[93] Grifol y Aliaga (vol. XLVI, p. 109, note 48) is very naïve, seeking to waive away the effect of the Maura law's plain provisions in the same way as did some friar and other writers. In his decree providing regulations for carrying out the law, Blanco explained that the parish priests were to retain their inspection of the schools as regards the teaching of religion and morals. The municipal tribunals were expressly created as schoolboards--an institution of which Zamora (Las corporaciones religiosas) bitterly complains. In reality, however, this reform remained a dead letter in most villages, except in the provinces most advanced in the propaganda, where the Filipino local officials asserted their power of regulation (Bulakan, Batangas, Manila, etc.). (From a previous communication from Mr. LeRoy.)--Eds. [94] Pedro A. Paterno's Regimen municipal de las islas Filipinas (Madrid, 1893), reproducing Minister Maura's decree in its original form, with notes, was therefore premature. Except in some of its comments, however, this work is at least not merely ridiculous, as are this author's writings on an imaginary primitive religion and civilization of the Filipinos. Don Pedro has a lively imagination, too lively for politics and history, but capable of providing good entertainment when he exercises it as a dramatist. One finds him much more pleasing in this rôle than as a Filipino reform propagandist, though in the latter capacity he seems to have been taken very seriously by Doctor Schurman and Mr. Foreman, and by various Spanish officials before them, including, for a time, Governor-Generals Primo de Rivera and Augustín. [95] Once more, the Manila press since 1898 merits attention here. The Filipino press has not been always fair in treating of the old régime, but both in the Filipino and the Spanish press of Manila since 1898 some things have been brought to light which were either suppressed for private gossip or not frankly discussed at the time of their conference. [96] Notes from his Progreso de Filipinas: Lack of public improvements and defects of public services, especially education, pp. 26-34; defects in administration of justice and its expensiveness, pp. 134-136; lack of development of material resources, pp. 205-211, 253-254; restriction of opportunities for Filipino laborers, and the evils of caciquism, pp. 212-237. A study of caciquism (subjection of the masses) and its deep roots in Philippine social, economic, and political conditions may be found in J. A. LeRoy's Philippine Life in Town and Country (New York, 1905), chap. vi; also the same in part by the same author in the Atlantic Monthly for March, 1905.