Grau y Monfalcon in 1637 reported that there were fourteen thousand people employed in Mexico in manufacturing the raw silk imported from China. This industry might be promoted by the relaxation of the restrictions on trade. It would also be for the advantage of the Indians of Peru to be able to buy for five pence a yard linen from the Philippines, rather than to be compelled to purchase that of Rouen at ten times the price.[1] But such reasoning was received then as it often is now, and no great change was made for nearly two centuries.
We have now passed in review the political, ecclesiastical, and commercial administration of the Philippines in the olden time; and a general survey of some of the more striking results of the system as a whole may now be made. This is especially necessary on account of the traditional and widely prevalent opinion that the Spanish colonial system was always and everywhere a system of oppression and exploitation; whereas, as a matter of fact, the Spanish system, as a system of laws, always impeded the effectual exploitation of the resources of their colonies, and was far more humane in its treatment of dependent peoples than either the French or English systems.
If, on the one hand, the early conquistadores treated the natives with hideous cruelty, the Spanish government legislated more systematically and benevolently to protect them than any other colonizing power. In the time of the first conquests things moved too rapidly for the home government in those days of slow communication, and the horrors of the
- ↑ Documentos Inéditos del Archivo de Indias, v, pp. 475–77.
