CHAPTER VIII 



THE CANE INDUSTRY 



BEFORE reading this chapter, reference should be made 

 to the table in Appendix I, which gives the production 

 of cane sugar throughout the world country by country 

 for the last three years, together with the estimates 

 for the year 1917-18. This table includes the some- 

 what imaginary figure" of 2,626,000 tons as the produc- 

 tion of British India. It is unfortunate that this figure 

 should now be included in the statistics, making com- 

 parison with former years misleading and erroneous. 

 The official estimate of the Indian sugar crop is based 

 on an estimate of the number of acres planted, and 

 assumes that an acre will produce 1-25 tons of sugar. 

 But it is well known that a quantity of sugar cane is 

 consumed in the form of cane ; it is also known that 

 the production of sugar in India is of a very primitive 

 kind, and that the sugar produced contains not much 

 more than 50 per cent, of extractable pure sugar. This 

 sugar, in the raw state, is consumed locally by the 

 peasants, and has no relation to the modern kind of 

 sugar imported into India for the consumption of the 

 upper classes. The inclusion of this purely native pro- 

 duction in our annual statistics of the world's supplies 

 is, therefore, unnecessary and misleading. It has 

 already led to our present statisticians pointing to the 

 remarkable increase in the world's production of cane 

 sugar at a particular period, forgetting, or not knowing, 

 that the apparent sudden increase at that time was 

 caused by the sudden inclusion of a vague estimate of 

 India's production. This discrepancy can be detected 

 in the table given in Appendix III. 



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