Bishop Bastidas called the Government's attention to the fact
in a letter dated March 20, 1544, in which he says: " ... The new tax
to be paid on sugar in this island, as ordained by your Majesty, will
still further reduce the number of mills, which have been diminishing
of late. Let this tax be suspended and the mills in course of
construction will be finished, while the erection of others will be
encouraged."
The prelate's efforts seem to have produced a favorable effect.
Treasurer Castellanos, in 1546, loaned 6,000 pesos for the
Government's account, to two colonists for the erection of two
sugar-cane mills. In 1548 Gregorio Santolaya built, in the
neighborhood of the capital, the first cane-mill turned by
water-power, and two mills moved by horse-power. Another water-power
mill was mounted in 1549 on the estate of Alonzo Perez Martel with the
assistance of 1,500 pesos lent by the king. Loans for the same purpose
continued to be made for years after.
But if the Government encouraged the sugar industry with one hand,
with the other it checked its development, together with that of other
agricultural industries appropriate to the island, by means of
prohibitive legislation, monopolies, and other oppressive measures.
The effects of this administrative stupidity were still patent a
century later. Bishop Fray Lopez de Haro wrote in 1644: " ..
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