Employers seem to forget that the ordinary food of a native, rice and fish, is not sufficiently nourishing to enable him to do hard and continuous work, such as is required in mining. A higher rate of pay than the current wage is essential, to allow the miner to supply himself with an ample ration of beef or pork, coffee and sugar, and provision should be made for him to be comfortably housed. In this complaint of want of labour it is not always the native who is to blame, and if a mine cannot afford to pay a reasonable price for labour, it had better stand idle. Probably the one great reason why mines have not prospered in the Philippines is that there has never been slavery there, as in Cuba, Peru, Mexico, Brazil, ancient Egypt, and other great mining countries, where whole populations have been used up to minister to the avarice of their fellow-men. Names of some Metals in Tagal. Gold Guinto. Silver Pilac. Copper Tangsó. Lead Tinga. Tin Tinga puti. Iron Bacal. Steel Patalím. Forged Steel Binalon. Coal Uling. Gold. From my remarks upon the other minerals it will be seen that I have no illusions on the immediate prospects of working them. With gold, however, it is different. For centuries large quantities have been collected or extracted, mostly, no doubt, from placers, still some rich veins are known to exist. The early writers agree that gold is plentiful. Dampier says: "Most, if not all, the Philippine Islands are rich in gold." Speaking of the Batanes Islanders, he says:-- "They have no sort of coin, but they have small crumbs of the metal before described" (he seemed at first to doubt whether it was gold), which they bind up very safe in plantain leaves or the like. This metal they exchange for what they want, giving a small quantity of it--about two or three grains--for a jar of drink that would hold five or six gallons. They have no scales, but give it by guess." In the 'Relacion de las Islas Filipinas,' 1595(?), the author remarks that the Tagals "like to put on many ornaments of gold, which they have in great abundance." Farther on, he says of Luzon:-- "The people of this island are very clever in knowing" (valuing) "gold, and they weigh it with the greatest subtleness and delicacy which has ever been seen; the first thing they teach their children is to know gold and the weights used for it, for amongst them there is no other money." Farther on, he says:--