Part 40 (1/2)

Apparently, Messrs. Roosevelt and Taft thought, in 1907, that granting the Filipinos a little debating society solemnly called a legislative body, but wholly without any real power, was ample compensation for deserted tobacco and cane plantations and for the price of hemp being beat down below the cost of production by manipulation through an Act of Congress pa.s.sed for the benefit of American hemp manufacturers. If we had had a Cleveland in the White House about that time, he would have written an essay on taxation without representation, with the hemp infamy of this Philippine Tariff Act of 1902 as a text, and sent it to Congress as a message demanding the repeal of the Act. But the good-will of the Hemp Trust is an a.s.set for the policy of Benevolent a.s.similation. The Filipino cannot vote, and the cordage manufacturer in the United States can. No conceivable state of economic desolation to which we might reduce the people of the Philippine Islands being other than a blessing in disguise compared with permitting them to attend to their own affairs after their own quaint and mutually considerate fas.h.i.+on, the Hemp Trust's rope, tied into a slip-knot by the Act of 1902, must not be removed from their throats. By judicious manipulation of sufficient hemp rope, you can corral much support for Benevolent a.s.similation. Therefore, to this good hour, the substance of the hemp part of the Philippine Tariff Act of March 8, 1902, remains upon the statute books of the United States, to the shame of the nation.

At last, under the Payne tariff law of 1909, Mr. Taft's long and patient quiet work with Congressional committees prevailed upon Congress and the interests to admit Philippine sugar and tobacco to this country free of duty, up to amounts limited in the Act. [525]

Since then you find the reports of our American officials in the Philippines palpitating with grat.i.tude to Congress. As a matter of fact all Congress had said to the Filipinos by its action may be summed up about thus: ”The sugar and tobacco interests of this country have at last realized that such little of the sugar and tobacco you raise as may stray over to this side of the world will not be in the least likely to hurt them. Therefore they have graciously decided, in their benignity, to permit you to live, provided you do not get too prosperous.” But this very same Payne bill continued the export tax features of the Act of 1902. Section 13 of the Payne bill is as follows:

Section 13. That upon the exportation to any foreign country from the Philippine Islands, or the s.h.i.+pment thereof to the United States or any of its possessions, of the following articles there shall be levied, collected, and paid thereon the following export duties: Provided, however, that all articles the growth and product of the Philippine Islands coming directly from said islands, to the United States or any of its possessions for use and consumption therein shall be exempt from any export duties imposed in the Philippine Islands:

352. Abaca (hemp), gross weight, 100 kilos, 75 cents.

353. Sugar, gross weight, 100 kilos, 5 cents.

354. Copra, gross weight, 100 kilos, 10 cents.

355. Tobacco, gross weight:

(a) Manufactured or unmanufactured, except as otherwise provided, 100 kilos, $1.30.

(b) Stems, clippings, and other wastes of tobacco, 100 kilos, 50 cents.

Let us briefly glance at the net results of this law, and its predecessor, the Act of 1902, the export features of which it re-enacted. It is important that every fair-minded American who can possibly spare the time should take such a glance at what Congress has done to the Philippine hemp industry, because of the obvious bearing that such taxation without representation will probably have on the att.i.tude of the Philippine people whenever we get into a war with a foreign power. Certainly the legislation Congress has perpetrated upon them, at the behest of special interests in the United States, has not soothed the original desire of those people to be free and independent.

At page 27 of the report of the Philippine Collector of Customs for 1910, a table is given showing the export duties subject to refund collected under the Act of Congress of March 8, 1902, and deposited in the Philippine treasury to the credit of the Insular Government at the end of each fiscal year (June 30), as follows:

1902 $ 71,064.69 1903 527,228.10 1904 462,433.83 1905 486,475.56 1906 433,991.79 1907 433,458.58 1908 370,513.36 1909 598,917.69 ------------- $3,384,083.60

The following table, taken from this same annual report of the Collector of Customs of the Philippines for 1910 (p. 22) shows the size (weight in kilograms), and value, of the annual Philippine hemp crop from 1899 to 1910, both inclusive. It gives in one set of columns the total exported to all countries, and in the other the part which comes to the United States:

To All Countries. To United States.

Kilos Value Kilos Value

1899 59,840,368 $ 6,185,293 23,066,248 $ 2,436,169 1900 76,708,936 11,393,883 25,763,728 3,446,141 1901 112,215,168 14,453,110 18,157,952 2,402,867 1902 109,968,792 15,841,316 45,526,960 7,261,459 1903 132,241,594 21,701,575 71,654,416 12,314,312 1904 131,817,872 21,794,960 61,886,592 10,631,591 1905 130,621,024 22,146,241 73,351,136 12,954,515 1906 112,165,384 19,446,769 62,045,088 11,168,226 1907 114,701,320 21,085,081 58,388,504 11,326,864 1908 115,829,080 17,311,808 48,813,720 7,684,000 1909 149,991,866 15,883,577 79,210,362 8,534,288 1910 170,788,629 17,404,922 99,305,102 10,399,397

If you have the time and inclination, you can easily figure out the annual ”rake-off” of the American hemp importers from the above table. For instance, take the last year, 1910: 99,305,102 kilos at 75 cents per 100 kilos is $744,788.26, which is more than 4% of $17,404,922, the total value of the hemp crop of the archipelago for that year. Add this $744,788.26 to the $3,384,183.60 shown by the above table of refundable duties collected from 1902 to 1909 inclusive, and you have over $4,000,000 rebates accruing to American importers of Manila hemp from 1902 to 1910 inclusive.

In his remarks on Section 13 of the Payne Law of 1909 (above set forth), in the House of Representatives, May 13, 1909, [526] Hon. Oscar W. Underwood said, in part:

When you put a tax on your people for engaging in export trade, to that extent you lessen their ability to successfully meet their foreign compet.i.tor and reduce the territory in which they can successfully dispose of their surplus products abroad. Our forefathers in writing the Const.i.tution of the United States, recognizing the false principle on which an export tax was based, put it in the fundamental law of our land that the United States Government should not lay export taxes. If we enact this law, we write into the statute book for the Philippine Islands, legislation which is little short of barbarous, legislation that no government in the civilized world except Turkey, and Persia, and other second-cla.s.s nations countenance to-day.

But the hemp interests won out and the section was adopted. In an argument for the repeal of the export tax, delivered in the House of Representatives August 19, 1911, the Philippine delegate, Hon. Manuel L. Quezon, said: