Sugar industry

“ The pre­war sugar industry must be restored and markets for excess production over domestic demand and the United States import quota limitations must be found. I created the Sugar Rehabilitation and Readjustment Commission to advise the government on the proper measures to be adopted to revitalize and stabilize the sugar industry. In due time I will submit measures to realize these objectives.
It is necessary that we cast our eyes and exhaust our resourcefulness to secure the fuller utilization of our other natural resources and possibilities. ”

“ There appears to have been considerable manipulation, foreign sugar being imported with the view of producing a panic, followed by a decline of market prices, after which Marseilles refiners would buy. All sound arguments are in favor of protecting the home sugar industry.
It has been suggested that manufacturers weigh the fuel used more carefully than hitherto; the extra trouble would soon lead to economy for all interested in sugar production at ruinous cost. ”

“ The economy remained heavily dependent on sugar, rum, and molasses production through most of the 20th century. The gradual introduction of social and political reforms in the 1940s and 1950s led to complete independence from the UK in 1966. In the 1990s, tourism and manufacturing surpassed the sugar industry in economic importance. ”

“ The margin of profit is so very close, however, that in the United States, as well as most European states, the sugar industry is protected by government enactments. In the United States imported raw sugar pays a tariff in order to protect the cane-sugar industry of the Gulf coast and the beet-sugar grower of the Western States. ”

“ The sugar industry in our new possessions has had great prominence agriculturally. The sugar interest of these islands has had a formidable influence in the United States. Recent events and the ascertained certainties of the future show that the people of the United States will soon raise their sugar supply on their own territory. ”

“ If the polarization should show exactly ninety-six degrees, the price to be paid for the sugar and the market quotation will be identical.
In most sugar-producing countries the government imposes an import tax on all foreign sugars, in order to obtain revenue to defray governmental expenses and to protect the domestic industry, if any, against competition with other countries in which cost of materials and labor may be lower. Commodities produced in a country naturally add to its development and wealth, and this explains the fostering of the sugar industry by various governments. ”

“ The Royal Commission reported last year that the sugar industry was threatened by such reduction in the immediate future 'as may not in some of the Colonies differ from extinction.' The result has been that whereas formerly three-fourths of the exports were the products of the sugar-cane, there is now want of employment, reduction in the rate of wages and in the standard of living, and consequent inability to meet expenditure. ”

“ Whilst, therefore, the vital importance of the sugar industry to the present prosperity of nearly all the colonies is beyond dispute, we wish to observe that so long as they remain dependent upon sugar their position can never be sound or secure. ”

“ The juice is strained, boiled, and worked over to [258] remove the impurities, and then, in a brownish mass called raw sugar, is sent to great refineries to be made by more boiling and other processes into the white sugar we use daily. This sugar industry is very important, as figures show that each American, both grown-ups and children, consumes an average of more than seventy pounds of sugar a year.
A SUGAR REFINERY
Away down South is the land of cotton as well as the land of sugar, and there is no more beautiful sight than a field white with the opening bolls of the cotton plant. ”

“ Sugar refineries located at Marseilles claim that it is cheaper for them to purchase sugar in Java than beet sugar of northern Europe. On the other hand, the argument of Paris refiners is just the reverse. The total refined sugar consumed is 375,000 tons, the colonial and indigenous production of raw sugar is nearly 1,000,000 tons more than sufficient to meet the demands of the entire refining industry of the country. ”

“ If we add the molasses at a very small fraction, we may count the average consumption at 70 pounds per head at an average price of five cents a pound or $3.50 per head for refined sugar. But a quantity which cannot be measured is converted over into jams, jellies, preserves and condensed milk. In the latter industry one single establishment is reputed to consume more than the entire product of all the beet-root sugar factories in this country, estimated at about 150,000 tons. If sugar were free of duty an immense impulse would be given to agriculture and to fruit growing. ”

“ The effect of the duty is that all people who live in France pay more dearly for their sugar than they otherwise would; and that a certain amount of French capital and labour is driven into an industry in which it can only be made profitable by taxing those who consume the commodity produced by it. Nature gives more help to the production of sugar in the West Indies than in France. Just as the sun was ready to supply the Srimats gratuitously with light, so the sun, the soil, and the climate, in the West Indies, perform gratuitously a great part of the work of producing sugar. ”

“ Sugar has been the dominant crop since the end of the 18th century. Before the Civil War of 1895–1898 the capital invested in sugar estates was greater by half than that represented by tobacco and coffee plantations, live-stockSugar. ranches and other farms. Since that time fruit and live-stock interests have increased. The dependence of the island on one crop has been an artificial economic condition often of grave momentary danger to prosperity; but generally speaking, the progress of the industry has been steady. The competition of the sugar-beet has been felt severely. ”

“ The volcanic soils are the very best sugar-lands, and a large amount of capital is invested in this industry. The sugar-plantations employ more than forty thousand laborers, all Japanese, Chinese, and Porto Ricans. The value of the sugar export is nearly twenty-five million dollars yearly; that of fruit, rice, and hides is about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Coffee is rapidly becoming a leading product. The bulk of the imports comes from the United States, and consists of clothing, cotton textiles, lumber, and machinery. ”

“ Still more significant results are the removal of Great Britain from her once dominant position in tropical sugar production and the elimination of France and Spain from the struggle for leadership in the same line of enterprise, as economic conditions have centered the cane-sugar trade and industry in America. To-day the continental beet-sugar countries supply the United Kingdom with seventy-five per cent. of its annual sugar imports (2,500,000 tons) , leaving only one-quarter to come from the tropics. The United States, on the other hand, has become the chief market for tropical sugar. ”

“ The common custom is to raise two crops, and then let the ground lie idle for two seasons; so that taking a series of years together, allowance must be made for the idle time in estimating the yield of sugar. In some localities, especially those where the ground is artificially irrigated, this plan is not always followed, as it does not appear to be necessary. To show the growth of the industry, let me say that the export of sugar in 1860 was 1,414,271 pounds, while in 1871, eleven years later, it was 21,760,773 pounds. ”

“ We deal here, as petitioners say, with an industry tightly interwoven from sae of the seed through all the intermediate stages to and including interstate sale and distribution of the sugar. In the middle of all these processes and dominating all of them stand the refiners. They control the supply and price of seed, the quantity sold and the volume of land planted, the processes of cultivation and harvesting, the quantity of beets purchased and rejected, the refining, and the distribution of sugar both interstate and local. ”

“ Twenty years more has enabled it to compete successfully with colonial sugar, and to pay an equal tax into the French exchequer. From France and Belgium the industry returned to its native Germany, and has since spread far into the interior of Russia. The total produce of this kind of sugar on the continent of Europe has now reached the enormous quantity of three hundred and sixty millions of pounds, of which France produces about one hundred and fifty millions in three hundred and thirty-four manufactories. ”

“ The sugar-beet is by far the most important export crop, and Germany produces yearly about one million, eight hundred thousand tons, or nearly as much as Austria-Hungary and France combined. This industry is encouraged by a bounty paid on all sugar exported. [68] A considerable amount of raw beet-sugar is sold to the refineries of the United States; Great Britain also is a heavy buyer. The home consumption is relatively small, being about one-third per capita that of the United States. ”

“ Following the resuscitation of the industry after the last war, the island’s crop rose steadily from one-sixth to a full quarter of the total cane sugar output of the world, its share in the world’s product of sugar of all kinds ranging from a tenth to an eighth. ”

“ The sugar manufacture, however, is a protected and bounty-fed industry, and the 51 sugar mills in operation in 1901 are a heavy tax upon consumers and taxpayers. Other products are tobacco, olives, castor-oil, peanuts, canary-seed, barley, rye, fruit and vegetables. ”

“ There is a considerable coasting trade, sugar, brought by a tramway from neighbouring towns, is shipped from here, and the cultivation of sugar-cane is an important industry; Indian corn, tobacco, hemp, cotton and cacao are also grown. ”

“ I find, from a French paper sent to me this morning, that the northern departments of France now produce about 100,000 tons of sugar a year, or nearly two-thirds of the sugar consumed in France. We use twice as much sugar in this country as the French do, and its consumption is always increasing. At a reduction at price equal to the present duty that increase would rapidly extend. I may be over sanguine on the subject, but I should not be greatly suprised if in ten years hence many thousand acres in the United Kingdom should be profitably employed in the production of home-grown sugar. ”

“ Why, Sir, it amounts to this, that the country giving the bounty encourages the production of sugar within its borders, and at the same time does its best to restrict the consumption of sugar by its own people by every possible means, so that the result is that there is an enormous surplus of sugar produced which must find a foreign market, and which under present circumstances can only find a market here. ”

“ Countries with cane plantations have seen the price of sugar fall under the increased output of European factories, equipped and operated with scientific accuracy; they have lost a large part of their former market; some of them have been almost ruined. England, which once made great profit by importing cane sugar and distributing it among the other European countries, now, on the contrary, goes to the Continent for the larger part of its sugar supply; and continental states like Germany and France export sugar instead of importing it. ”

“ It is, however, limited by the interests of the manufacturers themselves, who limit production in order to keep up the price of sugar, and so obtain higher profits; sugar of native preparation being protected by laws which strike at the importation of foreign sugar. ”

“ They explain that the Institute continued to operate 'under the move system' because it is 'a natural growth essential to the economical conduct of the sugar business.' The cost of raw sugar makes up about four-fifths of the cost of the refined sugar. Raw prices fluctuate widely from day to day and substantially control the price of refined. Wholesale and retail distributors sell on a narrow margin of 5 or 10 cents a bag. They cannot afford to stock large supplies because of storage costs, dangers of deterioration, and the hazardous nature of the business. ”

“ The low price of sugar renders economy imperative in all branches of the business, in order to leave a margin for profit. A planter informed the author that he should spread all of his molasses upon the cane-fields this year as a fertilizer, rather than send it to a distant market and receive only what it cost. He further said that thousands of acres of sugar-cane would be allowed to rot in the fields this season, as it would cost more to cut, grind, pack, and send it to market than could be realized for the manufactured article. ”

“ The methods of production have undergone a complete change in the course of the century, and the former currents of trade in sugar have, in some cases, actually been reversed. Before 1800 people relied entirely for their sugar supply on the cane plantations of the colonies. It was known already, however, that beets contained a large percentage of sugar, and during the Napoleonic wars, when the Continent was closed in large part to colonial imports, an attempt was made to secure sugar from this native source of supply. ”

“ In coffee and tobacco there are possibilities on a small scale, and also in fruit-growing, when roads and highways have been sufficiently improved to get the product to market. Herein lies the only feasible opportunity for small American capitalists who desire to live in a tropical climate. It is true, only a small portion of this wonderful Island is under cultivation. In time it might all be utilised, the larger part, of course, in sugar. In the chapter on Sugar the possibilities of this crop and its relation to the sugar-production of the world have been fully discussed. ”