An Englishwoman in the Philippines . lish on the subjectof a current of air, but I assure you I am not, forin a position with no draught the pores of the skinopen like so many sluices, and ones head begins tothrob. So that is our house, which, after genuineSpanish haggling, we got for 50 pesos a month, asum working out at about £60 a year, a very lowrent indeed out here. In fact, when we set outand said we meant to give no more than 50 dollarsa month for a house, we were simply laughed at,and at first were almost inclined to think it couldnot be done, but when we saw the numbers ofhouses stand
An Englishwoman in the Philippines . lish on the subjectof a current of air, but I assure you I am not, forin a position with no draught the pores of the skinopen like so many sluices, and ones head begins tothrob. So that is our house, which, after genuineSpanish haggling, we got for 50 pesos a month, asum working out at about £60 a year, a very lowrent indeed out here. In fact, when we set outand said we meant to give no more than 50 dollarsa month for a house, we were simply laughed at,and at first were almost inclined to think it couldnot be done, but when we saw the numbers ofhouses standing empty in all the nice streets, westuck to our sum, and are very glad now that wedid so. A Spaniard or Mestizo (Eurasian) wouldnot dream of giving more than thirty for a houselike the one we have taken, but an American wouldgive a hundred. That is where the trouble comesin—in making the people understand that we dontmean to grind them down, nor, on the other hand,to pay foolish sums, but to give the right value forwhat we HIGH PRICES 25 You know the way Americans go about inEurope spending the unit, which is lower thantheir own, like water, with no sense of value ?And how they raise prices wherever they go!Well, they have done the same thing here, and anAmerican woman, who was talking to me the otherday, told me it was now beginning to be apparentto them what a mistake they had made, and theybitterly regretted having made the Philippines asexpensive as America, but that it was very difficultfor them to go back now to the more reasonablescale, for as soon as a Filipino found out you werean American, nothing would move him fromAmerican prices. Poor thing, she was very bitterabout it, and I felt very sorry for her (as well asrather alarmed for myself), for the sums she waspaying in rent and wages to live at all in Iloilo,would have kept her in comfort in London or Paris. Well, when we had settled on the house, wedrove straight to the shop-streets of the town—orrather
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1906
