The administration in actual operation.--What most interests us is the actual working of this machine in Manila, the provinces and towns, and the works above cited will mostly provide for us only its skeleton on paper. To make it an effective machine, we must resort to personal testimony, occasional revelations thrown upon it by such of our writers as looked beyond mere routine, and perhaps most of all to the periodical literature of the times. [95] Few of the resident writers of the old régime thought it was quite patriotic, or would serve their personal interests, to discuss matters as frankly, for example, as did Sancianco y Goson. [96] Testimony before the Schurman Commission (vol. ii of its report) in 1899 brings out, here and there, revelations as to how the former government was actually administered. [97] Philippine government reports under American rule bring to light here and there revelations about the former administration, especially in fiscal and judicial matters. The customs collections benefited the treasury far less than they should have done; perhaps fully as much as was turned in was "absorbed" in one way and another. [98] Special surtaxes on the customs and port dues were collected at Manila for the improvement of its harbor from 1880 to 1898, amounting during the last five years alone to 3,500,000 pesos. Yet the work, when at last inaugurated, dragged along in desultory fashion and the value of the breakwater constructed and the equipment in hand in 1898 amounted to no more than $1,000,000 gold. [99]