The Philippine Sugar Industry and the Politics of Independence, 1929–1935

Independence was an old question in Philippine-American relations, free trade a middle-aged one, and sugar production a very young one when all three converged in 1929. They remained tangled until an independence bill, a redefinition of Philippine-American trade, and the combined limitation and allocation of Philippine sugar production straightened them out again by 1935. The struggles of the intervening years involved every phase of American colonial policy and every phase of Philippine public life. Here I single out for examination the Philippine place in America's sugar market and the place of sugar in the Philippine political economy.