamestown in 1637. Harvey attended public school at Ennis, Texas, and later attended Valparaiso University. ' He then returned to Texas, studied law at the University of Texas, was examined and admitted to practice in the state, and was elected county attorney of El Paso county. At the close of his term, two years, he went to Kansas City and was graduated there from the Kansas City School of Law and admitted to practice in Missouri. Soon after this he came to Manila, opening law offices in the old Batlle building on Calle Rosario which was torn down some years ago for the widening of calle Dasmarinas. (H. E. Heacock, beginning his jewelry business in the islands, had offices with Harvey.) Friends of Harvey from El Paso came with him to Manila. He was their counsel. They planned to engage in banking and other lines of business here, feeling, like the honest border men they were, that under the American flag the development of the islands would be rapid and the opportunities for capital abundant. But they soon found that the then administra tion was not encouraging that sort of thing; they got the cold shoulder, and they went back to Texas. Harvey decided to stay and stick it out. If the country thought it didn’t need business men, it might think better of lawyers; and the experience would be interesting in any case. Besides, Harvey does stick things out; it’s his way. After a year of private practice, upon invita tion from Judge Libbeus R. Wilfley, then the attorney general, Harvey took a post as an assistant attorney. In 1903 he was appointed assistant attorney general for constabulary matters and assigned to constabulary head quarters, and two years later, as assistant at torney general, he returned to the attorney general’s office, where, in 1908, he was promoted to the post of solicitor general—the job Alex ander- Reyes has now. From this position, in which he was often acting attorney general, he went to the bench in 1914. His first ap pointment was to the 7th district, Tayabas, Batangas and Mindoro, but in June, 1914, he was appointed to the Manila district, where he has been ever since—longer than any other American judge in the history of the Manila court. During the World War, Judge Harvey was NANKING: From Page Nine Larratt, T. H. Jones, First Class Seaman Morris, Second Class Fireman Plumley, and C. N. Arnold. Two or three pf these men, Morris and Plumley especially, are commended for their conspicuous conduct in Nanking, but every man stood true to his duty. It was nearly 10 in in the morning, Thursday, when Phelps learned that the British Consulate had been looted, the guard overcome and the Consul General killed. Word came next of the general looting of the Christian missions and the wanton murder of an American, Dr. Williams. It was then and there decided to get the remain ing Americans out of the city, come what might. Phelps was at the American Consulate with his handful of men, and refugees had joined them there. Among them was Mrs. John K. Davis and her two children, the wife and children of the U. S. Consul, John K. Davis, who remained on duty and gave sound counsel and cool assistance. There was a long trek over the hills to the Socony house. Undergoing desultory fire from ambush all the way, Mrs. Davis and the children bore up with the men and reached temporary safety. Phelps had given various parts of a machine he had smuggled through the gate, to different men among the refugees to carry; but they hurried so that they threw these away! When the Bidding the Carabao Good-by from the Paddies W. A. McKellar Manager, Machinery Department, Macleod and Company In the article of Mr. Hill in the August number of the American Chamber of Com merce Journal, he says: “The main agri cultural motive power in the Philippines is, and will be, the carabao, suited to work in partly submerged fields and adapted to the intensive methods of cultivation followed in the Orient.” If by the words and will be he refers to the next few years, he is, no doubt, correct, but since he does not so qualify the meaning of his statement as to the future, I wish to express the contrary belief that, before many years, the commissioned a major judge advocate in the judge advocate general’s department of the Army. He served for a time as judge advocate of the Philippine department; he was also in Washington for a year, on assignment at the judge advocate general’s office. Judge Harvey married Miss Ray Virginia Hoyt in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1894. They have two sons, Stanley and Charles, who were brought up in Manila until they went off to school and college in the United States. Charles, the younger, is now living at Long Beach, Cal ifornia, where he is employed in business. The Harveys are going there from Manila. Stanley, employed by Ulen and Company, engineers, is at Athens, Greece, where his company is building the new waterworks system. (Major J. F, Case, builder of the Montalban waterworks system for Manila, is associated with Ulen and Company.) Stanley is married, there is a baby, and the most important business of life for Judge Harvey now is to get that baby into his arms. Maybe he will be able to do this while away from Manila. All right, let him visit Athens and carry the finest grandchild in the world up to the Acropolis, if he wants to, but only on his way back to Manila, via Europe. For the thing his neighbors and friends want him to do is to come back to Manila. Why, he and Mrs. Harvey are a part of the old town. What will Masonry, for instance, do without Judge Harvey? He has always been active in Masonry, master of his own lodge, Corregidor No. 3, worthy patron of Mayon Chapter, O. E. S., and Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the Philippine Islands in 1915. He has been honored with the 33rd degree. Au revoir, Judge Harvey, and Mrs. Harvey; but only au revoir, and bon voyage. Socony house was reached the machine gun could not be set up. Men stood at the Socony house exposed to irregular fire while keeping signal communica tion with the Noa and the Preston, and the men answering them aboardship were constantly under fire from shore. (At such times the navy’s patience is sorely tried, these are really the fatal moments, when there could be either war or peace.) Attack after attack was made on tlie refuge house by armed looters. These aggres sions grew so alarming that at last Phelps asked that the boats in the river give fire protection. Fire! A salvo was the response, from the Preston, then the Noa. Shells dropped just over the house, and to the side of the house, but never a one on the house; and while the loot ing Cantonese were thus kept back, the Ameri cans made cables of the bedclothing and other materials at hand in the house and lowered themselves down over the wall, and made their way, carefully guarding the women and children, down to the river landing and the belching ships. Not a life was lost, not a person was wounded; and when all noses were counted, the Nanking affair became a matter of prolonged parleys among the diplomats. The navy had done its intrepid duty. It had rescued all Americans save the murdered Dr. Williams, and saved the Cantonese of the Nanking forces of occupation from their own folly as much as was humanly possible. Filipino will be forced, as the Japanese rice producer is today, to study and copy the Amer ican method of producing rice by mechanical power for plowing, planting, harvesting, and threshing. When Japan saw that America by its use of modern agricultural machinery operated with high priced labor was able to reverse the flow of rice across the Pacific, and to sell its product in the Orient in competition with rice produced by the cheapest labor in the world, they sent their investigators to the United States to study the methods by which this was done, and are making 12 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 Machinery Is Cheaper Than the Cheapest Hand Labor. preparations to copy them in order to save their own rice industry. It is hard to tell just how soon this same situation will have to be met here, but it is strange to hear anyone today, and especially an American familiar with what machinery has accomplished for American agriculture, make the broad statement that the Filipino farm worker will always be enslaved by the present back-breaking and inefficient methods used in this coun try. Great progress has already been made in the use of machinery for threshing and hul ling palay (rice). Probably, 90% of the rice produced in the Central Lu zon valley, with center at Cabanatuan, is now thresh ed by machine, and yet when thresh ers were first brought in, they were met with much opposition and cri ticism and many said the machines could not compete successfully with the old method which required no cash outlay for machinery, fuel, and repairs. The same was true of the rice mills, both large and small. Not so many years ago, the rice was pounded out of its hull by hand with the stone bowl and mallet which were so familiar a sight at every doorstep. Critics said the Filipino would not pay 20 to 30 centavos to have a cavan of palay hulled and polished by machine, when he could let his wife do it at home for nothing, but they did not know the Filipino. We have found the Filipino very progressive as to the use of machinery. You do not have to sell him the mechanical idea. The only obsta cles to the universal use of machinery here are first, a lack of capital, and second, the large land holdings and the tenantry system. Large land holdings would ordinarily favor the introduction of machinery, but the tenants whose fathers and fore-fathers have cultivated certain small plots for a hundred years or more, have a well recognized social, if not legal, right to remain on their land as long as they give the AUGUST SUGAR REVIEW By George H. Fairchild New York Market (Spot): The improve ment in the American sugar market at the close of the previous month referred to in my previous landlord his share of the crop. The universal use of machinery would make it possible to operate these large haciendas with only a small part of the present farm labor. There is plenty of idle land in the Philippines where the labor of the others could be utilized to increase produc tion and thereby further improve the standard of living of the whole country, but this would mean immigration from the home communities to distant places. The family and home ties are so powerful in the character and customs of the Filipino people, that it will require great economic pressure to bring about this social revolution in the distribution of farm labor. I believe it will come eventually and, when it does, it will solve many of the serious problems which now face the Filipino people. It will populate the waste places, put the idle land to work, increase the1 production per capita and thereby raise the standard of living and it would make the Filipino people, one people with com mon interests instead of a group of communities where the majority are born, live and die with little contact with or knowledge of their fellow citizens in other provinces. When it comes, it will mean more happiness and prosperity for the Filipino people and there by more prosperity for those of us who make our living by serving their commercial needs, so let us not think or say that things ‘will be’ always as they are today. sugar review was only of short duration, since on the third day of the month under review the market gradually sagged and prices for Cubas declined from 2 3 4 cents c. and f. (4.52 cents 1. t.) to 2 5. 8 cents c. and f. (4.40 cents 1. t.). The depression in the market continued throughout the middle part of the month, buyers showing little interest with no disposition to buy. Cuban holders, on the other hand, were firm and refused to sell, believing the de pression was only tem porary. During the third week the market showed a better tone and prices advanced un til at the close of the week there were buyers of Cubas on the basis of 2-3/4 cents c. and f. (4.52 cents 1. t.). The market continued active and firm throughout the latter part of Aug ust, with prices advanc ing gradually. At the close of the month, there were reported sales of Cubas for present shipment at 2-31 32 cents c. and f. (4. 74 cents 1. t.). The statistical position continued to improve. The visible stocks at the end of the month under review were 2,235,000 tons as compared with 2,552,000 tons at the same time last year and 1,859,000 tons at the same time in 1925. The eminent European statistician, Dr. Gustav Mikusch, has recently issued an estimate of the European beet crop for this year of 8,100,000 tons. This compares with the produc tion last year of 8,321,216 tons, or a decrease of approximately 220,000 tons. With the continued improvement in the statis tical position and the exhaustion of sugar supplies from insular possessions to meet the demand in the United States, it seems that the Cuban holders have a favorable opportunity for in fluencing the course of the m rket in the next few months. (Futures): The quotations in the New York Exchange showed a marked improvement in sympathy with the spot market. The following shows their fluctuations during the month under review: High Low Latest September........... 2.89 2.63 2.89 December........... 2.98 2.74 2.98 January............... 2.96 2.73 2.96 March................. 2.87 2.69 2.86 May.. . . 2.93 2.77 2.92 July..................... 3.01 2 85 3.01 (Philippine Sales): During the month under review sales of Philippine centrifugals in New York, afloats, near arrivals and for future del iveries, aggregated 40,000 long tons, at prices ranging from 4.40 cents to 4.77 c.nts landed terms, duty paid. This brings the total sales of Philippine centrifugals of the 1926-1927 crop up to date to 435,000 long tons, segregated as follows: Tons Sales at the Atlantic Coast................. 380,000 Sales at the Pacific Coast................ 55,000 Total sales. 435,000 Local Market: There has been considerable activity in the local market for centrifugals during the month of August, and the small (Concluded on page 21) All models are Now in Stock HAVE YOU SEEN THE SHORT TOURER? A classy good-looking car, with auxiliary seats, transforming it into a 7 passenger vehicle Let us demonstrate it for you PHILIPPINE MOTORS CORPORATION IN RERPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 13 Philippine Commerce and the Panama Canal Carlos Pereyra in El Universal: Mexican Independent Daily A waterway connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific across Panama or Nicaragua early pre sented itself to men of historical imagination as an inevitable outcome of world trade devel opment. Since Europe faces the west and Asia faces the east, and Africa has both an eastern and a western outlook, the American isthmus, in the very centre of the New World, promised to become the focus where the com merce of all continents met. Grandiloquent prophecies have come down to us in this connection. Bolivar dilated lyrical ly in his celebrated Jamaica Letter upon the great future of Central America. “The states on the Isthmus of Panama, including Guatemala, will perhaps form a league or federation. Their magnificent position between two seas will make them in course of time the emporium of the universe. Their canals will shorten the great ocean trade routes and bind Europe, Asia, and America together by commercial ties, bring ing to their happy shores the tribute of the four quarters of the globe. Possibly they are the predestined site of the ultimate capital of the world, as Byzantium was in the ancient hemi sphere.” This letter was written in 1815. In his Circular of the seventh of December, 1824, issued from Lima to call a meeting of the Cong ress of Plenipotentiaries, he also wrote: “It would seem that, if the world is ever called upon to choose a capital, the Isthmus of Panama will be its destined site, situated as it is in the centre of the world, facing Asia on the one hand and Africa and Europe on the other.” Restrepo, the historian of the Latin Amer ican Revolution, refers to Panama as follows: “That inestimable Isthmus, across which com munication can be established between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and where the trade of Europe, Asia,, and America is predestined to centre.” Bolivar and Restrepo both considered that the possession of the Isthmus and its adjacent ter ritories would be of incalculable value, because the traffic of the entire globe would meet there. It was with that idea that Paterson, an am bitious Scotchman, tried to establish a colony of his countrymen at Darien toward the end of the seventeenth century. Walter Scott has left us an immortal record of that adventurer’s conception of Panama. “This port of all the oceans and key of the universe will enable those who possess it to be the lawgivers of two hemi spheres and the arbiters of their trade. The colonists of Darien will acquire an empire greater than that of Alexander and Caesar without toil, without perils, and without the bloody crimes of the conquistadores.” Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, later Napoleon III, studied the project of a Nicara guan canal during his imprisonment in the fortress of Ham. His analysis of its political aspects made a profound impression upon European opinion at the time. “The geograph ical position of Constantinople crowned her the queen of the ancient world. Occupying as she did 3 central position between Europe, Asia, and Africa, she easily made herself the commercial mistress of these three parts of the planet and acquired over them an immense preponderance; for in politics, as in strategy, the centre exercises dominion over the circum ference. That might remain true even to-day were it not, as Montesquieu says, that God permitted the Turks to exist in order that the world might behold a nation capable of con quering and holding a vast empire without drawing any profit from it. There exists in the New World a country that possesses the geo graphical advantages of Constantinople but which, it must be said, has not known how to utilize them up to the present. I refer to Nica ragua. As Constantinople is the centre of the Old World, the city of Le6n is the centre of the New, and, if a waterway were dug across the narrow stretch of land that separates the Nica raguan lakes from the Pacific Ocean, her central position would give her dominion over all the coast of North and South America. Nicaragua might be, even more than Constantinople, the inevitable tollgate of world commerce. She is destined to attain some day an extraordinary position of wealth and grandeur. France, England, and Holland are deeply interested in the construction of a waterway between the two oceans. England above all has imperative political motives for carrying out that project. She has every reason to desire that Central America may become a powerful and flourishing nation, a centre of Spanish American enterprise, strong enough to uphold the national banner of her race and to help Mexico to resist the pressure of its invaders from the North.” Here, as in the affirmations of Bolivar, we find joined with an erroneous geographical idea of the economic value of an interoceanic canal a desire to see it, under English auspices, made a buttress against the expansion of the Past and Present in All the National Companies Last Yeai Alberto Barretto, President Salvador Laguda, Vice-Pres. Miguel Unson, Director Paciano Dizon, Director Jose S. Hilario, Director Claude Russell, Director Carlos Young, Director This Year National Development Company Capt. H. L. Heath, President Paciano Dizon, Vice-Pres. Miguel Unson, Director Claude Russell, Director Carlos Young, Director Walter Z. Smith, Director Alberto Barretto, President Frank B. Ingersoll, Vice-Pres. Romarico Agcaoili, Director Rafael Corpus, President Serapion Valle-Cruz, Vice-Pres. J. P. Heilbronn, Director C. M. Cotterman, Director R. Renton Hind, Director A. Gideon, Director Gregorio Agoncillo, Director Baldomero Roxas, Director Catalino Lavadia, Director R. R. Hancock, President Jose F. Fernandez, Vice-Pres. A. Gideon, Director Tomas Earnshaw, Director Juan M. Gutierrez, Director Jose S. Hilario, Director H. B. Pond, Director James Ross, Director Antero Soriano, Director Jose Paez, President James Ross, Vice-Pres. Tomas Earnshaw, Treasurer Arsenio Luz, Director Jo$e S. Hilario, Director Filemon Perez, Director A. Gideon, Director National Coal Company Frank B. Ingersoll, President Romarico Agcaoili, Vice-Pres. Alberto Barretto, Director H. L. Heath, Director Salvador Lagdameo, Director Philippine National Bank Rafael Corpus, President C. M. Cotterman, Vice-Pres. Serapion Valle-Cruz, Director J. P. Heilbronn, Director R. Renton Hind, Director A. Gideon, Director John Gordon, Director Manuel de Yriarte, Director A. B. Cresap, Director Manila Railroad Company R. R. Hancock, President H. B. Pond, Vice-Pres. A. Gideon, Director Tomas Earnshaw, Director Juan M. Gutierrez, Director Jose S. Hilario. Director R. J. Harrison, Director Fulgencio Borromeo, Director Miguel Romualdez, Director Manila Hotel Jose Paez, President James Ross, Vice-Pres. Tomas Earnshaw, Treasurer Arsenio Luz, Director Jose S. Hilario, Director Filemon Perez, Director A. Gideon, Director Alberto Barretto, President Paciano Dizon, Vice-Pres. Carlos Young, Director Claude Russell, Director Jose S. Hilario, Director Cebu Portland Cement Comfany Alberto Barretto, President Paciano Dizon, Vice-Pres. Carlos Young, Director Claude Russell, Director Jose S. Hilario, Director SPACE for RENT OFFICES Automobiles by Month General Merchandise Bonded Cargo Rates Reasonable Furnished on Application Tel. 2-24-21 Available now—should be in big demand soon! TAKE ADVANTAGE Annual stockholders’ meet ing: First Tuesday after the first Monday in March of each year. 3:00 p. m. Luis Hernandez, Secretary. Annual stockholders’ meet ing: Second Monday of August of each year. A. H. Langara, Secretary. Annual stockholders’ meet ing: Second Tuesday of March of each year. Santos Martinez, Secretary. Annual stockholders' meet ing: Last Tuesday of March of each year. Arturo La Torre, Secretary. Annual stockholders’ meet ing: Second Friday of April of each year. W. E. Antrim, Secretary. Annual stockholders’ meet ing: First Tuesday after the first Monday in March of each year. 9:00 a. m. Jesus J. Santos, Secretary. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 14 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 192 ’ United States. One of the ironies of history is that this same Prince Louis Napoleon was destined later, as Emperor of France, to open the Suez Canal, half a century before the Pana ma Canal was built, thus belying his own proph ecies as to the greater immediate importance of the American waterway. The only man whose prophetic vision pene trated to the bottom of the problem was Goethe. The German poet comprehended in one glance the significance for world commerce of both the Egyptian canal and the Central American canal, and the political factors that each re presented for two great empires. In his con versations with Eckermann he referred to Hum boldt’s opinion as to various points where it would be easy to connect the Atlantic and the Pacific across the Isthmus, and said: “Good. All this is reserved for the future and for a great spirit of enterprise. But one thing is certain—incalculable benefits for all the world, both civilized and uncivilized, will follow open ing a canal between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean big enough to accommodate large vessels. It would surprise me, however, if the United States were to let the opportunity pass and fail to take the matter into her own hands. There are reasons for believing that this young nation, with its rapid progress toward the west, will within thirty or forty years occupy and settle the extensive territories that lie beyond the Rocky Mountains. It is also likely that along the coast of the Pacific, which Nature has blessed with large and safe harbors, great trading cities will eventually arise which will build up a trade between China and the East Indies on the one hand and the United States on the other. Should this happen, it would be not only desirable but imperative for mer chant and naval vessels to pass readily from one coast of North America to the other by some shorter and safer route than the long, expensive, and dangerous trip around the Horn. I repeat, it is absolutely imperative for the United States to be able to communicate rapidly from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, and I believe she will do it. I should like to live to see it, but it .will not come in my day. In the second place, I should like to see a canal connecting the Danube and the Rhine, but that is so vast an enterprise that I doubt if it will be carried out, considering our scanty resources. Third and last, I should like to see the English in possession of a canal across the Suez. Those three things would be worth the trouble of waiting here fifty years to behold.” Goethe died in 1832. The Suez Canal was opened in 1869, and the Panama Canal in 1914, four centuries after Balboa first cast his eyes upon the Southern Sea. In the interim, as if to demonstrate the fallibility of even the greatest human genius, Germany was able with little effort to construct a great system of inland waterways uniting her important rivers. Never theless, the German poet had a correct appre ciation of the place the two great inter-oceanic highways were respectively to occupy in the commerce of the world. The Suez unites the most densely populated portions of the earth— Western Europe, the East Indies, China, and Japan. The Panama Canal benefits primarily the domestic trade of the United States, and that nation’s commerce with the Far East and with the western coast of South America. The Eastern States of North America were settled and developed without an interoceanic canal: but the railway across Panama deter mined the future of California. As soon as the Canal was built, a large part of the freight carried by the transcontinental lines—except, of course, local traffic—was transferred to vessels of ten or twelve thousand tons, which carried such commodities as timber from the Pacific Northwest to the Atlantic seaboard, and the manufactures of the East to the Pacific Coast. From the very beginning, therefore, the do mestic commerce of the United States has accounted for one quarter of the annual move ment through the Canal. Next in importance are exports from Atlantic and Gulf cities of the United States to Asiatic markets, which consti tute fourteen and one-half per cent of the ton nage by that route. North America competes with Europe for business on the west coast of South America, but her relative nearness to that market adds fifty per cent to the effective carrying capacity of every vessel she employs in this trade. Consequently the Panama Canal is first and foremost an instrument for the inter nal development of the United States and the expansion of her Pacific commerce. Some people formerly argued that the Panama Canal and other waterways across Central America were destined primarily to be highways for world navigation, because the United States did not possess a merchant fleet and would be compelled to use British, German, French, and even Japanese vessels for its own business by that route. But they counted without their host, as the increase in American tonnage engaged in the export trade—from one million to ten million tons—testifies.—Living Age. LUMBER REVIEW First Semester of 1927 Arthur F. Fischer Director of Forestry Figures covering lumber export of this coun try for the first six months of the year show a falling off of about 1,000,000 board feet as compar ed with that of simi’ar period last year. This decrease, however, can easily be explained and is to be attributed mainly to the civil strife now raging in China and, to a certain extent, to the recent financial Crisis in Japan. Financial troubles in Australia of late and overstocking of the markets there helped also to reduce our export to that country during the period covered by this report. Under normal conditions, China should have imported from the Islands at least 6,000,000 board feet during the first six months of this year and our total export for this period should have been about 40,000,000 board feet. As it is, China only received from us slightly over 2,000,000 board feet. The actual export figures for the first six months of this year are 30,717,528 board feet valued at P 2,450,859 as compared with 31,616,408 board feet valued at P2,550,581, or a falling off of about 1,000,000 board feet and about 1*100,000 in value. This falling off of our export, how ever, is no indication that demand for our prod uct abroad is decreasing. On the contrary, our records show that the demand by our reg ular customers abroad is steadily increasing and there is every reason to believe that it will continue to increase from year to year. But the further development of our export trade will depend chiefly on our ability to find new mar kets, to expand the present ones and to satisfy our customers. Our lumbermen are, apparently, exerting themselves to attain these ends. The United States continues to be our biggest customer and is likely to remain so for many years. Japan, practically an insignificant mar ket about three years ago, has lately shown great activities, and all indications point to still greater demands for our product by that coun, try. The Japanese trade should be of particular interest to our lumbermen because the yearly import of Japan from all sources exceeds 1,200,TIMBER AND LUMBER EXPORT: FIRST HALF 1927 Destination United States.................................................... Japan................................................................. China................................................................. Australia............................................................ Great Britain.................................................... Netherlands...................................................... Italy................................................................... Belgium............................................................. Hongkong.......................................................... Spain................................................................. B. East Indies................................................. Canada.............................................................. Egypt................................................................. Guam................................................................. Total.......................................................... Raising Old Glory at Guam—1898. Landing Party from Gunboat Charleston 000,000 board feet. From America alone her. import last year was about 900,000,000 boar I feet, consisting mostly of Douglas fir or Orego; pine. Our export woods have already four -' their places in the Japanese markets and their uses are steadily increasing. Our soft woods especially have a particular appeal to the Japan - ese wood workers and builders and there reason to believe that the demand for such woo. will be permanent. Japanese dealers who ai already familiar with our lumber realize th and were not slow in making the necessar connection with Philippine lumbermen to suppl ; the Japanese markets with thePhilippine produc An interesting development of our lumbc industry is the demand for round logs abroac This is practically a new trade, but there : ■ every reason to believe that it is going to develop on a big scale. Buyers abroad, however, usually demand that the logs they buy should be grade?, according to certain accepted grading ruler. At present, unfortunately, we have not adopte' as yet such grading rules, but as the trade ir round logs grows the adoption of standar. grading rule will naturally follow. The Bureai of Forestry, with the cooperation of local lum bermen, is now studying this subject. The trad, in round logs should interest not only the bij lumbermen but also the small timber trader? because round logs are easier to supply thai sawn lumber. With respect to local activities, the figure: show that the production of the principal mills for the first six months of the year was about 90,000,000 board feet as compared with about 87,000,000 board feet for the same period last year, or an increase of about 3,000,000 board feet, while lumber shipments to the local markets for this period total about 92,000,000 board feet, or practically the same as that of the same period last year. The lumber in stock at the lumber yards of the various sawmills on June 30 of this year was about 35,000,000 board feet as compared with 32,000,000 on June 30 of last year. In judging the activities of the local markets, it is well to remember that the demand for lumber is usually weak during the rainy season and active from November to May. The export trade from January to June, 1927, is shown by the following table: 1927 1926 January-June January-June Board Feet Value Board Feet Value 30,717,528 1’ 2,450,859 31,616,408 I* 2,556,581 17,038,440 P 1,535,567 14,389,712 P 1,254,572 265,088 7,553,136 443,167 5,119,800 7,721,464 2,088,624 123,182 665,497 1,910,544 175,780 3,138,872 973,504 259,253 1,837,192 144,191 76,902 119.144 10,890 61,904 6,600 66,992 6,811 22,472 2,320 48,336 3,614 11,872 1,000 225 36,464 2,914 2,968 17,808 4,453 4,664 61,480 518 6,127 96,672 11,309 10,176 800 848 290 848 370 IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 15 Church Bells New and Old in Manila By Seddie L. Burkholder Many Philippine Island stories have been written about the beautiful historic churches, but this story will be principally about bells, church bells in Manila. Recently the writer had occasion to be in the walled city at the intersection of calles General Luna and Real, when her attention was attracted to extensive repairs being made on the St. Paul’s of the San Agustin monastery. On the thick cement roof a gang of workmen were exerting every effort to lower a huge bell to the pavement below. ( Further investigation disclosed that this bell had fallen through one of two towers that graced this church prior to the earthquake of June 3, 1863, when one of the towers was laid low by the terrific shock. This 7500-pound bell has lain dormant on that roof for sixty-four years, and now it will find its voice again. As this church was reconstructed of stone after 1599, when the former wooden structure had been destroyed by fire, some idea of the age of this bell can be arrived at. It must have tolled the knell of many a celebrated personage laid to rest in the vaults or crypts of the church. In 1643, cannon were made of the church bells and iron grills from the windows of the churches and houses during trouble with the Dutch. Trade between Mexico and Manila was carried on for centuries by means of Spanish galleons. At the safe arrival of one of these little ships on one of its annual trading trips, the whole city rejoiced. The streets were brilliantly lighted and the church bells rang out the glad tidings, for ocean trips in those days were fraught with many dangers. In 1898, when the Spanish Governor-General ?f the Philippines heard of the advance of Amercan troops on the walled city, he issued the ollowing proclamation in the Manila Gazette >f August,8, 1898: “The closing of the gates of the city in the extreme contingency of having to blow up the bridges, will be announced to the inhabitants by the ringing of the cathedral bells which will be repeated by the other parishes. “The churches and convents will be open day and night for the admittance of all who seek refuge there.” The American veterans, who entered Manila on the afternoon of that historical 13th of August, well remember how unnecessary this order was. It was a peaceable surrender of Spanish arms, and the American forces made the people under stand that they did not come to wage war upon them, but to protect them in their homes, em ployments, and in their personal and religious rights. Formerly, during the early days of American occupation, the church bells tolled out each and every hour, as well as the half hours, night and day, to say nothing of feast days and high mass in the Christmas season, when the loud bells rang out their clanging summons. Those in clined to be nervous advocated the passage of a city ordinance regulating bell ringing during sleeping hours of the night. Therefore, an ordi nance regulating loud and unusual noises during certain hours was passed and is obeyed. The largest bell is in the tower of the Santo Domingo Church. Being too big to swing, it is rung with a hammer. This is one of six really fine toned bells in the walled city, but the richness of their full tones is lost in the clang of lesser ones. Feast days, and there are many, these “beautiful bells, the devotion of the people, their music foretells”. As the American colony grew, so did the Pro testant churches. The Episcopalians, under the guardianship of the distinguished prelate Bishop Charles H. Brent, erected the Cathedral of St. Mary and St. John on calle Isaac Peral. In 1908, chimes were placed in position for ring ing. There are nine of the bells and they were cast in one of the famous bell foundries in West phalia, Germany. The foundry has been in operation for over four centuries and many of the workmen have descended from families who worked in the same institution generations back. The ceremony of casting these sweettoned bells is of a religious nature. When the furnaces containing the hot metal are about to be opened, a signal is given, and every work man stands with bared head and a prayer on his lips while the metal is poured into the moulds. The nine bells on the Cathedral are tuned so that a simple air can be played. They are made of bronze, and about the top of each there is a verse of a hymn inscribed in raised letters, a different verse on each bell. Each bell is a memorial, the largest bell weighs more than a ton. This is a memorial to John Nichols Brown and Harold Brown of Providence, R.I., founders of Brown University. The second bell is dedicated to the memory of the officers and men of the United States forces who fell or died in the Philippines. The third is dedicated to British subjects who have spent their lives in the islands, and the fourth bears an inscription in honor of the officers and men of the corps of engineers of the army. The fifth and sixth bells are the gift of the 22nd U. S. Infantry, memorials to General Harry C. Egbert. The seventh is a memorial to Henry and Sofia Brent, father and mother of Bishop Brent. Dr. Wm. D. Noble, father of General Robert H. Noble, U.S.A., is the subject of the memorial inscription on the eighth bell, while the ninth is in memory of Rev. H. M. Torbett, who was an intimate friend of Bishop Brent. Any evening at the sunset hour, strolling about the Luneta, the church bells for the evening vespers can be heard in the distance. SENORES, N. W. “Jack” Jenkins: Philippine Education Company, 101-03 Escolta, Manila: paper, pocket-size, 277 pp., price 1*2.50 $1.25: cliches of Manila and Manilans collected from the author’s series in the old Manila Times: some clever, some so-so, some dyspeptic. JZ^GUA CALIENTE > •• En cualquier lugar -'Atodas horas ♦ En cualquier caniidad CALENTADOR DE AGUA POR MEDIO DEL GAS ' /SERV1CIO> 1 ’ A C? ) -eficiente UA J I “ SATISTACTORIO V-ECONOMICO Manila Gas Corporation Main Office: Calle Otis, Paco Tel. 2-89 IF YOU EVER HAD TO LIFT A SAFE Not being a truckman, you will probably never be called on to lift a sack of rice or an iron safe. But if you were, you would be very glad that the “lift-truck” had been developed. It is one of the great number of machines by which electricity is taking over the world’s heavy burdens. If, as a certain large factory found, one of these little trucks saves P24.000 a year, what a saving there will be when all material in all factories is handled by electricity! A turn of the switch now lifts or lowers heavy burdens anywhere. Manila Electric Company (MERALCO) 134 San Marcelino Tel. 2-19-11 LIGHT TRANSPORTATION POWER IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 16 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927, THE HEART OF A GOOD COCKTAIL Kuenzle & Streiff, Inc. SOLE DISTRIBUTORS 343 T. Pinpin Phone 113 The cotton spinning industry continues active, and enough orders, are on hand to keep most of the mills busy until well into the Fall. Con sumption of raw cotton during June amounted to 732,671 bales including linters, compared with 588,920 bales in June last year, while spindle activity averaged 109.2 per cent of single shift capacity compared with 88-4 per cent in June last year. Despite large production, June shipments, according to the Association of Cotton Textile Merchants of New York, amounted to 96.5 per cent of production, stocks on hand at the close of June were 39.6 per cent below those of June, 1926, and unfilled orders 163.4 per cent higher. The Milk in the Coconut: The Money Too Nature in her infinite variety is a lovely lazy goddess with an irrepressible penchant for the tropics, and in the Philippines alone she has distributed close upon 10,000 species of plant life, to say nothing of the myriad varieties of these species that men from Fray Manuel Blanco . down to the present time—characterized by Merill’s and Brown’s work at the bureau of science—have been able to name and catalogue. But despite all competition the coconut stands perhaps preeminent as the benefactor of man kind in this favored land. The coconut drew Dr. T. H. Pardo de Tavera’s keenest shafts: accounting for the languid ambitions of his people, he ascribed them to the ease with which life here may be sustained. Nature, he thought, had been kind to the point of cruelty, causing the soil to burst into fertile harvests with so little need of cultivation. He enumerated the uses of the coconut palm: Its trunk makes the posts for cottages, which its fronds shade from the sun and shield from storm. Or it bridges a creek and makes an excellent substitute for lumber in many ways. The milk of the coconut Better designed Glasses EYEGLASSES can either lend to or detract from the personality as every one knows. CLARK & CO., Optometrists, have had a quarter of a century’s experience in expert fitting of “better glasses.’’ Our' extensive line of new styles enables us to assist you in making a tasteful selection. Always the best in quality but never higher in price is a pleasant drink, mildly medicinal. The meat is food, while the oil from it has a dozen household uses from gloss for the hair to lard for the skillet. The shell is fuel, and may be easily carved into ornaments and utensils, taking a high polish which it permanently retains. Still there remains the coir, in the husk, suitable for everything in the way of cordage from a slender yarn or twine to the hangman’s rope, and even for a mat upon which the hangee may wipe his feet in order not to defile the gallows’ steps. It also makes the peasant a raincoat. The midribs of fronds rival reeds for making baskets. Moreover, the coconut soon mounts high above the plants around it and thereafter re quires no cultivation. It outlives the child that pokes out a place for its first tender sprout in the garden, and from the age of six or seven 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 ow 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. Mftr’a. Tel. 2211 , Main Office Tel. 441 IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 17 PHILIPPINE COCONUT OIL EXPORTS Fears Kilos Vah.e 1907 819,625 1*203,530 1908 2,852,110 684,560 1909 — — 1910 63 32 1911 — — 1912 660 80 1913 5,010,429 2,292,678 1914 11,943,329 5,238,366 1915 13,464,169 5,641,003 1916 16,091,169 7,851,469 1917 45,198,415 22,818,294 1918 115,280,847 63,328,317 1919 139,942,612 77,571,405 73,719,504 1920 46,537,773 1921 90,292,242 32,103,036 1922 107,208,191 31,468,971 1923 89,183,289 28,133,164 1924 111,628,803 37,622,061 1925 104,127,687 39,640,377 1926 117,290,853 44,690,433 years, when it is said to be mature, no month passes in which it does not yield some ripened nuts. To have a fiesta, it is only necessary for the peasant to candy the meat of a coconut and ferment a measure of its sap, drawn off in any abundance the feast may require in a bamboo joint that fills during the night. The peasant calls this wine tuba, and in the coconut provinces COCONUT ESTIMATES Year Ending June 30, 1926 Pr.„ cJltiraled Gathered Produced Hectares Thousands Piculs Abra............ 20 65 — Agusan........ 3,510 10,222 39,160 Albay........... 19,300 61,960 198,900 Antique....... 2,170 4,995 16,420 Bataan........ 90 158 — Batanes....... 100 114 — Batangas.. . 5,230 17,320 54,090 Bohol....... '. . 10,960 54,607 216,660 Bukidnon. . . 40 41 10 Bulacan....... 120 190 — Cagayan... 1,010 1,288 — Cam. Norte. 10,280 18,793 57,010 Cam. Sur. . . 8,840 37,929 114,250 Capiz........... 9,540 27,987 109,730 Cavite.......... 3,940 8,680 14,230 Cebu............ 25,440 127,626 451,140 Cotabato.. . 4,470 2,435 3,870 Davao.......... 10,790 13,768 48,500 Ilocos Norte. 200 323 — Ilocos Sur.. . 460 2,158 1,850 Iloilo........... 7,830 16,527 52,570 Isabela......... 70 124 — Laguna........ 67,680 267,050 829,470 Lanao.......... 3,130 6,605 23,330 La Union. . . 1,080 2,661 6,920 Leyte........... 19,010 66,600 255,360 Marinduque. 10,880 31,171 141,470 Masbate. . . . 5,980 17,264 66,270 Mindoro.... 11,950 18,697 63,560 Misamis. . . . 28,440 127,064 507,920 Mountain. . . 70 48 — Nueva Ecija 180 310 — Nueva Vizca 60 54 — Occ. Negros. 5,100 26,596 100,360 Or. Negros.. 9,300 48,547 183,970 Palawan.... 2,600 6,799 23,190 Pampanga... 10 28 — Pangasinan.. 9,410 16,047 55,680 Rizal........... 120 17 Romblon.. . . 9,520 26,927 106,420 Samar.......... 23,100 75,228 300,290 Sorsogon.. . . 7,360 22,718 75,690 3,860 7,804 27,230 Surigao........ 5,260 32,883 131,690 Tarlac.......... 190 608 450 Tayabas.... 115,940 350,363 1,268,780 Zambales... . 1,040 2,677 8,640 Zamboanga.. 19,350 65,303 225,620 Phil. Islands 485,030 1,627,379 5,780,700 DESICCATED AND SHREDDED COCONUT EXPORTS Fears Kilos Pesos 1922 960,389 419,348 1923 4,349,152 1,806,247 1924 8,133,951 3,197,119 1925 12,523,211 5,217,746 1926 14,327,791 5,515,315 he is much addicted to it. If he wishes he may distill it, of course. The Spanish government created the tuba industry into a government monopoly, failing of its hopes; but the American government resorted to an internal revenue act—thus squelching the small producer, like England squelched country-made ale, and ushering in the day of the opulent distiller manufacturer. Tavera’s reflections may have been right; one suspects, however, that he spoke with his tongue in his cheek, as he always so delighted to do; he was wise in his generation and could not but have perceived that tropical sloth is more a symptom than a cause, and that the cure is more wants and more ways of supplying what is wanted. The cure is division of labor, abandonment of feudalism. The native lord of a coconut manor basks in the enjoyment of a great retinue of peasants dwelling in his village and bound to his fields; but he is coming to see that he enjoys little else. He sells a great bulk of copra (dried coconut meat, for making oil) during a year, the indentured peasants having patiently made it for him, but when he sums up the cost of his year’s operations he often finds he has made little profit. One planter averaged up his books for ten years, and found he had made no more than a peso, fifty cents, per picul of copra one year with another. But Americans, and Filipinos who counsel with them, are making a great deal more. Plant er O’Brien, down on the Samar coast, says it is difficult not to make money in the industry, and I 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 Philippine Acetylene Co. 281 CALLE CRISTOBAL MANILA PHILIPPINE COPRA EXPORTS Quantity and Value Years K ilos Value 1907 58,622,437 P9.568.302 1908 97,494,971 12,117,772 1909 109,033,203 15,345,730 1910 120,483,808 21,278,098 1911 142,147,546 26,039,124 1912 142,792,929 28,366,932 1913 82,219,363 19,091,448 1914 87,344,695 15,960,540 1915 139,092,902 22,223,109 1916 72,277,164 14,231,941 1917 92,180,326 16,654,301 1918 55,061,736 10,377,029 1919 25,094,027 8,839,376 1920 25,803,044 7,433,741 1921 150,335,314 26,146,913 1922 173,051,930 28,206,146 1923 207,131,379 38,493,998 1924 156,761,823 30,703,764 1925 146,708,639 31,737,405 1926 174,021,287 37,173,465 that that coast alone had 1*2,000,000 from its copra last year. The Journal does not have his figures, but it has others, and it may be said that methods of growing coconuts and producing copra are in practice in the Philippines by which the cost does not reach three pesos the picul, the product never selling under eight pesos. No other farm crop can top this, surely; and it is hoped that readers will forgive the brief repe tition from the June issue. Tables supplementing the text will be found. They cover 20 years and are from the customs bureau. With the market in the United States, how well the industry does. Lately, too, ad vantaged by a tariff of 3-1 / 2 cents gold per pound, the queen of all coconut products is being exten sively manufactured in and nearby Manila, also at Zamboanga, where the late Dean C. Wor cester opened a plant which is now under the management of his son. This product is desic cated coconut, the icing for the cakes mothers used to make and now usually buy from tlje bakers, and the principal constituent, aside from sugar, of delectable bonbons and the more vulgar coconut bars. It is said that the methods still in vogue in the older fields devoted to the making of desiccated coconut (which is simply the fresh coconut meat shredded or flaked and dehydrated so as to preserve its freshness) are not altogether pro vocative of appetite for the product. Manufac turers in the Philippines, on the other hand, have been at pains to utilize applied science, which is to say machinery and thorough sani tation, in their factories from river or rail landing to the shipping room; and no food product, as a A QUIET CHARITY The Daughters of the American Revolution are a small chapter in Manila, yet they have established one of the islands best permanent charities. This is largely the result of the per sistent offort of the late Mrs. T. S. Holt, who was state regent for the Philippines and the organizer of the Philippine chapter. She died in Cali fornia last spring. The charity the chapter has endowed is a scholarship for nurses; the fund is S20.000 and the nurse enjoying the scholarship is maintained by the interest. Selection alter nates between Mary J. Johnston Memorial and St. Luke’s hospitals. This year a girl is going from St. Luke’s. The course is postgraduate work in America. Miss Damiana Dolarica, from the memorial hospital, returned to Manila this year after studying nearly four years in America, living with Mrs. Holt in Pennsylvania while she completed her high school course in order to matriculate in the nursing colleges. She is employed in the public welfare bureau, supervising welfare work. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 18 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 consequence, excels their desiccated coconut in cleanliness, for it is clean as roller-mill flour. The United States is their market, just as it is the market for coconut oil from the Philip pines, and practically all of the copra. Hoover’s department has just announced, indeed, that the crushing mills of America are dependent upon the Philippine copra crop. It looks that way. Observe how America’s demands enrich Philippine coconut growers. In 1907 the islands had less than 1*10,000,000 from their copra and oil; America did not require fats from sources overseas at that time to the extent she does now. But last year, her demands having greatly increased meantime, the islands got nearly 1’82,000,000 for their copra and oil, and 1’5,Mount Mayon: Camp Daraga in Foreground: This Southeastern Region of Luzon Is a Fertile Coconut and AbacA Section 515,315 for their desiccated coconut. Al together they had. nearly nine times as much for their coconut products last year as they had for them in 1907. And now, with the desiccated industry but five years old, a new division of labor is taking place: an American chemical company is beginning to manufacture charcoal from coconut shell, which is found to excel as a filtering medium and was first used by the American army in the World War in the gas masks for soldiers—it is so remarkably absorbant of gases. One of the tables shows the production of copra last year by provinces. This one is furnished by the bureau of agriculture. Of the 48 provinces, 36 produce copra; Bukidnon produces but ten piculs a year, not worth count ing, but the 35 others produce considerable quantities. Coconut production, then, is more widespread than abaca production, far more widespread than sugar production. At the same time there are well defined coconut regions, Laguna-Tayabas, the Bikol provinces, Misamis, Leyte, Bohol and Cebu. Take the total, for instance, a production of 5,780,700 piculs: From Laguna alone came 829,470 piculs, from Tayabas 1,268,780, from Misamis 507,920, from Cebu 451,140; and other provinces from each of which came more than 100,000 piculs are Agusan, Camarines Sur, Capiz, Marinduque, Occidental Negros, Oriental Negros, Romblon, Samar, Surigao and Zamboanga. The area of the Philippines now in coconuts is 485,030 hectares or about 1,200,000 acres; the total number of palms may be roughly put at 50 million; but those tapped for wine do not bear fruit and it would still be necessary to note the production and value of tuba, besides the domestic con sumption of coconuts and their products, before one could arrive at the approximate value of the entire crop. Plantings range from 80 to 120 palms per hectare. Wonders of the coconut never cease. Drive along any coast where they are growing—they love the coast, too, and hug the very shores of tropic seas—and one sees the stately trunks bent toward the prevailing winds, never away from them; and the roots always look as if they would easily give way, yet they never do. Ty phoons may strip the tops and crack or twist the tough trunks, if the typhoons are very strong indeed, but the roots keep their fast hold on the soil. There are structural reasons for this, of course; and all these surprising attributes are but earnest of still other surprises in store for man when he applies science to the coconut. Having begun to do this not so long ago, much remains to be done; and when the laboratory has done it all, still there remains the business of adapting what may be learned to the ends of commerce. The bureau of commerce and industry has just reported that some Dutchman in Holland has contrived a machine to spin coconut fiber, the coir that makes up the husk. If the process is commercially practicable, as it is said to be, tremble then all ye who are in jute in India. This coconut fiber is tough, pliable and resilient, being first rate mattress and upholstering ma terial, and it is light, so that it floats upon a water surface even in the gross form of a cable or tow line. Also, impregnated somewhat with the oil of the nut of which it forms the outer protection in nature, it is quite impervious to moisture. It dyes excellently. If it can be spun into yarns economically, then these yams will make into the sacks and burlaps for which jute is exclusively utilized now; and whereas jute must be cultivated, coir is merely an abund ant by-product of coconut production. The drawback in the Philippines heretofore to the utilization of coir commercially has been the retting, a hand-labor process; and Phil ippine labor, cheap as it is, has been too expen sive to employ in the tedious work. The Dutch man’s machine is said to clean the fiber as well as spin it, segments of husk go in and bundles of yarn come out. Division of labor, this is, with a vengeance. And what a comment upon India is the fact just stated, that in the Philippines labor costs too much to employ it upon retting coconut fiber. An expert at the bureau of agriculture imparts the information that in the feudal system under which the bulk of Phil ippine coconuts are grown, 500 palms are as signed to a family of peasants. An average yield of 40 nuts per palm per year may, he thinks, be calculated, giving a yield of 20,000 nuts per year from the 500 palms. Converted into copra, this amounts to some 115 piculs; and when eight pesos is taken as the average price per picul, the crop is seen to fetch 1’920. The peasants’ obligation ends with the preparation of the copra, hauling off to market is for the account of the landlord. The peasants’ share on areas of lighter yields is reported to be a third of the crop, which would be an average income of 1’306.67 per year; but where yields are heavier the peasants’ share is reduced to a seventh part of the harvest, which may give them about the same income per family. (They were wont to receive a half of the crop in former years, but as prices have advanced and transportation costs have been reduced by systems of modem roads and the extensions of the railway, they have been unable to hold their own against the land lords, who have readjusted the apportionment of the crop.) If upon this basis Philippine labor is too expensive to employ at retting co conut fiber, what must be the low standard of living among the peasants of India, where the preparation of the fiber is an established industry. Conjuring the possibilities of the thrifty Dutchman’s machine and what it may ulti mately do to the jute industry, one can not refrain from reflections upon England’s current diffi culties, which have by no means come singly. The machine will, of course, be as available to Englishmen as to others, but the threatened inroads upon the jute industry would be suffi ciently disturbing, if they ever became effective, since jute, like Manila hemp in the Philippines, has been in an independent position as a natural monopoly from the beginning of the time when the west found practical uses for it. And though plentiful acreages of coconuts are under the Union Jack, the Philippines, growing about one coconut in three of those that reach the woild’s markets, are in the best position of all to benefit by inventions applying science and the rational division of labor to the preparation of coir. In India and the Dutch East Indies the problem is to keep people employed at anything by which they may sustain life, and machinery lays off hands whether other work awaits them or not. But in the Philippines social conditions are not dissimilar in their rough outline to those prevail ing in the United States. It becomes advan tageous to employ machinery, and something other than the devil’s mischief may always be found for idle hands to do. The feudal lord who barely scrapes through the year by abandon ing his lands to the care of an ignorant encargado and peasant families who are tenants-atwill, is more and more out of date. At last self-interest makes him too turn to machinery, or the mortgage takes him and a better chap takes his place in the manor house. Given the profits that are actually possible in coconut farming, this gentle process will gradually be accentuated—to the improvement of society. Coconuts are not therefore the bane, they are one of the greatest blessings of the Philippines— since there is the American market on the op posite side of the Pacific, and ships to haul, mills to crush and press, and railways to dis tribute the product and its manifold manufac tures. Taxes? Plentiful they are. They are not enough to retard the coconut industry, yet the islands pay dearly for being overgoverned. “The annual cost of the Insular Government alone equals the total annual export value of coconut oil, copra, copra meal and other coconut prod ucts.” The quotation is from Governor Gil more (acting), in a statement showing that selfreliant governments only shelter self-reliant people, that a people habitually in debt can’t have a government out of debt, and that the measure of the competence of the government is the measure of the economic status of the citizens corpposinfe it. If any young man with three or four hectares of land suitable for plant ing coconuts will plant it up and nurse it into bearing, he can by this means answer this clarion call and make himself an independent individual able to raise and educate a family. Up to the present the milk of the coconut has a value as illusory as the milk of human kind ness. It is as stubborn as the squeal of the hog, no use has been found for it by the manufacturers either of desiccated coconut or of oil and edible products. In the making of copra the milk emptied out of the halved nuts is poured back upon the fields, and at the factories it trickles into drains carrying it into the river. It is just a grateful beverage when taken fresh. Some thing about the coconut had, it seems, to be comparatively useless, in order to make the truth believable; and the milk is it. Still, if patiently boiled down it yields a little sugar, but its saccharine content is very low. The milk can also be converted into a dye, which is fast. September, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 19 Display Advertising =^=^——— and =—=^= Classified Advertising Carried in the leading Manila Papers for the first six months of 1927: INCHES BULLETIN.......................................... 163,306 Second paper 'afternoon English) - - 139,515 Third paper afternoon Spanish - - 117,678 Fourth paper (morning English) - - 95,336 Fifth paper (morning English) - - - 76,937 Where Most Business Goes Is a Good Place to Go for More Business UNDER SAME MANAGEMENT FOR TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 20 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 SHIPPING NOTES SHIPPING REVIEW Bv H. M. CAVENDER G'h'Kll Ay, nt, Tlu Dollar During the period since our last report exports from the Phil ippines have continued in fairly good volume. Centrifugal sugar to the Atlantic Coast in part icular held up well. This condition was caused by a few planters and brokers holding on to small stocks in hopes of better prices. The rate covering this late seasonal movement held fairly well; all fixtures, except one reported at 86.50, were made at S7.00 per ton of 2240 pounds. With the beginning of the coming sugar season November 1, the minimum rate on sugar auto matically becomes S7.50. There were no changes in rates of freight of any significance; all rates remain firm. With the exception of Steerage traffic to the Hawaiian Islands, passenger travel continues THE YOKOHAMA SPECIE BANK ----- LTD. (ESTABLISHED 1880) HEAD OFFICE: YOKOHAMA, JAPAN Ten Capital (Paid Up) - - - - 100,000,000.00 Reserve Fund .... 92,500,000.00 Undivided Profits - . . . 6,142,357.99 MANILA BRANCH 34 PLAZA CERVANTES, MANILA K. YABUKI Manager PHONE 1759—MANAGER PHONE 1758—GENERAL OFFICE to slow up. ' While owners fully expected lighter cabin travel during August, they did not antic ipate the continued heavy Filipino travel and upon looking into the reason therefor it is learned that from month to month the movement of Filipinos from the Hawaiian Islands to the Mainland is increasing; the natural result is increased movement from the Philippines to the Hawaiian Islands. During August a total of 1551 passengers, all classes, are reported to have departed from the Philippines (first figure represents cabin pas sengers, second figure steerage): To China and Japan 225 270; to Honolulu 2-831; to Pacific coast 61 102: to Singapore 37-0; to Europe and miscellaneous ports 23-0. Filipino emigration during the month to Honolulu decreased mate rially, as did the movement to the Pacific coast. The comparison shows: Honolulu, July 1180— August 831; Pacific coast, July 335—August 102. From statistics compiled by the Associated Steamship Lines, there were exported from the Philippines during the six months period ending June 30, 1927: to China and Japan ports 70,773 tons with a total of 226 sailings, of which 37,761 tons were carried in American bottoms with 85 sailings; to Pacific coast for local delivery 171,702 tons with 76 sailings, of which 148,576 tons were carried in American bottoms with 62 sailings; to Pacific coast for transhipment 10,529 tons with 59 sailings, of which 9697 tons with 51 sailings were carried in American bottoms; to Atlantic coast 420,391 tons with 96 sailings, of which 205,254 tons were carried in American bottoms with 35 sailings; to European ports 95,873 tons with 92 sailings, of which 949 tons were carried in American bottoms with 11 sailings; to Australian ports 5260 tons with 27 sailings of which American bottoms carried none; or a grand total of 774,530 tons with 576 sailings, of which 402,237 tons with 244 sailings were carried in American bottoms. From statistics compiled by the Associated Steamship Lines there were exported from the Philippines during the month of July, 1927: To China and Japan ports 11,731 tons with a total of 43 sailings, of which 5,122 tons were carried in American bottoms with 13 sailings; to Pacific coast for local delivery 21,389 tons with 13 sailings, of which 13,844 tons were carried in American bottoms with 9 sailings; to Pacific coast for transhipment 2,175 tons with 12 sail ings, of which 1,405 tons were carried in Amer ican bottoms with 8 sailings; to Atlantic coast 50,633 tons with 13 sailings, of which 29,259 tons were carried in American bottoms with 6 sailings; to European ports 15,574 tons with 14 sailings, of which American bottoms carried 123 tons with 2 sailings; to Australian ports 420 tons with 4 sailings of which American bottoms carried none; or a grand total of 101,922 tons with 89 sailings, of which American bottoms carried 49,753 tons with 28 sailings. It is reported that the Shipping Board ap proved the sale of four steamers to Madrigal and Company of Manila, for the sum of Si 12,000. The vessels are the Connersville, Crane nest, Craincreek and Crawlkeys, The ships are of the shallow draft, lake-type, with a dead weight of 3364 tons. Each is equipped with reciprocating engines of 1240 I.H.P., and is designated to steam at 9-1/2 knots. The vessels will be operated in the Philippine coast wise trade and from the Philippines to Australia. L. B. Jepson arrived in Manila aboard the President Garfield September 1 to join the local staff of The Robert Dollar Co. Mr. Jepson has been with the Dollar organization for many years and was transferred to Manila from their Vancouver office. Mrs. Jepson and small daughter are expected to arrive in Manila on the President Cleveland September 23. C. W. Gordon, a representative of the Cana dian American Shipping Company of Vancouver, arrived in Manila aboard the President Mc Kinley August 25, and sailed aboard the same steamer August 26. Mr. Gordon is traveling in the Orient in the interests of his company. J. F. Linehan of The Robert Dollar Co. was a recent visitor to southern Philippine ports in the interests of his company. Mr Linehan left Manila aboard the Cuprum, called at Iloilo, Cebu, Zamboanga, Port Banga, Port Sta Maria, and returned to Manila August 19. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 21 Harvey Street, Purser of the American Mail Line Steamer President Jackson, recently took unto himself a wife and on the next voyage it is understood he will disembark at Kobe, having accepted a position with the American Moving Picture Film Distributing Company operating in Japan. G. P. Bradford, general agent, L. Everett Inc., returned to Manila September 2 aboard the President Jefferson from Hongkong, where he was on business for his company, having left Manila August 26 aboard the President Mc Kinley. SUGAR. —{Concluded from page 12) parcels of sugar available for trading exchanged hands at prices ranging between 1’10.25 and 1’11.375 per picul. The local lharket for muscovados was quiet during the month due to the scarcity of supplies. Quotations on the basis of No. 1 ranged from 1’7.00 to 1’7.50 per picul. Prospects of P. I. 1927-1928 Crop: There were intermittent rains during August, some of them were accompanied by strong winds, which fortunately did not develop into typhoon pro portions. Prospects of this year’s crop continue favorable and present indications point to a crop similar in volume as that of the previous year. The preliminary estimate of the Philippine Sugar Association places the 1927-1928 crop at 8,823,228 piculs or 558,069 metric tons as com pared with the 1926-1927 crop of 8,379,336 piculs or 529,993 metric tons. The estimate by islands, as compared with the previous crop, follows: 1927-’S Crop (Estimated) J9>6-’7 Crop Total 8,823,228 558,069 8,379,336 529,993 Piculs .Mel. Tons Piculs -Mel. Tons Negros.. . 6,317,000 399,551 6,200,759 392,198 Luzon. . 2,096,228 132,585 1,854,514 117,298 Panay 300,000 18,975 239,937 15,176 Mindoro. 110,000 6,958 84,126 5,321 Philippine Exports: The following gives the shipping statistics from January 1 to August 20, 1927: Centrifugals Muscovados Refined.... 46,212 338,442 43 -----1,298 -----China and Japan Total ------ 384,654 30,174 30,217 ------ 1,298 Total . . . 47,553 338,442 30,174 416,169 Java Market: This market was firm and steady during the first half of the month, but af ter the announcement that there was an increase of 60,000 tons in the estimate of this year’s crop, the market became weak and dull through out the latter half of the month. Reports received from Java on the prospects of this year’s crop up to August 15, 1927, state I 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 von Knobelsdorff Agents 90 Rosario, Manila Phone 22324 as follows: “Although the rainfall has been scattered and very limited temperate East monsoon weather has generally prevailed, the standing cane still to be harvested keeps in good con dition. A large number of mills have com pleted planting for next year’s crop, and all reports over the new plantings are favourable. In the Djocja district ‘root rot’ in the assort ment EK 28 is this year early and to a con siderable extent in evidence. On various estates, especially in the Solo district, the assortment 2878 POJ was troubled with ‘gum sickness,’ which is no doubt in part due to the handling of the planting material. In a few districts trouble is experienced with many boring insects, and white louse is this year early, and in nearly all districts, attack ing the young plantings.” AMERICAN MAIL LINE DOLLAR STEAMSHIP LINE COMBINED TRANSPACIFIC SERVICE SAILING The “President” Liners Offer SAILING ONCE A Speed—Service—Courtesy—Comfort ONCE A WEEK Excellent Food, Comfortable Cabins, Broad Decks, American Orchestra, Dancing, Swimming Pool, Sports WEEK TO SAN FRANCISCO AND LOS ANGELES via ROUND THE WORLD VICTORIA AND SEATTLE via President Harrison President Monroe Sept. 16 Sept. 30 Hongkong, Shanghai, Kobe, President Wilson - Oct. 14 Hongkong, Shanghai, Kobe, Yokohama, and Honolulu President Van Buren Oct. 28 and Yokohama president Hayes - Nov. 11 SAILINGS President Polk - - - Nov. 25 SAILINGS ON ON ALTERNATE FRIDAYS Sailings every fortnight 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 September, 1927 RAIL COMMODITY MOVEMENTS By M. D. Royer Traffic Manager, Manila Railroad Company U. S.—THE CROP SITUATION REVIEW OF THE HEMP MARKET By T. H. Smith Vice-President and General Manager, Macleod &• Company The following com modities were received in Manila July 26 to August 25, 1927, both inclusive, via Manila Railroad: 1927 Rice, cavans. . Sugar, piculs. . Tobacco, bales. Copra, piculs.. Coconuts......... 265,000 16,668 39,600 157,300 2,705,000 Lumber, B.F................... 202,500 Desiccated coconuts, cases 15,334 July 275,750 18,816 37,300 120,500 1,022,000 523,800 12,382 The small grain crops are nearly made, with yields better than those of last year. The Government’s estimate upon winter wheat, based upon prospects July 1, is for 579,000,000 bushels, against 627,000,000 last year and 556,000,000 as the average of the last five years. Spring wheat promises a much larger yield than last year, to-wit: 274,000,000 bushels, against 205,000,000, at which the total of all wheat would be 22,000,000 larger than last year. The condition of Spring wheat, however, improved during July, and the crop is likely to make 300,000,000 bushels. From Minnesota to the Pacific Coast there is scarcely a break in the favorable reports upon the outlook, not only for wheat but for other crops. This report covers the markets for Manila Hemp up to and in cluding August 29th, 1927. U. S. Grades: U. S. market opened quiet with shipping houses showing more desire to make progress. Nomi nal quotations were D, 18-1 4 cents; E, 17-1 '4 cents: F, 16-3/8 cents; G, 10-1/8 cents; H, 9-1/2 cents; I, 14-3/4 cents; JI, 11-3/4 cents; SI, 16-1/8 cents; S2, 14-3/8 cents. Very little business was transDon’t waste money: Use our free service OIL IN MALAYSIA Three fields in Malaysia and southeastern Asia are now producing oil, Borneo, Burma and Sumatra, and the black gold seems inexhaustible in all of them. Success has followed the employ ment of American expert drillers in Burma and Sumatra, replacing Europeans. The Americans seem to have the knack of making good strikes, they put on their jumpers and stay with the job. For instance, four years ago, when the shift was made from Europeans to Americans on one concession in Sumatra there were three flowing wells, and now there are 36 flowing wells. The Burma fields are north of Rangoon, near Mandalay; the old Mermain pagoda now looks lazy at the sea over a skyline of derricks; the gusher is rousing the place from its dreamy mysticism. Business is shared by several com panies, all English capital. The Anglo-Persian and Burma Oil companies are prominent. They don’t hesitate to employ Americans. The Borneo field is exclusively dominated by the Shell company, supplying its trade in the Phil ippines from its refineries at Balikpapan. The Standard Oil company ventured into Borneo 18 years ago, had small luck and then went into the Sumatra field. This is in the Palembang Residency, in southern Sumatra, the field lying west of the port of Palembang. There are three concessions theie. The Standard’s first well is eight years old. It now has 40 producing wells, all flowing, all averaging 4,000 barrels per day. This supply is largely held in reserve. A refinery, the most modem in the world, it is said, has been erected at Palembang at a cost of $4,000,000. It is in the charge of an American and has a daily capacity of 7,000 barrels. The district is grow ing in importance, therefore, Sumatra has proved to be another bonanza oil field. This will show more in the future than it does now. The output of oil in the Dutch East Indies in 1926 was 21 million barrels, and all but 28,000 barrels was Shell product. In the oil fields of Sumatia, Malays, Javanese, and Chinese are employed as workmen. They work in gangs of seven, each gang having over it a straw boss, and wages are 40 to 60 cents a day. After several years of struggling with surplus stocks, the leather industry has so thoroughly liquidated itself that there is now a scarcity of raw and finished supplies, not alone in this country but all over the world. With demand for leather increasing, and no way of immediately increasing the supply of hides, prices have ad vanced sharply. Express Pick-up and Delivery Service The MANILA RAILROAD EXPRESS TRUCKS furnish free PICK-UP SERVICE for BAGGAGE or EXPRESS SHIPMENTS to be transported outbound over the Railroad. Those desiring to avail themselves of this SERVICE may do so by giving the necessary instructions to the billing clerk at the EXPRESS OFFICE or Calling up Telephone 4-97-75 or 4-98-61. ECONOMY, CONVENIENCE and SATISFACTION are the outstanding features of this SERVICE. This is one of the FACILITIES offered by the MANILA RAILROAD for the accommodation of its PATRONS. For this SERVICE a Fleet of EXPRESS TRUCKS is operated by the COMPANY to make home deliveries of BAGGAGE and EXPRESS SHIPMENTS within the Manila City Limits and to designated districts within the municipalities of PASAY and SAN JUAN DEL MONTE, Rizal, at low RATES. MANILA RAILROAD COMPANY 943 AZCARRAGA MANILA, P. I. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 23 acted, the market ruling dull with a drooping tendency, prices touching the lower level of D, 17-3/4 cents; E, 16-3/4 cents; F, 16-1/4 cents; G, 9-3/4 cents; H, 9-1/2 cents; I, 14-1/2 cents; JI, 11-5/8 cents; SI, 15-7/8 cents; S2, 13-7/8 cents. At the close of August a steadier market ruled, buyers taking more interest but closing values remained without appreciable change. Business throughout the month has been within a small compass and prices below those ruling in Manila. Manila market for U. S. grades opened firm D, 1*43; E, 1’40.4; F, 1’39; G, 1*22.4; H, 1*21.4; I, 1*34; JI, 1’27.2; SI, 1*38.2; S2, 1*33.4; S3, 1*27.2 and round about this range of prices dealers contracted for most of their August supplies. The dull tone in New York was reflected here in the lack of export houses to go on buying at last prices and market declined to a basis of D, 1’42; E, 1’39.4; F, 1’38; G, 1*21.4; H, 1’20.4; I, 1*33.2; JI, 1’26.2; SI, 1’37; S2, 1’32.2; S3, 1’26.2. Little business, however, was transacted on the decline and market closed fully steady to firm at these prices. U. K. Grades: London ruled quiet but steady at the opening of August, quotations being J2, £43.10; K, £42; LI, £41.10; L2, £40.10; Ml, £40.10; M2, £37; DL, £37; DM, £30, thete being rather sellers at these prices for AugustOctober shipment. By the middle of the month a firmer tone set in with market turning to buyers at last prices. A smart demand was experienced for a short spell with a fair business passing at J2, £44; K, £42.10; LI, £41.10; L2, £40.10; Ml, £40.10; M2, £37; DL, £37. A fair business also passed in better qualities at satisfactory prices compared to U. S. quotations. Market for the balance of the month ruled steady with business done up to J2, £44.10; K, £43; LI, £42; DL, £38; other grades remaining unchanged in price. Closing values were J2, £44; K, £42.15; LI, £42; L2, £40.10; Ml, £40.10; M2, £37.10; DL, £37.10, tone being steady. Manila market opened firm J2, P21.2; K, 1*20.4; LI, 1’19.6; L2, 1’19.2; Ml, P19.2; M2, 1’17.4; DL, P17; DM, 1’13.4. Very little U. K. hemp fame in to the Manila market and values practically unchanged throughout the month, business being done however up to J2, 1’21.3; K, 1’20.6; LI, 1*20; L2, 1’19; Ml, P19; M2, 1’17.4 with single lots of desirable grades at 2 to 4 reales premium on these prices. Transactions have been very limited and prices are firm at the close on a basis of J2, 1*21; K, P20.2; LI, P19.6; L2, 1’18.6; Ml, 1’18.6; M2, 1*17.4; DL, P17; DM, P14. A feature to note is the reduction of Daets produced on account of the high price ruling on damaged grades. Japanese demand during August has not been active. Freight Rates: Unchanged. Statistics: We give below figures for period extending from August 2nd to August 29th, 1927: 1927 1926 Stocks on Receipts t Stocks on January 1st... . o August 29th. . August 29th.. . . 112,382 836,973 152,555 153,181 863,274 165,244 Shipmen t s To the— To Aug. 29, 1927 Vales 30°1926 Vales United Kingdom............. Continent of Europe. . . . Atlantic U. S.................. U. S. via Pacific............. Japan................................ Elsewhere and Local. . . 210,618 87,140 178,802 83,467 167,094 69,679 177,121 118,994 225,649 112,035 157,078 60,334 796,800 851,211 I. Posner’s Official Road Guide of the Philippines for 1928 is off the press. A general map of the islands traces all the roads; there is also a complete railway map and a number index maps. It is a valuable guide, cost one peso; discounts to the trade. TOBACCO REVIEW By P. A. Meyer Alhambra Cioar and Cigarette Manufacturing Co. Shipments abroad follows: Raw Leaf: Export shipments maintain a satisfactory level. Also trading in local 'grades has shown continued activity during August. The earlier unfavorable crop reports, especially in regard to Cagayan and the lower part of Isabela province, are, unfortunately, being confirmed by subsequent inspections of leaf stored in the farmers’ houses, during August, 1927, were "North Coast Limited” “One of America's Fine Trains shows you the Cascade Mountains, the Rocky Moun tains and the Mission Range by daylight. From the main line of the Northern Pacific, travelers see 28 ranges of mountains, and the train rolls along 1406 miles of rivers—pictures of "startling beauty” all the way. The "North Coast Limited” is a new train—new engines one-third of a block long! New Pullmans, new observation cars, wonderful new type dining cars. We Meet All Boats at Victoria and Seattle A. D. Charlton, G. P. A., Poi ttand, Ore. R. J. Tozer, A. G. P. A., Seattle, Wash. W. H. Jaynes, G. A., Vancouver, B. C. E. E. Blackwood, G. A., Victoria, B. C. Northern Pacific Railway “First of the Northern Transcontinentals” ■r L' “! Belgium............................ 39,241 China.................................... 50,558 Germany.............................. 54,200 Hongkong............................. 19,853 Japan.................................... 82,650 Spain......................... 2,373,582 Straits Settlements............. 1,984 United States...................... 56,844 2,678,912 Cigars: The Philippine cigar situation in the United States continues very unsatisfactory, with signs for improvement lacking. Compa rative figures for the trade with the States are as follows: August, 1927........... 12,908,114 July, 1927................ 14,664,998 August, 1926............ 13,579,849 IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 24 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 T R A D E WITH US BY M A I JL S S E N D We Stock Only the Most Standard Goods c A For Men and Women A N Cheney’s, Mallinson’s and French Silks F Keyser and Phoenix Hosiery O O U R FLORSHEIM SHOES R S Our Haberdashery and Tailoring Departments W A Meet Every Requirement of Fastidious Taste I M N P D L M.PELLICER O E 1 40-42-44 ESCOLTA MANILA, P. I. W S s OUR TAILORING IS FASHION’S TRADEMARK THE RICE INDUSTRY By Percy A. Hill of .Vufloj, A'uria Ecija. Director, Rice Producers’ Association Prices for palay at the terminals have taken a slight drop, being 1’3.20 to 1’3.25 per cavan of 44 kilos of palay, with rice reduced 0.10 per sack of 57 kilos selling at an even 1’8.00 per sack. This is probably the first time palay has registered a decline in price at the peak value in the history of the islands. The peak shipping period, January 15 to March 15, is supposed to be the period of lowest prices, but the cereal sold at P3.50 a cavan in January this year. Price enhancement generally is from 10% to 15% in the month of August, but this year, owing to the bumper crop and its slow movement, prices have fallen off as noted. Rice imports from January to June, 1926, were 23,221,000 kilos. In the same period this year, 1927, they were only 6,310,000, a decrease of over 18,000,000 kilos. As a consequence, there is a loss of over half a million pesos in revenue, the tariff collections on rice imports. Of course, the domestic supply being almost enough for insular consumption, means that WELCH - FAIRCHILD, Ltd. SUGAR FACTORS AND EXPORTERS Agents Hawaiian - Philippine Company Operating Sugar Central Silay, Occ. Negros, P. I. Mindoro Sugar Company San Jos6, Mindoro, P. I. MANILA, P. I. Cable Address: WEHALD, Manila Standard Codes approximately ten million pesos extra accrue to insular prosperity, thanks to an excellent season. The present outlook is, however, somewhat spotty for the coming crop. Certain regions have too much moisture, while others register a lack of it. The planting season is retarded therefore in the latter regions, for in spite of a limited irrigated area we are still at the mercy of seasonal climatip conditions regarding the main food supply. This year is the first in recent times where the supply produced here seems to be adequate to demand and increasing population. The question of price reduction, however (some 25% from last year), has had a slight effect on area planted this year. H. B. Pond, president of the Pacific Com mercial Company, returns to Manila with Mrs. Pond September 21 from a visit to the United States. A. D. Williams, director of public works, comes back to town on the same day. The 1927 yearbook of the Manila Harbor Board exhibits the excellency that has come to be associated with this publication. It is replete with pictures and data as well as narrative com ment and may be had upon request to the board. The annual convention of the Philippine Sugar Association opens in Manila September 12. This year surpasses all past years in the pro gress of the industry. A feeling of optimism prevails. New York Agents: Welch, Fairchild 8b Co., Inc. 135 Front Street San Francisco Agents: Welch 8b Co., 215 Market Street 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 GO. Cebu, P. I. Cable address: “YPIL,” Cebu. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 25 REVIEW OF THE EXCHANGE MARKET By Stanley Williams Manager International Banking Corporation. Telegraphic transfers on New York were quoted at 1 % premium to 1, 8% premium on July 30th with buyers at 3/4% premium and the market was un changed on this basis throughout the month of August and on the quiet side. Sterling cables were quoted at 2/0-7/16 on July 30th and remained unchanged throughout August at this level. Buyers wanted 2/0-9/16 up to August 9th when their ideas were lowered to 2/0—1/2 ready but remained at 2/0-9/16 for forward deliveries although some interbank business was done during the latter part of the month at 2/O-1/2 for October-December del iveries. Three months sight credit bills, quoted at 2/1-1/16 and 3 m/s documents against pay ment bills at 2/1—3/16 on July 30th, were unREAL ESTATE By P. D. CARMAN San Juan Heights Addition Sales Citu July 1927 r <>/ Manila ' 1927 Sta. Cruz.............. ......... P 136,468 1*164,774 Malate.................. ......... 319,318 172,596 Paco...................... .......... 44,397 19,394 Sampaloc.............. 85,741 74,098 Ermita....... 84,300 121,354 Tondo................... .......... 104,094 34,946 Sta. Ana............... 24,390 1,507 San Nicolas.*. . 12,500 22,130 Binondo................ 016 Quiapo.................. 79,080 22,327 Intramuros........... 010 2,477 San Miguel.......... Pandacan............. 5,500 Sta. Mesa............. 4,100 10,050 Pl,045,121 1*649,662 Another low August as is seen by the following: 1919 ....................... 2,357,558 1920 ....................... 1,886,047 1921 ....................... 558,491 1922 ....................... 692,891 1923 ....................... 504,123 1924 ....................... 795,260 1925 ....................... 1,295,260 1926 ....................... 585,519 1927 ....................... 649,662 Manila sales January to August inclusive last year and this year were as follows: 1927 1926 January................. .......... 1,128,773 1,215,531 February.............. 919,150 594,903 March............... 1,373,079 1,733,105 April..................... 1,298,722 673,760 May......... ‘............ .......... 749,975 600,547 June...................... 738,503 1,045,121 July....................... .......... 1,843,930 894,398 August.................. .......... 585,519 649,662 8,637,651 7,407,027 Under the presidency of W. G. P. Elliott, with J. J. Russell as vice president, a stock exchange has been organized, incorporated and put into operation in Manila, with both local and New York stocks listed daily. The ex change members convene daily for the transac tion of business, some 3,000 shares changing hands the first day, September 1. While these were principally well known mining stocks, it is confidently expected that interest in Philippine investment and speculative stocks will increase through the medium of the exchange, and that more capital will be drawn into local industries. changed until August 9th when the latter rate was lowered l/16th. The New York London crossrate closed on July 30th at 485 -9/16 and gradually rose to 486 3 32 on August 9th. After receding to 486 on the 11th, 12th and 13th it again rose with slight fluctuations downward to 486-3/16 on the 26th and 27th and closed at 486-1/8 on the 31st. London bar silver closed on July 30th at 26-1/6 spot and forward and dropped gradually away to 25-7/16 spot and forward on August 6th and then on August 8th dropped sharply to 24-15/16 spot 25 forward. It reacted to 25-1/4, 25-5 '16 on the 10th and dropped again to 24-15 16, 25-1/16 on the 11th and then reacted to 25-5/16, 25-3/8 on the 13th. It Travel Across America via Glacier National Park The Oriental Limited In an observation car where wider, higher windows permit an unobstructed view of the scenic grandeur visible from the car windows as the train passes along the southern boundary of the Park for over 60 miles. The Oriental Limited is The Finest Train Between Seattle and Chicago A de luxe train. No extra fare. Hauled by giant oil-burning locomotives, assuring freedom from soot and cinders. Across America to Chicago in 69 hours and 55 minutes. Convenient connection at Chicago for Eastern points. Get our folder “Through the U. S A. via Seattle Gateway,” with its wealth of maps and information. A. G. HENDERSON, AGENT. Chaco Building o R AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. Manila, P. I. Great Northern A Dependable RailuJau again dropped away to 24-15/16 spot and for ward on the 22nd and reacted the following day to 25-3 16 spot and forward on the 23rd. It then hovered between a low of 25-1/8 spot and forward and a high of 25-1/4 spot 25-5/16 forward, during the rest of the month, closing at 25-3/16 spot 25-1/4 forward on the 31st. New York bar silver closed at 56-1/2 on July 30th and ranged during August between a high of 56-1/2 on August 1st and a low of 54-1/8 on the 8th and 11th closing at 54-1/2 on the 31st. Telegraphic transfers on other points were quoted nominally at the close on August 31st: Paris, 12.25: Madrid, 171-1/2; Singapore, 114; Japan, 95-3/4; Shanghai, 81-3/8; Hongkong, 97-7/8; India, 135-3/4; Java, 122-1/2. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 26 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 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 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 is ■ass. I®. 8,271 Tc ly.. ’•SV Monthly . ithly. Uy... 64 i,i 30 is for 12 IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 27 Commodities Coconut Oil.......................................... Cigars (Number)................................. Embroidery........................................... Maguey.................................................. Leaf Tobacco....................................... Desiccated and Shredded Coconut. Hats (Number)................................... Lumber (Cubic Meter) ................... Copra Meal.......................................... Cordage................................................. Knotted Hemp.................................... Pearl Buttons (Gross)....................... Canton (low grade cordage fiber).. All Other Products............................. Total Domestic Products................. United States Products..................... Foreign Products................................. Grand Total........ ................ 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........................... PRINCIPAL EXPORTS July, 1927 Value % 30.1 20.1 13. 12.‘ 7 2 1 2 5 7 6 0 5 2 7 23,015,149 99 88,374 0 41,914 0 P23.145.437 100. July, 1926 Quantity Value NOTE:—All quantities are in kilos except where otherwise indicated. PRINCIPAL IMPORTS July, 1927 July. 1926 Value P 3,015,192 1,827,832 % 13 8 Value 5 P 4,251,486 3 1,628,587 18 7 7 1 3 9 2 8 5 9 8 7 8 Monthly average for 12 months ending July, 1927 Value 0 7 5 5 7 7 3 3 3 2 9 5 0 1 9 2 Nationality of Vessels American. % .9 5 14 24 17 18 3 3 2 2 2 1 2 0 0 Monthly average for 12 months previous to July, 1927 Value 0 7 0 1 9 6 P21.591.434 100 1 0 CARRYING TRADE IMPORTS • 0 8 2 2 6 3 P25.331.238 100 0 Monthly average for July, 1927 July, 1926 12 months ending July, 1927 Value % Value % Value % Pl 1,621,503 6,559,866 1,709,900 984,805 1,195,596 56,580 248,353 P10,654,250 7,946,264 1,395,657 980,962 596,979 232,140 P Chemicals, Dyes, Drugs, Etc.................................. Vegetables.......................... ’’aper Goods, Except Books.............................. Tobacco and Manufac•Uectrical Machinery.. .. looks and Othec Printed Matters........................... Jars and Carriages, Ex cept Autos..................... utomobile Tires.............. : ruits and Nuts.............. \/oolen Goods................... Leather Goods.................. Shoes and Other FootE r e a d s t u ff s, Except Wheat Flour................. Iggs..................................... erfumery and Other Toilet Goods................. ' abricating Oil................. acao Manufactures, Ex cept Candy................... *• lass and Glassware.... : lints, ^Pigments, Var.. Is not Separately listed. Earthen Stones & Chinavatomobile Accessories.. iamond and Other Pre cious Stones Unset.. .. ■'ood. Bamboo, Reed, dia Rubber Goods.... ap—............................. < ittle and Carabaos.. . . - gar and Molasses........ votion Picture Films. . . I Other Imports........... Total.................. 518,791 175,561 177,575 215,467 164,566 150,089 275,296 195,673 43,047 2 8 2 7 9 2 6 2 2 4 3 6 2 2 9 2 8 5 0 9 5 9 9 0 5 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 9 7 2 8 6 6 7 5 7 P22.822.713 100 8 444,357 7,974 286,968 462,715 265,772 208,536 143,691 160,003 105,550 82,736 9 2 0 8 0 1 1 0 9 9 3 0 7 0 0 9 6 7 2 7 0 0 7 5 5 0 0 0 0 5 6 0 0 8 0 P23.080.882 100 373,309 352,112 365,473 167,953 153,809 218,586 158,794 141,614 122,189 66,415 2 7 2 0 8 9 1 3 3 9 8 0 0 0 9 8 0 0 6 2 0 6 8 0 0 8 7 0 0 0 0 0 5 8 0 0 5 0 9 0 P19.637.161 100 0 33,776 371,232 169,557 9,820,004 5,963,993 1,042,325 820,571 830,826 235,434 159,349 50 30 5 PORT STATISTICS TRADE WITH THE UNITED STATES AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES July, 1927 July, 1926 Value % Value Monthly average for 12 months previous to July, 1927 Portuguese. By Freight. By Mail... Total................... Nationality of Vessels Swedish.. .. German.. .. Norwegian. Spanish.... Dutch. . . . Philippine. Belgian.. .. By Freight. By Mail... 20,047 0.1 200,868 1,916 82,859 1,607 172,954 23,873 110,785 14,202 13,435 485 6,030 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 8 5 1 P22,430,426 98.3 P22.634.291 98.1 P19.158.933 97.4 392,287 1.7 446,591 1.9 478,228 2.4 P22.822.713 100.0 P23.080.882 100.0 P19.637.161 100.0 EXPORTS Monthly average for* July, 1927 July, 1926 12 months ending July, 1927 Value % Value % Value P10,017,815 10,163,794 800,205 972,220 491,744 241,715 15,723 16,270 42.8 PIO.485,451 44.3 5,611,229 3.6 2,331,899 4.3 505,760 1,426,228 2.1 354,512 1.0 165,312 148,875 Pll,950,514 7,577,935 2,734,316 28,573 917,798 464,150 150,338 186,892 125,492 6,021 34 43 820 P22.719.486 98.2 P21.029.264 97.3 P24.057.629 94.9 425,951 1.8 562,170 2.7 1,282,942 5.1 Total................... P23.145.437 100.0 P21,591,434 100.0 P25.331.238 100.0 TRADE WITH THE UNITED STATES AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES July, 1927 July, 1926 Value Monthly average for 12 months previous to July, 1927 P20.668.983 841,922 1,123,388 102,361 27,273 30,414 28,372 90.0 P31.789.989 3 8 3,995,147 5.1 6,598,369 0.5 707,588 0-. 2 66,448 0.2 908,358 0.2 606,417 % Value 70 9 14 0 P22.822.713 100.0 P44.672.316 100 8 P30.270.546 67.4 0 6,531,684 14.5 8 6,070,703 13.5 7 457,099 1.0 2 103,598 0.2 1 928,550 2.1 4 576,056 1.3 0 P44.938.236 100.0 United States........... United Kingdom... . China.......................... French East Indies. Germany.................. Australia.................. British East Indies. Dutch East Indies. Netherlands............ Italy.......................... Hongkong................ Belgium.................... Switzerland.............. Japanese-China.... Siam.......................... Sweden..................... Norway..................... Denmark.................. Other Countries. . . Total... .. 65 3 9 5 0 6 0 5 5 5 5 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 P29,029,847 1,968,889 3,690,078 1,749,979 1,369,897 1,132,036 1,073,914 707,240 413,516 610,666 624,334 511,222 365,397 235,368 316,971 268,411 209,969 19,898 33,425 32,509 27,335 19,944 27,173 234,298 — 64.< 6 8 3 0 6 6 4 2 0 5 7 0 0 Value % .5 7 68 6 3 1 3 1 0 0 0 0 7 9 3 2 9 5 8 9 5 6 2 2 0.1 0.9 P45.968.150 100 0 P44.672.316 100 0 P44,938,236 100 0 28 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL September, 1927 BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY B. A. GREEN REAL ESTATE Myers Buck Co., Inc. Improved and Unimproved City, Surveying and Mapping Suburban and Provincial Properties PRIVATE MINERAL — AND Expert valuation, appraisement PUBLIC LAND fSrafflMI and reports on real estate Telephone 507 34 Escolta Cable Address: “BAG” Manila 230 Kneedler Bldg. Tel. 1610 Manila, P. I. Philippine Islands PHILIPPINES COLD STORES MACLEOD & COMPANY Wholesale and Retail Dealers in American and Australian Refrigerated Produce Manila Cebu Vigan Davao Iloilo Exporters of Hemp and Maguey Rosenberg’s Garage TELEPHONE 5-69-55 STORES AND OFFICES Calle Echague Manila, P. I. Agents for INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER CO. Agricultural Machinery « ® a CHINA BANKING CORPORATION MANILA, P. I. “LA URBANA” (Sociedad Mutua de Construccidn y Prfstamos) Prestamos Hipotecarios P. O. Box 1394 Telephone 22070 J. A. STIVER Attorney-At-Law Notary Public Certified Public Accountant Domestic and Foreign Banking Inversiones de Capital Investments Collections Income Tax of Every Description 111 Plaza Sta. Cruz Manila, P. I. 121 Real, Intramuros Manila, P. I. Derham Building Phone 22516 Manila P. O. Box 2103 MADRIGAL & CO. 8 Muelle del Banco Nacional Manila, P. I. Coal Contractors and Coconut Oil Manufacturers MILL LOCATED AT CEBU MORTON & ERICKSEN, INC. Surveyors AMERICAN BUREAU OF SHIPPING Marine and Cargo Surveyors Sworn Measurers Mr. MANUEL VALENTIN TAILOR Formerly Chief Cutter for P. B. Florence & Co. 244 Plaza Sta. Cruz Manila, P. I. Phone 2-61-30 X T A TAII,()HIN(, < <>., Im 73 Escolta 73 & Quality ffi Shirts TOYO SHIRT FACTORY I 1044 AZCARRAGA, MANILA. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL HELP! HELP! The New York Public Library wishes to complete its files of the JOURNAL by obtaining the following numbers: Vol. V, Nos. 2, 3, 6 (1926). If any member has these copies, or any of them, he is asked to send them to Walter Robb, P. O. Box 1638, Manila, P. I., if he is willing to give them to the New York Library, to which they will be forwarded. 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. Exclusive distributers 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 CHRYSLER 50—60—70—80 I Luneta Motors Co., Inc. | 54 San Luis TEL. 370 THE AMERICAN EXPRESS CO., INC. Railway and Steamship Tickets at tariff rates Express and Freight Forwarding American Express Travelers Cheques EL ORIENTE CORONAS ORIENTE FABRICA DE TABACOS, INC. 72 Calle Evangelista MANILA MANUFACTURERS OF Coronas Oriente Jean Valjean Fighting Bob HIGH GRADE CIGARS IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL Gum-Dipped! This is no catch word! “Gum-Dipped” describes the spe cially developed, extra manufacturing process—exclusive to FIRESTONE!—which has revolutionized the tire industry—sent FIRESTONE sales soaring—and created greater FIRESTONE mileage. It is the process that has given FIRESTONE Tires a unique stamina and reliability—a greater resistance to wear. It is a patent process that has brought out the real meaning of tire econ omy. And only FIRESTONE users have the advantage of it! “Most Miles Per Peso" Jirestone Call on your FIRESTONE dealer for tire service PACIFIC COMMERCIAL COMPANY DISTRIBUTOR IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL