SUGAR 



CHAPTER I 



A -RETROSPECT 



A POPULAR book about sugar can, perhaps, be made 

 interesting as well as instructive. The dry details of 

 growth, manufacture, distribution and consumption 

 may here and there be flavoured, illustrated and devel- 

 oped by a few historical facts. To begin with, a retro- 

 spective glance at what sugar was in this country sixty 

 years ago compared with what it is now will best enable 

 the reader to realize at the outset the extraordinary 

 development of the world's sugar industries since the 

 middle of the last century development not merely in 

 the technical details connected with production and 

 manufacture but also in the much more interesting, 

 because more human, process of keen competition 

 between the various and constantly changing sources of 

 production. This will lead up to a yet higher kind of 

 interest when 'we come to examine to what extent and 

 in what manner the Governments of various sugar- 

 producing States have stimulated production and 

 influenced, for good or for evil, the natural course of 

 supply and demand. Here will arise many fascinating 

 questions of international relations, political contro- 

 versies, and the conflict of economic facts with economic 

 theories. 



Thus it will be seen, at the end of the story, that the 



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