P100 shipment of strawboard received during the same month were P152. PHILIPPINE LIBRARY AND MUSEUM. Pursuant to Act No. 2572, the Philippine Library and Museum was organized from the former division of archives, patents, copyrights, trade-marks, and corporations of the executive bureau; the law library division of the Philippine Assembly; and the former Philippine Library. It is also serving as a legislative reference bureau for the Philippine Legislature. As soon as adequate museum space can be acquired there should be transferred to it various existing scientific and historical collections in the government bureaus. There are nearly 275,000 books in the library. CODE COMMITTEE. The code committee finished and submitted to the Legislature the new Administrative Code embodying the changes in the structure of government here pursuant to the new organic act, known as the Jones bill. This Administrative Code was adopted by the Legislature. The code committee also reported the correctional code, which embraced modern and humane theories of criminal law, and which has gone over for consideration at the next session of the Legislature. DEPARTMENT OF MINDANAO AND SULU. The so-called Moro problem has been handled with the greatest skill and success by the department governor, Frank W. Carpenter, and his able staff of assistants. Inasmuch as Gov. Carpenter's report is printed herewith in full, only a passing mention will be made of several features of his administration. The year 1916 in the department government was marked by the bringing under government control of at least 3,000 square miles of heretofore unexplored country, and an area 30 per cent greater throughout the department than that of the previous year is now cultivated. Twenty-two thousand people have been brought under control and settled on agricultural lands-people who were heretofore seminomadic and living in the more inaccessible mountains. Economically, the department is going ahead very rapidly, and a very notable increase in exports took place in 1916. Bureaus of the insular government now have jurisdiction over the Department of Mindanao and Sulu, thus carrying forward the policy of assimilation into the general body of Philippine peoples of the inhabitants of the southern islands. MANILA RAILROAD CO. Negotiations for the purchase by the government of the Manila Railroad system were continued during the year 1916, and were finally carried out early in January, 1917. The heretofore-existing system of railroad construction and management was highly unsatisfactory to the government, which was obliged, under the terms of law, to make good any deficit in the bonded interest of the Manila south lines. Many controversies between the government and the railroad management in the past, occasionally reaching an acute stage, finally developed into a policy of government ownership, and it is confidently expected that the resulting reorganization of the service and change in methods of acquisition of right of way and construction will materially benefit the road economically and physically. The discussion of the final purchase and assumption of government control belongs more properly to the report for next year, so passing mention only is made upon this important subject at this time. The Legislature, in passing the act authorizing the purchase of the road, was largely influenced by the fact that this is one more step in the nationalization of the Philippines, and marks the desire of the people to control their largest transportation system in their own interest. PHILIPPINE NATIONAL BANK. The foundation of the Philippine National Bank by act No. 2612, and its subsequent organization under the presidency of Dr. H. Parker Willis, who was succeeded by Mr. Samuel Ferguson, has been one of the most valuable contributions to economic progress ever known in the Philippines. The fact that the government is the majority stockholder of the bank and that the bank receives the bulk of treasury deposits insures the confidence of the community in its establishment, and the operation of the bank itself has been conducted with so much skill and progressive conservatism that its success has far exceeded the expectations of even its warmest friends. Great good has already been accomplished in reducing the foreign rate of exchange from the Philippines, and, also, in reducing the general rate of interest in the business community. Accommodations have been furnished to a large number of deserving agriculturists, as well as to commercial firms in the islands, and the bank is proceeding rapidly to establish branches in the Provinces. The charter authorizes the bank also to establish and operate warehouses in connection with agricultural products, and it is to be hoped that this work will be pushed to a speedy completion. THE ARMY AND NAVY. The harmony of the relations between the insular government and the Army and Navy has been most marked and gratifying during the year, and the United States forces under command of Maj. Gen. Hunter Liggett have given most generous support and friendly cooperation at all times." In conclusion, the warmest and personal and official thanks of the undersigned are due to officials and employees of the insular government, who have rendered such faithful service and such loyal support and cooperation in the carrying out of administration policies. Very respectfully, FRANCIS BURTON HARRISON, The honorable the SECRETARY OF WAR, Washington, D. C. DEPARTMENT OF MINDANAO AND SULU. THE GOVERNMENT OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR, Zamboanga, P. I., January 10, 1917. SIR: I have the honor to submit the following report of affairs of the Department of Mindanao and Sulu for the fiscal year ending December 31, 1916. Because of unavoidable delays in securing at this time all data as of date December 31 last, it is not possible to include in this report complete statistics for the entire year as to finance which will appear in due course in the insular auditor's report. This is the third annual report of the department governor since the organization of the department government and seven Provinces therein comprised. The preamble to the act organizing this department specifically states that it is the object thereof to "promote the most rapid, moral, material, social, and political development of the inhabitants" of this department in order to "accomplish their complete unification with the inhabitants of the other Provinces of the archipelago." It may not be a miss, therefore, to insert herein even a cursory statement of what has been accomplished to comply with these specific purposes of the organic law. The political development of the local coordinate branches of governments here and their consolidation or merger with existing insular bureaus or orgainzations have been accomplished as follows: 1. By executive order No. 71, dated August 21, 1914, the Governor General extended the jurisdictions of the bureaus of education, health, and public works to the Provinces of Agusan and Bukidnon, effective September 1, 1914. 2. By executive order No. 89, dated October 22, 1914, the Governor General made San Ramon Penal Farm an insular penal institution. for the confinement from said date of all prisoners sentenced by the courts of first instance for the twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth, and twenty-sixth judicial districts, excepting females and those afflicted with the opium habit. 3. By executive order No. 102, dated November 23, 1914, San Ramon was placed under the control of the director of prisons and a part and dependency of the bureau of prisons, effective January 1, 1915. 4. By executive order No. 111, dated December 1, 1914, the Governor General extended the jurisdiction of the bureau of education to the entire Department of Mindanao and Sulu, effective January 1, 1915. 5. By executive order No. 3, dated January 20, 1915, the Governor General extended the jurisdiction of the director of public works to the entire Department of Mindanao and Sulu, effective January 1, 1915. 6. By Act No. 2417 the former Philippine Commission made applicable to this department all laws relating to the bureau of agricul ture now in force in regularly organized Provinces and municipalities, thereby extending the jurisdiction of the bureau of agriculture to the Provinces of this department, effective November 9, 1914. 7. By Act No. 2664 the former Philippine Commission made applicable the provisions of the Administrative Code to the Department of Mindanao and Sulu, thereby extending the jurisdiction of the Philippine health service to this territory, effective October 14, 1916. Thus all insular bureaus now exercise the same jurisdiction in the seven Provinces comprised within the Departments of Mindanao and Sulu and to the same extent that they exercise their respective jurisdictions in regularly organized Provinces. The only special provision which has been retained is the authority vested in the department governor to direct the operations of the Philippine Constabulary in Mindanao-Sulu.. During the year 1916 the special features of the administrative program have been as follows: (a) The establishment of public order and the extension of governmental control in territory heretofore unexplored in central western Mindanao covering an area of more than 3,000 square miles. (b) The development of economic and natural resources, especially agriculture, which has been favored by exceptionally well-distributed rainfall throughout the year; Davao Province shows an increase in the value of hempexported from P753,878.99 in 1915 to P2,210,293.84 in 1916; Sulu miscellaneous products exported P963,568.64 in 1915 and P1,592,082.22 in 1916. For the other Provinces export figures are not at hand, but corresponding increases have occurred. (c) Pursuance of the closer settlement policy of the government, whereby people of seminomadic race are induced to leave their wild habitat and take homesteads in locations specially selected by the government, in which much progress has been made. In Bukidnon Province alone 30 new settlements have been established and organized, and 6,058 persons, representing 35 per cent of the population heretofore classified as "wild," or leading a seminomadic life, have taken up lands in the valleys and lowlands. These people have now under cultivation a total acreage of 13,639 hectares. 1. AREA. There have been no changes in the area of Mindanao-Sulu during the year 1916. There are pending certain proposed changes in the locations of boundary lines between the department and the Provinces of Misamis and Surigao. The following diagram shows graphically the comparative area of each of the seven Provinces of the department and that of Pampanga-one of the most important Provinces of Luzon-as determined by the bureau of coast and geodetic survey: 2. POPULATION. Heretofore all official estimates of population in Mindanao-Sulu have been based upon the figures determined by the census of 1903 to which was added from year to year the estimated increment of population. Such estimate gives 651,379 as the total present population of Mindanao-Sulu. But the census of 1903 was throughout a great portion of this territory little more than a guess. Owing to distances, lack of communication, and unfriendliness of the people the enumerators were often able to gain but a very imperfect idea of the exact population, and the figures reported were in many instances but mere surmises. Many Army officers at that time serving in Mindanao-Sulu feel certain that large blocks of the Mohammedan population of Lanao and Cotabato were omitted from the estimates. Furthermore, quite apart from the question of omissions at the time of the enumeration, the increase of population in Mindanao-Sulu during the period since the census of 1903 has been abnormally large owing to the steady immigration. It is certain that, apart from some urban districts, no considerable territory of the Philippines has so rapidly increased in population as have the seven Provinces of this department. During the past few years, however, the reduction to Governmental control of vast areas of the hinterland has been systematically and unceasingly carried on. The organizations of villages and the settlement therein of pagans or Mohammedans formerly living a seminomadic-sometimes lawless-life in the hills have been of frequent occurrence. Government officials are at the present time better able to form an accurate idea of the exact population of this territory than at any previous time. Provincial governors were requested to make as accurate an estimate as possible of the present population and to embody the same in their reports. The table appearing below gives the result of their calculations, which embody extensive, though not complete, enumerations of the inhabitants. 1 Includes Chinese, Japanese, and all other civilized persons not Mohammedans or Pagans. 3. LEGISLATION. During the year 1916 there was only one act passed by the former Philippine Commission constituting special legislation for Mindanao-Sulu, namely, "No. 2660, an act establishing and regulating trading systems in the Department of Mindanao and Sulu.' Although general legislation, both the sponge fishery act (No. 2584) and the pearl fishery act (No. 2604) are of special interest to |