The Spanish peso is the universal money in the commerce among all the nations of Asia; and, as therefore the exterior commerce is constantly drawing it into circulation, the governments of all the colonies in that part of the world have found themselves obliged to create a colonial money, which on account of its provisional value cannot be taken out of the country, and, being directed into the internal commerce of the province, feeds and multiplies exchanges. In Filipinas there was no need of adopting that measure while its commerce with Nueva España lasted, because then those islands were receiving annually a million of Mexican pesos, and the situado of two hundred and fifty thousand; and, besides this, the business that was carried on during that period in the natural and industrial products of the country was almost insignificant. And if in Filipinas at this present time enough money circulates to support the outside traffic, that results from the fact that the profits which the colony has gained from the commerce with all the nations of Europa (the balance of which is in favor of Filipinas) are greater than the losses of money which it experiences in its commerce with India and China. [This is of course a very precarious situation; for the contingencies of war, diversion of commerce from the islands, or poor crops may at any time compel Filipinas to send out all its money to India or China for the supply of its needed commodities; and this would ruin even the internal commerce, "on account of the serious difficulties which the establishment of a system of public credit there presents."] Besides that, considering now the matter of giving a strong impulse to the agriculture and industry of those islands, there would be needed for the former project many millions of pesos in constant circulation in the provinces, and there must be a great reversion of the capital employed in commerce to the interior of the islands; and this cannot be practiced in a country in which hardly enough money circulates to support the government and the demands from without, and which had undertaken to promote its interests by commerce before placing its agriculture and industry on a sound basis. In almost all the provinces of the islands very little money circulates, and in some of them there is not even what is necessary in order that the natives can pay the government taxes; and from this has proceeded the necessity of commuting the tribute from money to kind. The Spanish pesos go from and return to the provinces rapidly; and it can be said that the produce of the taxes which has to be sent annually to the capital, and the importations of the alcaldes and the mestizos, are equal. Most of the Indians trade among themselves by means of simple barter, and the mestizos make them pay dearly with their products for the money that they need for clothing themselves and paying their taxes.