[The backward condition of agriculture proceeds] (2) from the lack of great agricultural establishments. One of the causes for this is the fact that the capital of the islands, which ought to be employed for that object, has been diverted by the commerce of India, China, and Nueva España, which offers greater and quicker profits. The religious orders administer their estates as in mortmain, or by ecclesiastical rules. The Indians cultivate, not from inclination but through necessity, the little plots of ground on which they have fixed their abodes. They lack the buildings and appliances necessary for the preparation of the little sugar and indigo that they collect; and from that results the wretched and unreliable quality of those articles which so discredits them in the trade. They lack also the capital to incur the expenses of a regular plantation, and these enterprises require costly outlays at the start. But this cause of backwardness would be remedied by the impulse which would be given to commerce by the exportation of native products, which would attract to agriculture the capital which it has hitherto lacked, and by the special protection which the government can grant to large capitalists who may devote themselves to agriculture. (3) From the ignorance of the Indians, not only of the various methods of making plantations, but of the means of preparing the raw materials for their employment in the trade--a cause which is so universal and so mischievous that the agricultural products of Filipinas, which ought to be, on account of their excellent character and the extent of territory of the islands, commodities which should supply all the markets of Europe and hold the first rank in quality, are the most scarce in general commerce, and moreover lowest in price, as I am going to prove by some instances. The sugar of Filipinas is today the most important commodity for exportation which the commerce there includes. The cultivation of the sugar-cane cannot be improved; but the manufacture of the sugar is so defective that, in spite of the superior quality of the cane, the sugar which is produced from it is inferior to that which is called terciado [i.e., brown] at Habana. Although in the market of Cadiz the white sugar from Habana is worth thirty-two to twenty-five silver reals, and the brown sugar twenty-six to twenty-eight, the white sugar of Manila is worth twenty-four to twenty-five [152]--that is, nine silver reals less than the former, and two or three reals less than the latter on each arroba. Consequently, the temporary privilege granted by his Majesty in exempting the products of Filipinas from duties is the only support of the expeditions which have come [thence] to the Peninsula; and it is unquestionable that when that privilege ceases that commerce will likewise come to a complete stop. For if from the twenty-four silver reals, the highest price at which an arroba of the Manila sugar