[125] Marcelo del Pilar's pamphlet La soberanía monacal en Filipinas (Barcelona, 1888; reprinted at Manila, 1898) was written with especial reference to these incidents, documents regarding which are given as appendices. Retana analyzed the 1888 petition against the friars, and discussed its signers, in his pamphlet Avisos y profecías (Madrid, 1892), pp. 286-308. See also Pardo de Tavera's Biblioteca, nos. 1597-1599 and 2807, the latter being a separate print of the petition to the Queen, which appears in Del Pilar's pamphlet, appendix ix. The reply of the petitioners to the accusation that they really covered separatist aims under their attacks on friar-rule is worth quoting: "The aspiration for separation is contrary, Señora, to the interests of the Filipinos. The topographical situation of the country, divided into numerous islands, and the diversity of its regional dialects demand the fortifying aid of a bond of union such as the ensign of Spain accords; without such a bond, it would be daily exposed to a breaking-up process hostile to its repose, and the very conditions of exuberant fertility that its fields, mines, and virgin forests afford would offer a powerful incentive to draw upon it international strife to the injury of its own future." [126] Becerra, as minister for the colonies, met in social reunions with the Filipino circle of Madrid, and presented in the Cortes projects for "assimilation," religious liberty, and the secularization of education in the colonies and partial municipal reforms for the Philippines which were the forerunners of the "Maura law." [127] Friar Tamayo, in his reply to statements by Pardo de Tavera, points out that Weyler's action was in consequence of decrees of the courts (Sobre una "Reseña histórica de Filipinas," pp. 194-195). This Kalamba episode seems to have had a connection with the royal order of December 4, 1890 (under the new Conservative ministry) empowering the religious orders to dispose of their estates without intervention of the Crown, as had been provided by royal orders of 1834 and 1849. The friars had begun to make transfers to private corporations (really only fictitious "holding companies") before 1898. [128] One finds guarded references to his enemies among the Filipinos themselves in some of Rizal's private letters. The part played during the propaganda by hints of treachery in camp, also of dishonesty in the use of the funds raised by subscription in the Philippines, is alluded to in various of the writings to be cited further on.