THE SUGAR-CANE PLANT 



Sugar Free. 



Areas of 

 Consumption. 



Mills. 



SACCHARUM 



OFFICINARUM 



Mills and Refineries 



the scope of the new legislation, and thus liberated fresh supplies of cane- 

 sugar that poured into India. The imports of beet sugar in 1902-3 became 

 about half those of 1901-2, while the imports of cane-sugar, which come 

 mostly from Mauritius, Java and China, increased by more than 40 per cent. 

 Finally, " in December, 1903, orders were issued remitting the counter- 

 vailing duties chargeable on sugar produced, after August of that year, 

 in countries which have limited their direct or indirect bounties on sugar, 

 and their protective duties, to the minimum permitted by the Brussels 

 Convention of 1902 " (Imp. Gaz., iv., 265). Sugar is thus now once 

 more admitted into India free of all legislative restrictions, except the 

 ordinary import duty of 5 per cent, on all foreign goods, and the counter- 

 vailing duties against sugars produced in or exported from certain countries 

 (Denmark, Chile, the Argentine llepublic, Russia, etc.) which have not 

 adhered to the Brussels Convention. 



It may be said that the consumption of raw sugar is mainly in Northern 

 India, and of foreign refined sugars almost entirely in Bombay, Calcutta 

 and other large towns, more especially port towns. But it will be seen 

 below, in the review of internal trade, that the railborne traffic manifests 

 an expansion of the supply of refined sugar carried to the north, and thus 

 to the regions of chief Indian production. 



Mills and Refineries. According to the Financial and Commercial 

 Statistics, there were 28 sugar factories in India in 1904 and 4,612 em- 

 ployees. Of these 19 were in Bengal with 1,772 employees ; 6 in Madras 

 with 1,979 employees ; 2 in the United Provinces with 747 employees ; and 

 one in the Panjab with 114 employees. The Government of India do 

 not record any factories where less than 25 persons are employed, so 

 that there are crude refineries, scattered all over India, not taken into 

 consideration, that nevertheless turn out a certain proportion of the refined 

 sugar used by the people of India. In Eastern Bengal ( Jessore more espe- 

 cially) there are many small refineries chiefly concerned in the production 

 of date-palm sugar. Similarly the indigenous refineries of Bihar and 

 Shahabad are by no means unimportant, though apparently the trade has 

 greatly declined through the competition of beet-sugar. 



External Traffic. This resolves itself into two sections, Exports 

 and Imports. It may be the most instructive course to deal with these 

 more or less historically. 



1. Exports to Foreign Countries. An import duty on Indian sugar, which 

 was practically prohibitive, was imposed by Great Britain. It came to 8s. a 

 cwt. more than was taken on Colonial sugar. This disability existed until 

 1836, the effect of which may be seen by the following figures : In 1800 

 the British imports from India (expressed as raw sugar) came to 120,471 

 cwt. out of a total of 3,390,974 cwt. ; in 1821 the corresponding figures 

 were, Indian portion 277,228 cwt., out of a total of 4,063,541 cwt. Some 

 twenty years later (1841, or five years after the removal of the disability 

 on Indian sugar) the Indian exports to Great Britain became 1,037,501 cwt. 

 In 1851 the corresponding exports from India to Great Britain were 

 1,506,051 cwt. (out of a grand total of 1,607,508 cwt. exported to all 

 countries), but the next decade marked a great shrinkage, as the exports 

 to Great Britain then stood at only 696,012 cwt. out of a total to all coun- 

 tries of 845,961 cwt. And these figures (though expressed on the basis 

 of raw sugar, viz. 2| to 1) mark the existence of a new disturbing element. 

 The East India Company found in its early transactions that it only paid 



958 



External 

 Traflie. 



Exports. 



British Import 

 Duty. 



Their Removal. 



A New 

 Departure. 



