BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1901-12-10

portant are not the beginnings but the re-
suit of patient experiment-the outcome
and improvement OF successive military
orders dealing with the same subjects.
The report quotes the Spooner amend
ment, ard, dealing with conditions and
policy, says that, great as has been the
Improvement, conditions do not permit the
abandonment of military government
throughout the archipelago. In the more
unsettled portions of the islands, the restric-
tive and punitive force of purely civil ad-
ministration would as yet be quite made.
quate to the maintenance Of order, even if
the creation of civil service personnel were
already accomplished. The work of securing
the great number of competent and faithful
civil agents necessary for the administration
Of government is necessarily slow, even in
thoroughly pacifed territory.
The report tells of the passage by the
Commission on January 81 last of the gen.
eral act for the organization of municipal
governments, known as the "Municipal
Code," Under which municipal gOveIn.
ments have been organized and maintained
in 765 towns, each of which became a
municipal corporation having the custom.
ary corporate power, the municipal authority
being exercised by a President, Vice.
President, and Municipal Council, elected
for two years by qualified municipal electors.
The Constitution, Of the municipal govern.
ments is reviewed in detail. The Oom.nis.
on also provides for the organization Of
courts in the archipelago. The Judicial
power is vested in Supreme Court, con-
sisting of Chief Justice and six Associate
Judges, sitting at Manila, Iloilo, and Oebu,
and Court of First Instance in fourteen
judicial districts.
Judge William FL. Taft, President of the
Commission, was in last June inaugu-
rated Civil Governor of the Phil
ippine Islands, succeeding the Mil
itary Governor. At the same time
Major General Macarthur transferred the
command of the military division and the
authority of Governor to Major General
A. r. Okaffee. September another step
toward civil executive organization was
R-ade by the establishment of separate
executive departments, to which members
of the Comm. .ssion we're assigned as fol.
lows: Department OF The Commerce and
Police, Luke E. Wright; Department of
Finance and Justice, Henry U. Ide; Dep.
artment of Public Instruction, Bernard
Moses. The administrative affairs were
apportioned as follows: The Department of
the Interior has under its control a Bureau
of Health, the Quarantine Service of the
Marine Hospital Corps, Bureau OF Forest.
ry, Bureau of Mining, Bureau of Agri.
culture, a Bureau Of Fisheries, q Weather
Bureau, Bureau Of Pagan and Moham-
medan Tribes, Bureau OF Public Lands,
a Bureau of Government Laboratories, and
a Bureau of Patents and Copyrights. The
Department OF Commerce and Police has
under its control Bureau of Island and
Interislsnd transportation, Bureau Of
Post.ofices, a Bureau of Telegrsphs, a
Bureau of Coast aud Geodetic Survey, a
Bureau of Engineering and CONSTRUCTION Of
Public Works other than public buildings,
"a Bureau of Insular Oonstabulary, Bureau
of Prisons, Bureau of Lighthouses, a
Bureau of Commercial aud Street Railroad
Corporations, and all corporations except
banking.