THE BEET INDUSTRY 105 



of money and considerable tracts of land for the encour- 

 agement of the new manufacture. The blockade had 

 raised sugar to famine prices, so the new French factories 

 flourished. Forty were in operation in 1812 and pro- 

 duced about 10,000 tons of sugar. But when the 

 blockade was raised the price fell and the new venture 

 had a bad time. About 1830 there was a fall in the price 

 of corn and the farmers turned again to sugar beet. 

 By the year 1854 Europe produced something under 

 200,000 tons of beet sugar. Ten years later the figure 

 went up to over 500,000 tons. In 1871 it exceeded a 

 million tons. Ten years later it was approaching two 

 millions. The cane sugar industry saw itself seriously 

 threatened. The fear turned out to be well founded. 

 The time came when half, and even two-thirds, of the 

 visible sugar production of the world (not reckoning 

 the then unknown production of India) was produced, 

 not from the sugar cane but from the sugar beet. 



The way in which this enormous production grew 

 and prospered is a most interesting study. It is dealt 

 with in detail in the writer's paper on " The Statistical 

 Aspect of the Sugar Question," which can be found, for 

 those who may desire the full facts, in the journal of 

 the Royal Statistical Society for June, 1899. Here 

 there is room only for the more salient points. 



To begin with a comparison between the progress of 

 France and Germany in the production of beetroot 

 sugar an instructive chapter in a very remarkable 

 story. In 1871, France was the leader in the industry ; 

 she produced 284,444 tons, while Germany produced 

 only 186,442 tons. But while the German Government, 

 as is their practice, began to foster the industry in a 

 far-seeing and rational way, the French Government 

 allowed their great agricultural and industrial sugar 

 producers to shift for themselves. The German 



