not very profound, to be sure, but well written, and he at least deserves credit for being the one English writer who has had the no small courage to state fairly the St. Petersburg government's side of the case in regard to its recent policy in Finland. Mr. Norman is full of admiration

for what the Russians have done in Central Asia, and equally so for the achievements of Mr. Witte, who at the time that these words were penned was at the height of his power, and not yet, as far as the general public knew, the object of relentless criticism at home and abroad.

On the other hand, if we wish for the extreme opposite point of view to that of Mr. Norman, we can get it in Russia, Her Strength and Her Weakness, by Wolf von Schierbrand, Ph. D. (New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904, pp. xv, 304), whose production, in spite of its claim of impartiality, suggested by the title and promised in the preface, is nevertheless little more than a long rhetorical diatribe, neither new in its facts nor convincing in its conclusions.

All three of the above volumes are general in their scope, though they deal at some length with Russia's progress in Asia. Should we desire more specific works on this last subject, after passing over the records of mere Siberian globe-trotters like J. F. Fraser, J. W. Bookwalter, M. M. Shoemaker and Miss A. M. B. Meakin, we can find much satisfactory information in Asiatic Russia, by George Frederick Wright, LL.D., F.G.S.A. (New York, McClure, Phillips, and Company, 1902, 2 vols., pp. xxii, 290; xii, 291-637), a good compendium of geographical, statistical, and other facts concerning Russia of the present day. Its tone is appreciative, but Mr. Wright is primarily a geologist, not an historian, and his political comments at times betray a certain naïve optimism and credulity. Although in general knowledge he is far superior, the insight he displays is often less keen than that of Mr. Wirt Gerrare, author of Greater Russia (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1903, pp. xiii, 337), a superficial but well-written and amusing book. The chapters in it that treat of agricultural and industrial expansion can be compared with Mr. Norman's roseate picture, though neither can be taken so seriously as the more thorough and more recent study of Mr. Drage. Mr. Gerrare's account of his own experiences is entertaining, and his observations are good, but he is not accurate. For instance, his new Russian railway in Mongolia from Khailar to Kalgan at the foot of the Great Wall does not seem to exist except in his imagination. At any rate, though hesitatingly referred to by Drage, it is contemptuously dis. missed by B. L. Putnam Weale (the nom de plume of a young Englishman of Semitic blood, resident in China) in his extremely clever and entertaining, if highly prejudiced, Manchu and Muscovite (New York, Macmillan, 1904, pp. xx, 552), which, thanks to its author's knowledge and acute observation, makes an excellent complement to Alexander Hosie's standard work on Manchuria (London, Methuen, 1901, pp. xii, 293).

Finally we must not forget to mention the volume that has had a greater circulation in this country than any of the above-mentioned,

namely, The Russian Advance, by Albert J. Beveridge (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1903, pp. v, 486). The writer has had to suffer from the disadvantages as well as from the advantages which are inherent to the position of a traveling American senator. He saw what was easily to be seen, he judged hastily but intelligently, and he was ready to generalize on the slightest provocation. Still we must admit that even when grandiloquent he studiously tries to be fair. It is just this fairness which is perhaps the quality most conspicuously lacking in the ordinary American appreciation of things Russian at the present moment.

ARCHIBALD CARY COOLIDge.

Greater America, by Archibald R. Colquhoun (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1904, pp. x, 436), is an excellent book, but one which will claim more attention from the historians of a coming generation than from those of to-day. Mr. Colquhoun is not content with the historian's usual practice of illustrating the present by the past; he would foretell the future by the present; his book may be said to be not only up to date but beyond it. "An attempt is here made it is believed for the first time to present American evolution as a whole, to treat her history from the stand-point of its wide national significance, to show to what point she has progressed, to indicate what her future may be." The scope of the book is the whole wide world. Most of the seventeen chapters refer by title to the affairs of North, Central, and South America, but these affairs are now so interwoven with the interests of other continents that scarcely one of the states that figure in the Almanach de Gotha fails to receive consideration. There is no room for the details of history in such a book, and the reader will not find them. He will find instead a suggestive appreciation of the present position of the United States and a forecast of its future position by a man who, if he lacks some of the attributes of the professional scholar, has others still more important for his difficult task-wide travel, keen observation, a ready discrimination of values in the phenomena of modern life. author justifies his freedom from the trammels of "documents' use he makes of it.

The

by the

The contents of the book are so varied that they cannot be described both briefly and accurately. Neither do the author's prophecies lend themselves to condensation; they are too carefully guarded by the provisional form of statement to be twisted into positive predictions. This, at least, can be said: that every American reader will find the book both interesting and instructive, and that those who are concerned with the foreign relations and colonial problems of this country cannot afford to neglect it.

CLIVE DAY.

America, Asia and the Pacific, by Wolf von Schierbrand, Ph.D. (New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1904, pp. ix, 334), is a book

AM. HIST. REV., VOL. X.-30.

of different caliber. The author is a journalist of real distinction, and has put under obligation all people interested in modern Germany by his writings on that country, but he has apparently entered an unfamiliar field in this venture, and made a book on the question of America's interest in the far east as he would write up a story for a paper about to go to press. The book is a compilation of ill-digested material, containing, so far as the reviewer could learn, nothing that is at the same time new, true, and important.

C. D.

The Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi, 1904, is a stout volume of seven hundred pages compiled by Mr. Dunbar Rowland, the state director of archives and history. Although intended primarily for the use of members of the legislature and state officers, it contains some well-selected material of value to students of Mississippi history. In the first place, there are reprints of various organic acts relating to the territorial history of the state, such as the act of Congress for the organization of the territory, the first territorial law enacted by the governor and the judges, the enabling act of Congress, etc. This is followed by reprints of the several constitutions which have been in force, the last of which is carefully annotated, and all of them containing authentic lists of the signers. Of particular value to the historical student are an outline sketch of the history of the state, a list of territorial and state officials from 1798 to 1904 (which is a compilation containing evidence of considerable research and painstaking effort), and a number of informing essays by local experts on the resources and industrial growth of the state. The least useful part of the Register is that containing biographical sketches of the state officers and members of the legislature, which in the case of prominent persons often include their ancestors as far back as the Revolution.

J. W. G.

COMMUNICATIONS

THE PHILIPPINE "SITUADO" FROM THE TREASURY OF NEW SPAIN. MR. JAMES A. LE ROY in his review of volume XIV of The Philippine Islands in the October number of the REVIEW (p. 169) calls attention to an explanation of this old-time annual remittance of specie to the islands which is widely at variance with the accepted view that before the nineteenth century the government expenditures in the islands always exceeded the receipts and that the deficit was made up from the treasury of New Spain. The new explanation of this annual remittance was offered by Señor Felipe Govantes, a Spanish official of long service in the islands, in his Compendio de la Historia de Filipinas (Manila, 1877), appendix 23. As this work is not accessible to me, I am limited to the citation made by Pardo de Tavera in his Biblioteca Filipina, 193, to which Mr. Le Roy referred, and which I will give in an English translation:

Many erroneously believe that the situado that came from Mexico to the Philippines was in consequence of a deficit in the treasury of the archipelago. We shall point out their mistake, which has been and still is of serious consequence to the Philippines. The ships that carried the products of the Philippines went from Manila to Acapulco, and in the latter port the export duties were collected on the cargo from Manila as there was no custom-house in Manila; and since the expenses of the Philippines were calculated in Mexico, exactly what was needed of the amount realized from the exportation from the Philippines was transmitted, and the larger part was retained in Mexico. That which came to Manila was called the situado. There was then no deficit, but on the contrary a considerable surplus.

It is,

268).

This explanation apparently is accepted by Pardo de Tavera. however, I am convinced, entirely erroneous. In 1608 the expenses exceeded the income by 135,017 pesos (The Philippine Islands, XIV, In 1637 D. Juan Grau y Monfalcon prepared an elaborate report to the king on Philippine commerce and finances (see Colección de Documentos Inéditos del Archivo de Indias, América y Oceania, VI, 364-484). In this he gives an average Philippine budget as follows:

Expenses 850,734 pesos; receipts 573,922 pesos. The item of receipts includes 309,000 pesos derived from the duties, freights, almojarifazgo [import duties], and the rest collected in New Spain from the merchandise that each year comes from the islands and remitted to Manila" by the law of 1606 (ibid., 425–428). There was then in the first half of the seventeenth century a deficit of about 276,000 pesos. Over against this, Grau y Monfalcon would set 30,000 pesos collected in New Spain through the alcabala (the tax on sales) from the Philippine products. The net deficit would then be nearly 250,000 pesos.

( 459 )

The law of February 19, 1606, reads: "We ordain that the duties and freights that are collected in the port of Acapulco from the merchandise from the Philippines shall not be covered into the treasury of Mexico, but shall be expended for things needed in those islands, and that so much less be remitted from the treasury of Mexico" (Recopilacion de Leyes de los Reinos de las Indias, 5th edition, Madrid, 1841, IV, 131, lib. IX, tit. 45, ley 65; see also The Philippine Islands, XVII, 45-46).

If the duties collected on the goods from Manila were not covered into the Mexican treasury, they would not appear in the Mexican budget; and consequently the situado that does appear there is not, as Govantes asserts, a return of part of the revenue received from the duties on the Manila shipments, but a pure subsidy. These duties in the middle of the eighteenth century amounted in general to 7,500 pesos for the export duties, and 176,000 pesos for the almojarifazgo, which was used for refitting the ships, etc. (Delgado, Historia de Filipinas, Manila, 1892, 224. This is one of the most important of the old histories and was written about 1750). The French astronomer Le Gentil, who was in Manila for several months in 1765-1766, quotes a treasury report which showed a deficit in 1749. At the end of the report the remark was made, le Roi faisant passer tous les ans du Mexique, cent dix mille piastres, il s'ensuit que les Philippines qui devroient profiter au Roi, lui sont au contraire très à charge" (Voyage dans les Mers de l'Inde, Paris, 1779-1781, II, 170).

66

Juan de la Concepcion discusses at length the Philippine budget of the middle of the eighteenth century (Historia General de Philipinas, XIV, 38-76). Among the assets is the real situado, 250,000 pesos; on the debit side (p. 46) is the item "Baxas de el Real situado de estas Islas" (abatements from the royal subsidy), 140, 106 pesos.1 This leaves 110,000 pesos as the net subsidy, the same figure given by Le Gentil. Even then there was a deficit of nearly 80,000 pesos. Juan de la Concepcion's budget is reproduced in condensed form by Foreman (op. cit., 281).

Evidence could be multiplied to this effect. As I have said above, the entering of the situado among the expenditures of the kingdom of New Spain when the duties collected on the cargoes from Manila were not covered into the treasury proves the case if no other evidence were advanced. Humboldt gives the average items of appropriation of the Mexican budget for the years 1784-1789. The largest in the list is situados which have been sent to the colonies of America and Asia, 3,011,664 pesos. These situados averaged between 1788 and 1792 as follows, in pesos: Cuba, 1,826,000; Florida, 151,000; Porto Rico, 377,ooo; Philippines, 250,000; Louisiana, 557,000; Trinidad, 200,000; San Domingo, 274,000. During the Napoleonic wars the Philippines re

1 Explained by Foreman, as remittances in merchandise as a partial equivalent for the subsidy. The Philippine Islands, ed. 1899, 281.