In order that capital may flow into agriculture--without which that industry cannot possibly be developed to the production of grain and colonial products for exportation--it is absolutely necessary to overcome all obstacles which discourage men of wealth. Among these hindrances stands in the first rank the local administration, in regard to the granting of untilled crown lands; in the second, the obstructions which are placed in the way of both [Spanish] natives and foreigners who wish to acquire rights of settlement and citizenship in the community. Besides the difficulty of acquiring large possessions, still others exist. The planter can easily find laborers, to whom he must make considerable advances in food, cattle, and money; but the Indians pay little attention to fulfilling their contracts, and the legal means at the command of the planter for compelling them to fulfill their past engagements are as burdensome and ruinous as even the abandonment of his rights. Unless the alcalde is active and shows good-will, the planters usually prefer not to press their claims; they endure the loss, and many are thus induced to abandon their enterprises. This cancer on agriculture will disappear as soon as every Indian possesses a certificate of citizenship [Bürgerbrief; Spanish, cédula de vecindad]. If one weathers the first year, storms, locusts, and business crises are to be expected later, all of which depress the price of his product. In such cases it is for the planter the greatest evil that no credit exists. There are no mortgages, at least there is no compulsory registration of mortgages; accordingly, no one dares to lend his money on such estates, or he does it only at crushing rates of usurious interest. An improvement in this respect is urgently demanded by the agricultural interests, both great and small, by the mercantile class, and by large and small estates; it would place a limit to the pacto de retro, as well as to the usurious contracts which are called in Luzon tacalanan, in Bisaya alili--the furnishing of loans on the proceeds of the next harvest--to which must be ascribed the misery and the backward conditions that prevail in many places....