SUGAR: THE OUTLOOK IN THE COLONIES. 139 



The fruits of adversity are bitter, but salutary, and 

 great strides have undoubtedly been made in many places 

 in the improvement of machinery as the successive blows 

 have fallen upon the Colonies — first, the abolition of 

 slavery, then the abolition of differential duties, and with 

 these the monopoly of the British market, and lastly, and 

 more crushing still, the unfair competition of bounty-fed 

 beet. 



If these bounties are abolished, the future of the sugar 

 industry will doubtless be as full of surprises as the past has 

 been. A renewed and more extended conflict will take 

 place before cane and beet find their respective markets. 

 It may be safely surmised that in Europe the removal of 

 restrictions upon home consumption would vastly increase 

 the quantity required — it would probably be largely in- 

 creased in France, and is even now steadily increasing in 

 Germany. In Britain numerous industries would be 

 affected, prominent among which would be the decayed 

 refining industry and the greatly developed jam trade. 

 And, sobered by sad experience, the Colonies would take 

 up the question so long neglected of bettering their ex- 

 tracting processes, and new machinery on economical 

 lines would lay the foundation to a future of profitable 

 industry. 



But the planters would also have to devote increased 

 attention to the improvement of their canes— not only as 

 regards their saccharine content, but also with regard to 

 their capacity for resisting disease. There are, in fact, at 

 the present moment, diseases in the cane fields which 

 threaten to sweep away some of the most magnificent 

 varieties of the sugar-cane. 



There are many scientific questions of great interest 

 connected with the origin and spread of these diseases, and 

 it is proposed in a future paper to deal with these, and pass 

 under review the strenuous efforts being made by scientific 

 men in the tropics both to produce improved varieties of 

 the sugar-cane and to combat their diseases. 



