Product Code Database
Nicholas Loney (, Plymouth, United Kingdom – , Mount Kanlaon, Negros Island, Philippines) was an English people businessman and the British Empire's vice-consul in the city of Iloilo City.
In the Philippines, the hacienda system and lifestyles were influenced by the Spanish colonisation that occurred via New Spain for more than 300 years, but which only took off in the 1850s at Loney's behest. Loney's objective, according to Alfred W. McCoy, was the systematic deindustrialisation of Iloilo Province. This deindustrialisation was to be accomplished through shifting labour and capital from Iloílo's textile industry (), the origins of which predate the arrival of the Castilians, to sugar-production on the neighbouring island of Negros Island. The Port of Iloílo was also opened to the flood of cheaply priced British textiles. These changes had the double effect of strengthening England and Scotland's textile industries at the expense of Iloílo's and satisfying the growing European demand for sugar.
Sugar-production was increasing due to growing price of sugar in Manila and Loney profited from both and alike by providing loans and purchasing modern machinery from Europe through his firm, Loney & Kerr Co., which helped increased the efficiency of sugar-production on Panay and Negros. He also encouraged improvements in raw-materials-export infrastructure at the Port of Iloílo, reclamation of the western bank of the Iloilo River and the construction of Progreso Street (present-day Isidro de la Rama Street) which became the location of numerous sugar warehouses, including his own.
Loney had Gross negligence planted the seeds of a longstanding Class warfare on both Panay and Negros, the fruits of which taste ever bitter to this day. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, attempts to abolish the system in the country through land-reform laws have not been successful. The expiration of the Laurel–Langley Agreement and the resultant collapse of the Negros sugar industry gave President Ferdinand Marcos the opening to strip the of their self-appointed roles as in national politics, though arguably such an opportunity had been squandered and any significant gains stillborn.
Death
He died on 23 April 1869 while exploring Mount Kanlaon on the island of Negros. He was buried by the seashore under some coconut trees in what is now Rizal Street in Iloilo City.
Legacy
In March 1904, the Municipal Council of Iloilo passed a resolution naming the quay along the Iloilo River, part of the Port of Iloilo, as Loney Waterfront (). In March 1981 a statue of Loney was unveiled at the end of the waterfront.
Categories: 1826 Births, British Diplomats, British Expatriates In Venezuela, 19th-century British Businesspeople, English Expatriates In The Philippines, History Of The Textile Industry In The United Kingdom, Businesspeople From Plymouth, Devon, Deindustrialization, Businesspeople In The Sugar Industry, 1869 Deaths
|
|
