THE SUGAR MARKET 141 



year, so that here we have 1,600,000 tons accounted for 

 without any of the old trouble of valuing and attending 

 public sales, or visiting countless private show-rooms, 

 at the expense of many hours of valuable time. There 

 only remains to be dealt with in the old-fashioned way 

 about 100,000 tons of grocery or miscellaneous cane 

 sugar, including, of course, our fine colonial produce, 

 such as the splendid yellow crystallized sugars from 

 Demerara and the West India Islands. This is the 

 change that has come over the Mincing Lane sugar 

 market since 1860. 



But the change has not created a wilderness, as might 

 be supposed. On the contrary, the members of the sugar 

 market are there in swarms. This is the speculative 

 market, a new invention not so very long ago, but now, 

 in the eyes of the members, a very old affair. There is 

 a " Call " in the morning, another in the afternoon, 

 where prices fluctuate, not by 6d. per cwt. as in the old 

 days of real buying of solid sugar, but by farthings or 

 halfpennies. When the market is really active there 

 may even be a violent rise of a penny. All this may 

 seem very childish but it has its practical side. A big 

 bond fide sugar-broker sells a thousand tons of solid 

 sugar to a refiner, and he can at once cover his sale in 

 the market by buying a thousand tons of imaginary 

 sugar for delivery at once or at some future time. He is 

 perfectly safe, thanks to the strict organization, and if 

 he elects to take delivery he will get the sugar. He can 

 thus hedge both his purchases and his sales, and without 

 such a facility it would be impossible with safety to 

 carry on the large operations necessary for the supply of 

 sugar in these days. 1 



There was some pleasure and satisfaction in the old 

 days in exercising the knowledge that comes from 



1 This has disappeared in war time. 



