404 



THE ACRICULTURAL NEWS. 



December 20, 1913. 



SUGAR INDUSTRY. 



A POSSIBLE EFFECT OF THE NEW AMERI- 

 CAN TARIFF ON THE WORLD'S 

 SUGAR INDUSTRIES. 



The protection hitherto enjo)-ed by the American sugar 

 refiner has been trifling, as far as the amount of preference is 

 concerned. It was l'2h per 100 lb., till a year or two ago 

 when it was reduced to 7i cents. But the real protection 

 was that no rav.- sugar wss permitted to be imported above 

 the Dutch colour standard of No. 16. Any raw sugar above 

 that colour was charged the full duty on refined sugar. 

 The result has been that all raw sugar for the American 

 market, whether from Cuba, Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the 

 Philippine Islands, or from non- preferential countries, 

 such as Java, Hrazil, St Domingo, the West Indie.s, etc., 

 has been specially produced below the colour standard, 

 No. 16. Hence the American refiners have had a monopoly 

 of the market, for all moist refined sugars above No. 16, 

 and a preference of 12.\ (reduced recently to 7^) cents per 

 100 It), on all white refined sugars. The new tarifT has 

 immediately abolished the limitation of colour, and will, 

 on the 1st of Maicu, aboli.sh the protection on refined 

 sagar. 



The abolition of the sugar duty, in 1916, threatens 

 Louisiana, Porto Rico, the Hawaiian Islands, and the 

 Ameiican beetroot industry with serious injury or absolute 

 destruction, unless they can find new ways of making sugar 

 at less cost, and of higher quality. They were encouraged 

 by every possible means to produce sugar, not only by ridicu- 

 lously high protecti'in but also by exhortation and instruc- 

 tion from the experts of the Government Department of 

 Agriculture. This gives them a claim for consideration 

 which would appear to be unanswerable, but which has been 

 rejected with scorn. The abolition of the sugar duty has 

 become a dogma and must be carried out regardless of con- 

 sequences. A large revenue must be abandoned because it 

 costs the sugar consumers the large sura of ■jl'OO per 

 head annually. For the sake of that infatuated delusion 

 the vast sugar factories in the United States and in the 

 Tropics, which have been erected under the stimulus offered 

 by the Government, are to be threatened with destruction. 

 What are their owners to do to save themselves.' 



The answer is clear Factories and planters 



must find out how to keep going and make a profit, or they 

 must collap.se. Can they do itf We think they can, but it 

 will take time, and money, and, above all, energy, capacity, 

 good management, and determination. There is now no 

 longer any incentive to them to turn out only raw sugar. 

 The beetroot factories even now turn out all their sugar in 

 the form of white granulated — the kind of refined sugar 

 most popular in the I niteil States. Mauritius, years ago, 

 began to turn out white sugar direct from the cane juice. 

 Java in recent years has done the same with conspicuous 

 saccesa. Mr. Prinsen Geerligs has told us exactly how it is 

 done, and now we have a beautiful book* on the subject 

 which gives us still further information. Here we have the 

 parting of the ways and the opening of a new era in sugar 

 production. The fatuous action of the American Government 



will give it a great impetus. The threatened sugar industries 

 will jump at this new idea of producing vrhite sugar direct 

 from the cane juice. They see their opportunity. At very 

 little extra cost of production tliey can turn our excellent dry 

 white granulated sugar, pack it in handy retail quantities, 

 and distribute it to the United States' consumers. Then the 

 New ^'ork refiners will be sorry they spoke. 



This production of refined sugar direct from the juice is 

 no new thing as far as the industry of beetroot sugar is con- 

 cerned. More than forty years ago we saw loaf sugar being 

 turned out in a (jerman factory. Then came Eugen Langen 

 with his new process of making loaf sugar in the form of 

 cubes. He turned them out not only in his refinery in 

 Cologne, but also in his beetroot sugar factory at Elsdorf. 

 Now we are told by the Java experts — the greatest and most 

 reliability authority on cane sugar production -that what 

 has been done with beetroot juice can be done also with 

 cane juice. Large quantities of refined sugar — in fact a great 

 portion of the Java crop — are now being shipped every year 

 to the Indian market, and we are proud to add that our ovn 

 colony of Mauritius takes a very good second place in this 

 supply of excellent refined sugar to India 



The threatened American sugar industries must inevit- 

 ably adopt this remedy for their disease; and they must of 

 course couple with it every possible scheme for reducing the 

 cost of growing and producing their sugar. They will 

 have a formidable competitor in the Cuban planter, who will 

 probably follow suit now that he is no longer compelled to 

 confine himself to raw .sugar manufacture. The monster 

 factories in Cuba, with all the latest improvements, are 

 capable of turning out a very superior article. Dr}'. white 

 granulated sugar will keep, and need not be thrown on to 

 over-stocked markets. The present knocking down of prices 

 during crop time can, therefore, be avoided. 



All this is sufficiently alarming for the American 

 refiners, but the new competition cannot be confined to the 

 United States but must inevitably affect sugar refining 

 interests in all quarters. Rritish refiners have already 

 had thirty years' bitter experience of foreign competi- 

 tion; but they have come out of it triumphant. They 

 used to make all the refined sugars consumed in the 

 L^nited Kingdom, but now they have to be content to 

 see 900,000 tons of foreign refined imported every year. 

 They will probably hold their own in the future even 

 if the new idea of making white sugar from the cane juice 

 should be carried out on a large scale. Whether the same 

 can be said of sugar refining in other parts of the world is 

 doubtful. Twenty years hence our readers may accidentally 

 turn to these prognostications and be interested to see hivr 

 true — or false — they were. {Interntitional Swjar Joutii'il, 

 November 191-3.) 



* Plantation White 

 Harloff and H. Srhniidf, 

 Ogilvie, and ii^vicnvcd 



p. :?47. 



Sugar Manufacture, by W. H. K. 

 , translated from the Dutch by .J. P. 

 in the AijnoOltind Nim-s, Vol. XII, 



It is stated in the Loidsi'ina /"^Mniec (October 25, 1913), 

 that agricultural developments in Porto Rico have been to 

 a large extent due to the maintenance of research institu- 

 tions for the exclusive study of the sugar industry out of 

 private funds, or rather out of funds raised independently of 

 the Government. It may interest West Indian readers to 

 know that a great many varieties of seedlings from the 

 West Indies, p.-irticularly from Barbados, have been rapidly 

 extended. Among the most promising are D.117 and 

 B.20t^, 147 and 17-53 Yellow Caledonia from Hawaii has 

 found favour in some sections. 



