FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 109 



its community and belief. Now, liow does this fact have any connection 

 with the sugar beet industry? In the first place we see tiiat the con- 

 sumption of sugar here is constantly increasing. I sometimes say in 

 a jocular sense that if you will show me the food of a nation I will tell 

 you that nation's place in the scale of civilization; I will tell you the 

 rank of a country from what it eats. And as a nation is low down in 

 the scale of progress, its consumption of sugar is also correspondingly 

 low. Let me know how much sugar and soap a nation consumes, and let 

 me see four or five of the women of that nation, and I will tell you just 

 what that nation is. 



If the amount of sugar is five or six pounds per capita, and the 

 amount of soap is correspondingly small, and we find the women har- 

 nessed to the plow with a dog, I need not tell you where that nation 

 ranks among the nations of the world. 



Now, what are the facts here? This country is, with one exception, 

 the greatest sugar consuming country in the world and that exception is 

 a country whose people are closely akin to our own, England is the 

 greatest sugar consuming country in the world, but her consumption 

 of sugar, unlike our own, is not made in the direct use of the article, 

 for England, as you know, is the great center for the manufacture of 

 jellies, marmalades, etc., and in this way consumes a great deal of sugar 

 in the manufacture of articles which are afterwards exported. Thus, 

 while England consumes eighty thousand tons, we consume seventy-two 

 thousand. Among all the nations of Europe we find that Italy and 

 Spaiif consume the least sugar, the average there being about ten pounds 

 to the person per annum. 



One hundred years ago sugar was regarded as a luxury' ; today it is 

 one of the necessities of the world. "Sugar is excellent food, and if. you 

 have a hard job of work and wish to accomplish a great deal, don't take 

 a bottle of whiskey with you; use that for convivial purposes and not 

 for eating. Take a lump of sugar and you will soon feel the effects 

 of its stimulating properties. If the weather is cold, don't use whiskey; 

 that is not the time for alcohol. (Voice: "No time for it,") Put a 

 lump of sugar in your pocket and in five minutes you will find yourself 

 refreshed. The German army carry little hard-pressed lumps of sugar 

 in their rations, for fatigue work, and the German army, which is al- 

 ways ready to take advantage of everything that is for its advance- 

 ment, must do this because it is of benefit. As a stimulant in time of 

 emergency you will find that it is something most excellent for that 

 purpose. So, with all, there is a basis of reason in this great consump- 

 tion of sugar as found in this country, which leads me to the conclu- 

 sion, as stated above, that jou can really measure the advancement of 

 a nation by its sugar consumption. 



And now to come back once more to the effect upon the sugar in- 

 dustry that our new possessions will have. We produce less than 

 300,000 tons of sugar. Now what will the possession of these few 

 islands have to do with our prices. For twenty years we have received 

 free of duty the sugar of the Hawaiian Islands. Under that treaty the 

 product of the islands has grown from 150,000 tons to 400,000 tons, 

 and it would grow still larger if it had more area in which to expand. 

 But the area suitable to that production is practically taken up. But 

 what do you think of a country that produces fourteen tons per acre? 



