Cooperation of United States Treasury Department.. Extradition of fugitives from justice from the United States to the Philippine Purchase of supplies for the Philippine Government in the United States Disbursements of Philippine revenues in the United States... REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF THE BUREAU OF INSULAR AFFAIRS TO THE SECRETARY OF WAR. WASHINGTON, D. C., October 31, 1903. SIR: I have the honor to submit the following report of the Bureau of Insular Affairs for the year ended October 31, 1903: My last annual report traced the growth of the Bureau which culminated in the act of Congress which gave it legislative being, epitomized the work it had accomplished during the previous year, and set forth the demand for information made by Congress in its active consideration of insular matters over which the War Department then had jurisdiction. PHILIPPINE LEGISLATION ENACTED BY CONGRESS. In that year Congress had passed the Philippine tariff act and the act to provide for the administration of civil government in the Philippine Islands. While Congress in the passage of these acts had wisely listened to the recommendations of the Philippine Commission, the Secretary of War, and the President, and had generously given to the Philippine Commission its charter authority and rule of action, there were still matters of vital importance to the Filipino people left for the consideration of that body. The interval of time from the former session of Congress had demonstrated the importance of a further reduction of the Dingley tariff on Philippine products coming into the United States and the continued necessity for the establishment of a permanent coinage system. Legislation relating to extradition between the Philippine Islands and the United States, and also authority to use the United States Philippine Scouts, together with the constabulary, in the suppression of ladronism or brigandage in the Philippine Islands, was necessary. Unanticipated pestilences to man and beast, the latter paralyzing in its results to agriculture, unhappily coincident with a plague of locust and a drought, had created a condition which threatened the resultant failure of crops, with consequent suffering, if not famine, in several of the provinces seriously afflicted. This led the Philippine Commission, the Secretary of War, and the President to ask Congress, in the same spirit of relief which provided money for the hurricane sufferers in Porto Rico and the survivors of the Martinique disaster, as well as the purchase of arms from the destitute Cubans, to anticipate the threatened distress in our Philippine possessions. Congress responded, in its short session of seventy-three days, with the necessary legislation, except as to a further reduction of the Ding 5 ley tariff. That measure passed the House, but in the few remaining days of the short session did not reach a vote in the Senate. PHILIPPINE COINAGE ACT. The work necessary to be performed in the United States in carrying out the orders of the Secretary of War and the enactments of the Philippine Commission putting into effect the act of Congress providing for a standard of value in the Philippines, which had been under consideration of Congress for two years, devolved upon this Bureau. Advantage was taken of the fact that the Hon. H. C. Ide, secretary of finance and justice in the Philippine government, was on leave of absence in the United States to call him in important conference at different periods, in which his knowledge of the plan of the Philippine government and the details of local conditions was of great assistance in the work. The annual reports of the Philippine Commission and the Secretary of War, as well as certain messages of the President for four years prior, had reviewed the intolerable conditions under the old currency system with its various standards of value, with the final result of the enactment of Congress quoted below. In view of the importance of this measure and in order to afford for the future a ready reference to conditions existing prior to this legislation, as well as the action which has been taken thereunder in putting the same into effect, which at present without considerable research nowhere exists, it is believed that the insertion as an appendix chronologically arranged of quotations from reports and messages as well as acts of Congress and of the Philippine Commission referred to above, followed by a statement of the work performed by this Bureau in instituting the new standard of value, is justified. [PUBLIC NO. 137.] AN ACT to establish a standard of value and to provide for a coinage system in the Philippine Islands. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the unit of value in the Philippine Islands shall be the gold peso consisting of twelve and nine-tenths grains of gold, nine-tenths fine, said gold peso to become the unit of value when the government of the Philippine Islands shall have coined and ready for, or in, circulation not less than five million of the silver pesos hereinafter provided for in this act, and the gold coins of the United States at the rate of one dollar for two pesos hereinafter authorized to be coined shall be legal tender for all debts, public and private, in the Philippine Islands. SEC. 2. That in addition to the coinage authorized for use in the Philippine Islands by the act of July first, nineteen hundred and two, entitled "An act temporarily to provide for the administration of the affairs of civil government in the Philippine Islands, and for other purposes," the government of the Philippine Islands is authorized to coin to an amount not exceeding seventy-five million pesos, for use in said islands, a silver coin of the denomination of one peso and of the weight of four hundred and sixteen grains, and the standard of said silver coins shall be such that of one thousand parts, by weight, nine hundred shall be of pure metal and one hundred of alloy, and the alloy shall be of copper. SEC. 3. That the silver Philippine peso authorized by this act shall be legal tender in the Philippine Islands for all debts, public and private, unless otherwise specifically provided by contract: Provided, That debts contracted prior to the thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and three, may be paid in the legal-tender currency of said islands existing at the time of the making of said contracts, unless otherwise expressly provided by contract. SEC. 4. That section seventy-seven of the act of July first, nineteen hundred and two, is hereby amended so that it shall read: "SEC. 77. That the government of the Philippine Islands is authorized to coin for use in said islands a coin of the denomination of fifty centavos and of the weight of |