Still, the natives, never having known anything better, supported these drawbacks with remarkable equanimity. They were left very much to themselves, and were not interfered with nor worried. The army was small and the conscription did not press heavily upon them. They lived under the "Leyes de Indias" (may their makers have found favour with God), a code of laws deserving of the greatest praise for wisdom and humanity. They protected the native against extortion, constituting him a perpetual minor as against the usurer. He could not be sued for more than five dollars. Compare this wise disposition with what has been going on in India ever since the British Government has administered it, where the principal occupation of the lower courts is to decree the foreclosure of mortgages on the ryot's patches of land at the suit of the village usurer. The result has been that in some provinces the small landowner class who furnished fighting men for the Indian Army has almost disappeared. It is only now in 1900 that something is proposed to be done to remedy this evil, and knowing my countrymen, I quite expect some weak-kneed compromise will be arrived at. The "Leyes de Indias" conferred upon the native the perpetual usufruct of any land that he kept under cultivation; and this right descended from father to son. As a result of these laws, most of the arable land in Luzon, Cebú, and some other islands belongs to the natives to this day, although many of them have no other title than possession. The natives also had the privilege of cutting timber in the forests for house-building or repairing, or for making a canoe free of dues. They could also cut bamboos for their fences or roofs and collect firewood. These privileges were restricted to natives, and were not extended to Spaniards or Chinese. The taxes paid by the natives were light and they could live and thrive. Had these wise and admirable laws been carried out in the spirit in which they were made, the Philippines might have been Spanish to this day and the natives would have had little to complain of. The Philippines were for nearly three centuries after their discovery by the Spaniards a mere dependency of Mexico, communication being kept up by an annual galleon or sometimes two sailing between Acapulco and Manila through the Strait of San Bernardino. The long and tedious voyage deterred all but priests and officials from proceeding to the Philippines. When this route was given up, which happened some ten years before the Independence of Mexico, which was proclaimed in 1820, communication with the Peninsula was by sailing vessels via the Cape of Good Hope. That was a voyage that would not be lightly undertaken either going or returning. Spaniards who then came to the Archipelago often stayed there for the rest of their lives.