THE SUGAR MARKET 143 



This is in a very minor key. In the days when beetroot 

 was master he had urged that low prices must be 

 maintained in order to crush competition. That he 

 very nearly succeeded we all know, and the fact was 

 admitted even by such a powerful authority as The 

 Times. In the Financial Supplement to The Times of 

 December 17th, 1909, there was a leading article on 

 f< The Rise in Sugar," in which the writer, after some 

 interesting comments on the position, continued as 

 follows 



" But what must strike the observing man who 

 inquires into the facts of the situation is the probability 

 that but for the Brussels Convention the rise in sugar 

 in this country, instead of being 2s., might have been 

 20s. per cwt. For if the Convention had not put an 

 end to the bounty system on the Continent the cane 

 sugar industry by this time would have been practi- 

 cally dead, and we should have been entirely depen- 

 dent on the supplies of the Continental beet growers. 

 And it is the comparative failure of the beet harvest 

 this year that is the real and only cause of the rise 

 in sugar. ... To all intents and purposes, then, 

 we should be faced with a shortage of about half-a- 

 million tons in the European needs for sugar were it 

 not for the most welcome increase in the production 

 of cane sugar, and that increase could not and would 

 not have occurred under the bounty system." 



The authors of the Brussels Convention were pleased 

 to receive this unexpected and most weighty testimonial. 

 For thirty years they were branded as economic infidels 

 and heretics, but it appeared, on this very high authority, 

 that their political economy was sound, that they have 

 done a good deed and saved a valuable industry from 



