Revenues and Expenditures.--The maintenance of these numerous activities calls for an expenditure of large sums of money, but the insular government and the Filipino people are fortunate in having had their finances managed with exceptional ability. The revenues of the Islands for the past fiscal year have amounted to about $10,638,000, gold. Public expenditures, including the purchase of equipment such as the coast-guard fleet and the forwarding of great public works such as the improving of the harbor of Manila, amounted during fiscal year of 1903 to about $9,150,000, gold. The government has at all times preserved a good balance in its treasury; but the past year has seen some diminution in the amount of revenues, owing to the great depreciation of silver money, the falling off of imports, the wide prevalence of cholera, and the poverty of many parts of the country as a result of war and the loss of livestock through pest. To assist the government of the Philippines, the Congress of the United States in February, 1903, with great and characteristic generosity appropriated the sum of $3,000,000, gold, as a free gift to the people and government of the Philippines. The Judicial System.--Especially fortunate, also, have been the labors of the commission in establishing a judicial system and revising the Spanish law. The legal ability of the commission is unusually high. As at present constituted, the judicial system consists of a Supreme Court composed of seven justices, three of whom at the present time are Filipinos, which, besides trying cases over which it has original jurisdiction, hears cases brought on appeal from the Courts of First Instance, fifteen in number, which sit in different parts of the Islands. Each town, moreover, has its justices of the peace for the trial of small cases and for holding preliminary examinations in cases of crimes. By the new Code of Civil Procedure, the administration of justice has been so simplified that there are probably no courts in the world where justice can be more quickly secured than here. System of Public Schools.--Probably no feature of the American government in the Islands has attracted more attention than the system of public schools. Popular education, while by no means wholly neglected under the Spanish government, was inadequate, and was continually opposed by the clerical and conservative Spanish forces, who feared that the liberalizing of the Filipino people would be the loosening of the control of both Spanish state and church. On the contrary, the success of the American government, as of any government in which the people participate, depends upon the intelligence and education of the people. Thus, the American government is as anxious to destroy ignorance and poverty as the Spanish government and the Spanish church were desirous of preserving these deeply unfortunate conditions.