year shall be sent and delivered up to one of the ranch-owners for compulsory labor [por repartimiento], in order that there he may work at the day-wages agreed upon, which must not fall below two reals a day and food-rations of rice; and that the ranchman shall with these wages pay the tax [due], at the rate of two pesos a month. [Among the advantages derived from this arrangement will be that of sending out of the islands the many poor and useless Chinese who have been gradually multiplying there, and have been infecting the natives with their vices. It will even benefit the Chinese themselves, "who with two reals a day, which make 7 1/2 dollars a month clear" (thus showing that Sunday labor was exacted), "can pay two pesos of tax and be exceedingly prosperous."] [149] Of the custom-house duties The royal decree of August 25, 1818, by which it was decided that the exaction of import and export duties should be made in the Manila custom-house from the owners of the vessels, without considering the ownership of their lading, and that if the vessel were Spanish it should pay three per cent, and if foreign six per cent, has been a special favor or privilege granted to half a dozen Spanish ship-owners (for those who conduct the commerce with China and Bengala cannot be more than that number), with serious loss to the exchequer. This is, of course, annually deprived of the considerable income of the three per cent rebate on all foreign goods imported into Manila, which is a direct benefit to the foreigners who own nearly all the commerce in those goods. The manufacturers of Filipinas, especially those of cotton fabrics--which are able to compete with, and even exceed in cheapness, those of China, since the cotton of which these are made is of their own raising--are being ruined, because that rebate of duties brings the prices of the Chinese goods so near to those of their infant industry that the former ought always to be preferred; and, finally, the above arrangement has also given opportunity for various frauds proceeding from the pretended sale of foreign vessels to Spaniards, solely for the purpose of availing themselves of the rebate of duties on their cargoes, and to the possession (under assumed names) by Chinese settled in Manila of Spanish vessels.