Note 33 — V. The Nineteenth Century and Economic Development

Jagor gives credit to the two American houses in the Philippines for the development of the abacá into an important article of export. These American houses in the first years sank large sums of money in advance loans, and were only able to get the business on a paying basis when, in 1863, they were permitted to establish warehouses and presses in the provinces at the principal points where the crop was produced, and to deal directly with the producers. Jagor (Spanish edition, p. 264); Le Roy, The Americans in the Philippines, Vol. 1, pp. 33–34.

For an interesting discussion of the struggle between England and the United States for supremacy in the Philippines, and the role played by the English banks in that struggle, see a pamphlet entitled Commercial Progress in the Philippine Islands, by Antonio M. Regidor and J. Warren T. Mason, (1905).