The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 52, 1841-1898: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 52, 1841-1898: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
[101] Dr. Schurman drew from Spanish official publications the budget
of 1894-95 for his exposition of the former Philippine government
(Report of Philippine Commission, 1900, i, pp. 79-81), and this has
been considerably quoted, with the assumption that it represented
the full cost of government, in recent comparisons with the American
régime. Sawyer (in an appendix) gives the budget of 1896-97, with just
a note showing that charges for collection and for local government
made the actual collections for the poll-tax considerably larger than
the insular budget showed. Foreman, in his 1899 and 1906 editions,
only reproduces from his first edition a fragmentary statement of the
1888 budget, without showing that this was only partial and without
developing the later changes and increases in taxes. Retana, in the
Estadismo, apéndice H, under Rentas é impuestos del Estado, gives the
general totals of the budgets of 1890 and 1893-94 (likewise net totals
for the central government alone). See Sancianco y Goson for proposed
budget for 1881-82. The insular budget was published annually at Madrid
under the title Presupuestos generales de gastos é ingresos de las
islas Filipinas. The budget was made up at Madrid for each fiscal year,
and put into effect by a royal decree (after its receipt in Manila,
some few months after the beginning of the fiscal year which it was
to govern). Some changes or additions were allowed to be made by the
governor-general in imperative circumstances; otherwise the effort was
to regulate Philippine finances just the same as if the islands were
a province of the centralized government of the Peninsula itself. The
folio volume of Presupuestos published at Madrid, running to several
hundred pages, are valuable for giving in minute detail the expected
items of expenditures, down to the last petty employee on salary; but
they can give, of course, only the estimate of the revenue expected
under each item, and actual collections sometimes varied considerably
from these figures. Above all, these Presupuestos bear out the general
remark that the Spanish budget as published tends to conceal rather
than to reveal the actual burden resting on the people. They are not
budgets for the insular government alone, hence the budgets for the
city of Manila and for the local governments (provinces and towns),
published separately in some years at Manila, must be consulted to get
total net collections for all branches of government. In addition, one
must dig out for himself from the laws governing taxation, etc., and
from the archives the data regarding fees for collection, notarial,
legal and other fees accruing to private pockets, surcharges for
special purposes, etc.
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