THE BEET INDUSTRY 107 



fraction of the duty on the sugar they produced, the 

 revenue began to show a great and constantly increasing 

 loss. The French Government, unlike the German, 

 had greatly overdone the dose of stimulant, and they 

 had to proceed to take precautions. They found that 

 the sugar industry was making an enormous profit 

 out of the new system. In the first year the manu- 

 facturers pocketed 25,000,000, francs; in the third 

 year, 1886-7, their profit had risen to 91,966,437 francs, 

 or 3,678,657. These are official figures. The Govern- 

 ment were obliged to check this drain on the Exchequer. 

 In 1887 the legal yield was raised, and the excess yield, 

 instead of going free of duty, was charged with a modified 

 tax. For two years the large profits were slightly 

 reduced, but in 1889 they were again over 90,000,000 

 francs. There was then another raising of the legal 

 yield and the profit was again reduced, but began to 

 recover as the yield of the factories went on increasing. 

 In 1893 it was 39,000,000 francs, but in 1896 it had 

 reached 54,000,000 francs. During this period, 1884 

 to 1896, the yield of sugar from the roots had gone up 

 from 6 per cent, to 11 per cent., and the French crop 

 had increased from 265,000 tons to 668,000 tons. 



Turning again to Germany, the yield of sugar from 

 the roots, which was, in 1871, 8*28 per cent., had risen 

 by 1884 to 11 per cent. They had thus got more than 

 ten years start of their French competitors. But in 

 1896, when the French managed to reach a yield of 

 11 per cent, the Germans had reached a yield of 12*66 

 per cent. 



It must be borne in mind that in Germany, as in 

 France, though the duty only struck a portion of the 

 sugar produced, the full drawback was allowed on all 

 the sugar exported. This was an enormous incentive 

 to production and exportation and a serious loss to the 



