chapter I

show the enormous increase in the total trade of the country since the American occupation, and the rapid growth of trade with the United States.

Next to rice, cotton goods form the most important element in the consuming markets of the islands, and the rapidity with which the United States is gaining control of this trade is well illustrated in the following table, showing by years the value of such goods imported since 1904:--

Importations of Cotton Cloth

-----------------+------------------+--------------- | United States | Year | Hawaii and Porto | All Countries | Rico | -----------------+------------------+--------------- 1904 | $278,106 | $4,919,840 1905 | 764,990 | 6,346,962 1906 | 278,796 | 6,642,329 1907 | 1,056,328 | 8,320,079 1908 | 604,742 | 7,909,395 1909 | 508,229 | 6,862,135 1910 | 2,043,000 | 8,444,453 1911 | 4,110,837 | 10,305,017 1912 | 4,143,067 | 9,246,595 1913 | 6,827,082 | 11,483,638 +------------------+--------------- Total | $20,615,177 | $80,480,443 | +--------------- Annual average | | $8,048,044 -----------------+------------------+---------------

From a proportion of slightly over five per cent of the total trade in manufactures of cotton in 1904, importations of the American product have increased until they supply fifty-nine per cent of the present local demand!

The following table is of especial interest. It shows in the first column the nature and amount of the total exports from the United States and in the second the nature and amount of United States exports to the Philippine Islands.

----------------------------------------------+-----------+--------------- | To All | To Philippine | Countries | Islands ----------------------------------------------+-----------+--------------- Foodstuffs in crude condition, and food | | animals | 7.48 | 2.25 Foodstuffs partly or wholly manufactured | 13.19 | 14.39 Crude materials for use in manufacturing | 30.10 | .42 Manufactures for further use in manufacturing | 16.84 | 7.19 Manufactures ready for consumption | 32.04 | 75.73 Miscellaneous | .35 | .02 +-----------+--------------- Total | 100.00 | 100.00 ----------------------------------------------+-----------+---------------

The most profitable class of exports is manufactures ready for consumption. It forms no less than 75.73 per cent of the United States exports to the Philippines. The least profitable exports are crude materials for use in manufacturing, which make up but forty-two hundredths of one per cent of the total exports to the Philippines.

Tropical and sub-tropical products are constantly increasing in popularity in the United States, which is able to produce them to so small an extent that although the classes included in this table comprise nearly forty per cent of the total United States imports for the year, there are but two on which duty is levied.

The following table shows the amount and value of tropical products imported into the United States during the year ended June 30, 1913:--

------------------------+--------------------+-------------- Products | Amount | Value ------------------------+--------------------+-------------- | | Cocoa | 140,039,172 lb. | $17,389,042 Coffee | 863,130,757 lb. | 118,963,209 Fibres | 407,098 T. | 49,075,659 Manufactures of fibres | ---- | 76,972,416 Fruits and nuts | ---- | 42,622,653 Goatskins | 45,729,000 T. | 24,790,417 Gums of various kinds | ---- | 15,138,895 Rubber | 214,000,000 lb. | 101,333,158 Matting | ---- | 1,651,813 Vegetable oils | ---- | 38,112,883 Silk, unmanufactured | ---- | 84,914,717 Spices | 65,225,401 lb. | 6,187,136 Sugar | 4,740,041,488 lb. | 103,639,823 Tea | 94,812,800 lb. | 17,433,688 Leaf tobacco | 67,454,745 lb. | 35,919,079 Manufactured tobacco | ---- | 6,577,403 Cabinet woods | ---- | 8,880,000 Rattans and reeds | ---- | 1,800,000 | +-------------- | | $751,401,991 ------------------------+--------------------+--------------

The balance of trade with the more important countries from which we get these products is heavily against us, as is shown by the following table in which I have included Switzerland, not because we get tropical or sub-tropical products from that country, but because it furnishes us embroideries, etc., which could be very cheaply produced in the Philippines. The figures are for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1913:--

---------------+--------------------+------------------+----------------- | | | Balance against | U. S. Imports from | U. S. Exports to | U. S. ---------------+--------------------+------------------+----------------- Brazil | $120,155,855 | $42,638,467 | $77,517,388 Cuba | 126,088,173 | 70,581,154 | 55,507,019 British E. I. | 116,178,182 | 15,108,956 | 101,069,226 Japan | 91,633,240 | 57,741,815 | 33,891,425 China | 39,010,800 | 21,326,834 | 17,683,966 Switzerland | 23,260,180 | 826,549 | 22,433,631 Mexico | 77,543,842 | 54,571,584 | 22,972,258 Colombia | 15,992,321 | 7,397,696 | 8,594,625 Venezuela | 10,852,331 | 5,737,118 | 5,115,213 Egypt | 19,907,828 | 1,660,833 | 18,246,995 +--------------------+------------------+----------------- | $640,622,752 | $277,591,006 | $363,031,746 ---------------+--------------------+------------------+-----------------

There is no such relationship with the Philippines, which during 1912 imported $20,770,536 worth of merchandise from the United States to offset the $21,619,686 worth shipped to that country.

The Philippines could readily produce all of these products in quantities sufficient to meet the demands of the United States if there were proper development of the resources of the islands, which have rich land, good labour and suitable climate, but lack capital and competent, skilled supervision.

The situation has been admirably summed up in the following statement issued some time since by the Manila Merchants' Association:--

"The Philippines will consume of imported commodities what they are able to pay for. Their purchasing capacity will always be measured by their production of export commodities. There is nothing that they produce, or are adapted to produce, that the United States is not at present under the necessity of buying from foreign countries whose import trade it does not, and never will, control. Thus it cannot hope for such advantages in other fields yielding tropical products as it already possesses in these Islands."

The Philippines should furnish the bulk of the tropical products imported into the United States. The commerce between the two countries should in the very near future increase to $100,000,000 per year each way and should go on increasing more and more rapidly thereafter.

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