the partisans of the opposite system were strangely misled, by founding their calculation on false data, when they alleged that a substitute, equivalent to the increased revenue supposed to arise out of the monopoly of tobacco, might have been resorted to by ordering a proportionate rise in the branch of tributes.  In fact, no one who had the least experience in matters of this kind, can be ignorant of the open repugnance the natives have always evinced to the payment of the ordinary head-tax (cedula), and the broils to which its collection has given rise.  Besides, if well examined, no theory is more defective and more oppressive on account of the disparity with which it operates, than this same wrongly-boasted impost; for, however desirous it may be to simplify the method of collecting the general revenue of a state, if the best plan is to be adopted, that is, if public burdens are to be rendered the least obnoxious, it is necessary preferably to embrace the system of indirect contribution, in which class, to a certain degree, the monopoly of all those articles may be considered as included which are not rigorously of the first necessity, and only compel the individual to contribute when his own will induce him to become a consumer.

[Doubling of insular revenue thru tobacco.] Let this be as it may, certain it is, that to Governor Basco we are indebted for having doubled the annual amount of the revenue of these Islands, by merely rendering the consumption of tobacco subservient to the wants of the crown.  It was he who placed these Islands in the comfortable situation of being able to subsist without being dependent on external supplies of money to meet the exigencies of government.  It ought, however, to be remarked that, although they have been in the habit of receiving the annual allowance of $250,000 for which a standing credit was opened by the government at home on the general treasury of New Spain, considerable sums have, nevertheless, on various occasions, been remitted from the Philippines to Spain, through the channel of the Captain-General. * * * If these remittances have been suspended for some years past, it has evidently been owing to the imperious necessity of applying the ordinary proceeds of the revenue, as well as other extraordinary means, to unforeseen contingencies arising out of peculiar circumstances.

[Tobacco belt.] The planting and cultivation of tobacco are now confined to the district of Gapan, in Pampanga Province, to that of Cagayan, and to the small Island of Marinduque.  The amount of the crops raised in the above three points and sold to the king, may, on an average, be estimated at fifty thousand bales, grown in the following proportion:  Gapan, forty-seven thousand bales; Cagayan, two thousand, and Marinduque, one thousand.  This stock, resold at the monopoly prices, yields a sum equal to about one million of dollars, and deducting therefrom the prime cost and all other expenses, legally chargeable on this branch,