Excerpt from The Facts as to the Philippine Islands: Compiled for the Enlightenment of the American People

Forty seven million dollars doesn't sound very big when we are dealing in the figures of the world's commerce, but the forty seven million dollars in trade that passed between the archipelago and the mainland of the United States during the calendar year 1912, when analyzed and viewed from the different angles of Past, Present, and Future, carries a story that must make every thoughtful person in the land sit up and take notice, for the greater part of it has been created since enactment of the Payne bill, that tardy act which gave American products blanket protection in Philippine markets and Philippine products a sort of limited, half hearted preference in those of the United States. But, imperfect though it be, still it is along the right lines and what it already has done furnishes a basis for estimating the possibilities of the future.

In Spanish times we sold the islands a bare half million dollars worth a year. This consisted almost wholly of petroleum and flour and went in through the British port of Hongkong. We bought at times a little Philippine sugar and Manila hemp, but a goodly part of it came through London, and from the time of the decadence of our merchant marine until the year of our Lord 1898 there wasno direct trade of consequence between the islands and this country. During the decade first succeed ing American occupation a slightly larger quota of hemp and sugar was bought from the islands and brought in more directly than before while in the earlier period the presence there of a large number of American troops created a demand for certain articles of United States manufacture in addition to the supplies that were sent over for the use of the Army and Navy. But the growth of this trade was quite slow up to 1909, the year of enactment of the Payne bill. In the year pre ceding notwithstanding that we had been in the islands for a decade and had there, in the mil itary and naval service, in insular government employ and in civil pursuits, fully Americans, our exports of merchandise to the Philippines amounted in value to less than ten million dollars. Five years later, in 1913 (fiscal Year), they had grown to In fifteen years from today, or in less time, if given the proper incentive for development, the Filipino people will be consuming each year full three hundred million dollars worth of American commodities and will be supplying us with a corresponding amount of tropical products, thus lessening to that extent the unfavorable balance of trade that piles up against us annually in our commerce with countries that now supply our requirements in this direction. For be it known that we are spending over seven hundred million dollars a year in tropical countries that supply us with cocoa, coffee, rubber, silk, sugar, tobacco, vegetable fibers and similar articles, while they buy from us of our products a scant half of that amount in return.

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