SUGAR GROWING AND ITS MANUFACTURE. 139 



the Sugar Company to invest a greater proportion of their capital iu 

 the manufacture of sugar in New South Wales, and the unwillingness 

 of other capitalists to take any part iu the business. The extension 

 referred to has taken place mainly on the rich volcanic table-lands 

 between the Kichmond and Tweed Rivers on that part of the " Big 

 Scrub," nearest the Tweed River and close to the liismore-'J'wt'ed 

 railway line, between Byron Bay and the Tweed River, the greater 

 portion of suitable river frontages on the Clarence, Richmond and 

 Tweed, being ah-eady planted with cane. 



The amount of capital expended on plant for the manufacture of 

 sugar in New South Wales from the inception of the industry must 

 have been very large ; it is impossible to give the total, but the sum 

 at present invested in the business by the Colonial Sugar Company 

 and others is said to be about £750,000 in buildings and plant alone, 

 while the outlay by the farmers in clearing, preparing, and planting 

 their laud has probably averaged between £iO and £15 per acre under 

 crop. 



The system of planting the sugar-cane is as follows : — The cane is 

 planted in the spring — August to October included — and the first 

 crop is cut in the following summer, or if then not sufficiently ripe 

 for manufacture, it is allowed to stand over until the end of the 

 winter or early spring of the foUowiug year. From the stools then 

 left two crops of ratoons are usually taken, when they arc ploughed 

 out and the land replanted. 



The price paid by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company to the 

 growers was at first lOs. and is now 12s. per ton, the Company bearing 

 the whole expense of cutting and removing the crop from the field, 

 this amounting to about 5s. a ton. Other mill-owners pay consider- 

 ably less, even as low as from 7s. to 8s. per ton. 



It is a remarkable fact that New South Wales is the only country 

 in the world, with the exception of the southern portion of Spain, 

 where sugar-cane is cultivated and sugar manufactured entirely by 

 white labour. It is impossible to predict whether cane-growing and 

 sugar-making will be profitable iu the future in view of the gradual 

 removal over two years of the present sugar duties of £5 per ton which 

 has been decided upon by the Legislature, and the competition of 

 .cheap coloured labour, but it certainly is not likely to be so profitable 

 as at present. 



In a circular issued by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company to the 

 cane-growers last year, the General Manager remarks :— -" It only 

 remains for me to add in regard to the impossibility of bringing the 

 cost of the Nev/ South Wales sugar close to that of sugar made iu the 

 tropics with coloured labour, that through the 'gumming' of the 

 cane the Harwood sugar last year cost at the mill nearly £G per ton 

 more than the average of that made at our Queenslaud and Fiji 

 factories, and was, as before stated, of a lower value by 15s. per ton ; 

 and further, that £5 a ton represents the subsidy which must be 

 given to enable the makers of cane sugar outside the tropics with 

 white labour to compete with men in the same trade in the tropics 

 who have much sweeter cane, and grow and handle this at a much 

 lower cost, a certain proportion of the sum being needed to cover the 

 inevitable loss in the colony from floods and frosts." In the same 



