142 SUGAR 



practical experience and selecting with care and skill 

 the best article at the lowest possible price. That part 

 of expert knowledge in the sugar industry has gone. 

 The beetroot industry is beginning to get anxious as to 

 its future prospects. Professor Dr. E. O. von Lippmann, 

 at the head of the German industry both as expert and 

 leader, a few years ago expressed his alarm with no 

 uncertain sound. He points to the rapid recovery of 

 cane sugar since the Brussels Convention, to its monster 

 factories, to its large yields of sugar to the acre, and, 

 worst of all, to its low cost of production. He speaks 

 of the cost of production in Cuba as being down to 8s. 

 per cwt. free on board. He has even heard of lower 

 figures, down to 6s. 6d. per cwt., and of a factory which 

 produces 78,000 tons of sugar a year. He quotes the 

 figures from 1904 to 1909, showing that cane sugar has 

 increased from 48 per cent, to 54 per cent, of the world's 

 production. l Going further back he shows that in 1899 

 cane sugar produced only 31 per cent. We know that 

 in those days even Java, with all its natural advantages, 

 great skill and knowledge, declared that it could not 

 stand against such artificial competition as then pre- 

 vailed. He went on to remind his audience how he had 

 urged, at that time, that the low prices were, from their 

 point of view, in* conformity with the interests of the 

 European industry. But now, he continues, better 

 prices contain a danger, because they are calculated 

 to provoke a new and notable extension of the cultiva- 

 tion of the sugar cane. He also laments that German 

 raw sugar has deteriorated in quality and that German 

 refined sugar has lost its reputation. They must 

 organize, he says, and if the industry will not take the 

 necessary measures it is not for want of warning. 



1 He probably made the same mistake as that which is 

 pointed out in Appendix III. 



