Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-12-06
LIKE K|PL|NG TALE
InSuIar Bureau Broke Rice
Corner in Philippines.
ITS MEN CHOKED A FAMINE
Cost Government $94, 900, But Saved
Natives Millions.
BROUGHT STAPLE FROM CHINA
Dry Report Tells How Food Was
Sold to individuals Below
Market Price.
ITS MEN CHOKED A FAMINE
BROUGHT STAPLE FROM CHINA

What has the basis in 1t for Kip
nngesque romance, is official report
just issued by the bureau of insular af-
fairs touching the Philippines. 1t is
the story of how the white mans govern
ment stepped in a year ago and choked
Off famine in the islands, taking high
handed measures, and broke the rice
market for the benefit OF the lower
classes who had never known what it
was for government to do the decent
thing by them in the course of 300 years
before the insular bureau took hold.
Wealthy wholesale rice merchants who
had expected to add to their bank &C
counts through the famine squealed that
they were being robbed because they
were not allowed to rob the natives, but
the sunburned young white men who were
doing the active work of bearing the
white man burden under the island gov
eminent went on, rough shod, and broke
the rice corner and held down the price
of the staple foodstuff
Was Expensive Business.
1t was an expensive business. and when
it all was over, the insular government
was something more than $4,000 out of
pocket, but the natives had been saved
millions in money and the risk of per-
sonal starvation in the bargain.
Caucasian pluck won out and the COM
ing of the first rice ships from the main
land was welcomed. so all ended happily.
as it ought to do in a story. But there
was nobody to write the chronicle except
an overworked government clerk, who
no ia nd dried
port did not know what good material he
was handling
1t happened in the spring of 1910 that
there were torrential rains in the noun
tans of upper Llzon and Cebu, where
the principal rice crops of the Philippines
are raised. This flood was followed by
a typhOon that further damaged the crop.
and then tn re came a drought that
ruined what was left and knocked the
corn crop as well.
Rice had been climbing in price for sew
eral years, and was then higher than it
had ever been in history. 1t was $;'.4S
hundred in siXtyton lots laid down IN
Manila, while the price for six years pre-
viously had been s.. 40. Then. on the back
Of the short crop in the islands, there
was a fiat crop failure in lndo-Chlna.
whence the principal exports came, ana
the French government for self-protection
issued an order prohibiting exports.
Things Looked Badly.
Things certainly looked badly for the
rice eating population. There was rice,
to be sure. One wealthy dealer had 5000
tons in his warehouse. but he refused to
sell even at the prevailing high price,
saying he would wait for AS cents
pound wholesale. He knew the natives
and said it was sure to come.
That was where the young linen-clad
dictators of the insular government got
busy The insular government had APP
propriated money and told them to break
the rice corner. They went scurrylnS
over to China, found a cargo of rice
that could be sent for immediate deliv-
erv to Manila. They bought it and an
other for almost immediate delivery at
Cebu.
Combed the China Coast.
They went over the Chinese coast with
fne-tooth comb and gathered in some
thing like 1900 tons of rice, most of
which would not have gone to the is
lands at all. The total purchases aggre-
gated more than 100000. but the first
round of the fight was won.
All the Manila wholesalers who had
rice had agreed with the first dealer not
to sell except at absolute famine prices.
But when the rice ships came in these
unaccountable young Americans opened
rice markets under the provincial gov
ernments wherever the shortage was
pressing, and, against all government
precedent established in previous centu-
ries acted honestly, refused to graft and
actually sold to the consumer in small
quantities a little below the market rate,
keeping the individual sales we'll in
hand that there was no chance to Specu
late.
BY November 1911, they had rice in
Manila selling at So per 125 pounds This
was high and assured a good margin of
profit to the wholesalers. but the gov
eminent would not let the price go any
higher.
1t seemed as though the elements were
banded against the government, for
toward the end of 1911 there came more
floods and then a bad drought SO that
A Du-z.. IT.