410 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 7 



the other side of the channel. From these one 

 hundred manufaclories were obtained last year, 

 five thousand tons of brown sugar, worth in the 

 market £60 per ton, makinir a total of £300,000, 

 and such is the spread of improvement, and the 

 expected increase in the number of sucii establish- 

 ments, that a much larger produce may be calcu- 

 lated on in future. 



From ail that hns been said, there certainly ap- 

 pears every inducement to make the experiment 

 in England ; and though I hold it to be unsale to 

 trust too much to analogy in practical agriculture, 

 yet I. see no just cause why, if the making of sugar 

 succeeds best, as it is ibund to do in the north of 

 France, or that part where the cimiate most re- 

 sembles England, it should not succeed at least as 

 well in England itself But we have no occasion 

 to rely wholly on analogical reasoning in this 

 matter. The beet-root of both couniries has been 

 carefully analyzed by practical chemists, and the 

 English found to be fully equal to the French in 

 amount of saccharine juice. There is then no 

 natural obstacle to the conversion ol'this juice into 

 sugar. But will not the government interpose to 

 prevent the manutacture ol'an article which m.ust, 

 if carried to any great extent, interfere with our 

 West India colonies? It is impossible at this 

 time to say what course government may think 

 proper to pursue in such a case. All we know is, 

 that there exists at present no law to prevent the 

 making of sugar in Great Britain. But the specu- 

 lator will not, and ought not to rest satisfied with 

 security like this. He must have lull assurance 

 that no after act of the legislature shall molest or 

 injure him in the quiet enjoyment of his property. 

 VVithout this assurance, no prudent man would 

 embark his capital in such an undertaking. 1 

 would wish, therefore, not to be misunderstood on 

 this point ; for highly as I think of beet-root sugar 

 as a business, I should be sorry to induce any one 

 to adopt it inconsiderately and unavisedly. The 

 prohibitory measures adopted by the government 

 in the case of tobacco, have been instanced as an 

 example of what would be done in that of beet- 

 root sugar ; but though I would on no account 

 shut my own eyes, or those of others, to every ob- 

 jection likely to be raised against it, I own I do not 

 think the two cases exactly similar. The cultiva- 

 tion of tobacco is attended with no additional out- 

 lay. It can be grown just as easily as beans, 

 without materially interfering with the rotation of 

 crops on a farm. The duty, it will be observed, is 

 very heavy; and this circumstance, combined 

 with the facility of obtaining the ariicle, called for 

 a porportionate rigor in the administration of the 

 laws: in fact, a direct prohibition was the result; 

 and those who had commenced the speculation, 

 found themselves under the necessity of abandon- 

 ing it; though, for the reasons above stated, the 

 loss to individuals was not very heavy. That 

 similar obstacles would not have to be encountered 

 in the case of beet-root sugar, I am by no means 

 prepared to deny. At the same time, it ought to 

 be borne in mind that the circumstances differ 

 widely from those under which tobacco was at- 

 tempted to be raised in this country. A beet-root 

 sugar manufactory necessarily requires the invest- 

 ment of a large capital ; and, consequently, it is 

 not very likely ever to become so general as the 

 unrestricted culture of tobacco would have been. 

 The duty (27b. a cwt.^ is not so heavy, but that 



even if enforced to the utmost, the grower could 

 still compete with the West India planter; there- 

 fore, the consumption remaining the same, the 

 revenue would not suffer by the partial substitu- 

 tion of beet-root, for cane sugar. The only objec- 

 tion then, as it appears to me. is in the danger of 

 its interference with the interests of our colonial 

 possessions. That it would so interft^re to an ex- 

 tent proportioned to the mairnitmle of the home 

 manufacture, no one will attempt to deny, but evea 

 supposing that in a certain degree this should be 

 the case, let us look to the. situation of the British 

 farmers, and through them to the increased and 

 increasing wretchedness of the laboring poor, ta 

 the depressed slate of our markets for almost every 

 article of home production ; and then ask if they 

 ought in jusiice to be called upon to forego the 

 advantages which are oflered to them by an allur- 

 ing though hitherto untrodden field of enterprise, 

 merely because, at some distant period, the inte- 

 rests of the West India planters may be more or 

 less aH'ected by it ? Injustice forms no item in my 

 creed; but if the only alternative is a diminution, 

 or even a total annihilation of slave labor abroad, 

 and an encouragement of li-ee labor at home, I can 

 have no hesitation which to choose. 



The follovviiig extract from an official document 

 published in France, entitled, ''■ Report of the 

 Commission of Inquiry, constituted fiy Royal /lu- 

 thority under the direction of the Minister of Com- 

 merce and Manufactures, to investigate certain 

 questions of Commercial Legislation,''^ will show 

 the importance there attached to the home sugar 

 manuliictory. After recommending that the import 

 duty upon iron should remain the same, in order 

 to give a preference to their own manufactures, the 

 report goes on to say — 



" As regards sugar, the state of the question ia 

 ve.y nearly the same. The object in view was to 

 secure a preference in our markets to the sugar 

 grown in our own colonies, over that coming from 

 those of other couniries, and at the same time to 

 take care that the very low price of either should 

 not become an obstacle to the propagation and the 

 proiiress of a branch of the national industry alto- 

 gether new, and the creation of which arose from 

 the continental blockade at a time when colonial 

 sugar cost five or six times more in France than in 

 any other country. We speak of the art of ex- 

 tracting sugar from beet-root, the first attempts at 

 which did not, as will be remembered, make the 

 fortunes of those who engaged in them, and were 

 very liir from promising what we have good 

 grounds at present to expect, or indeed the success 

 tliat has been already obtained. 



" One of the manufacturers examined before the 

 commission has stated, that the beet-root sugar 

 which he sells in the market at 1 Crane 20 centimes 

 the kilogramme, with a profit of 11 per cent, stood 

 him 5 francs in the year 1811, on which he was 

 satisfied to sustain a loss of 10 per cent. On the 

 other hand, it appears from tables laid before the 

 commission by the minister of commerce, that 

 there are at present in France 89 sugar factories, 

 the produce of which may be estimated at 4,400,- 

 000 kilogrammes ; that is to say, equal to about a 

 fiflh of the quantity of foreign sugar consumed in 

 France. This industry, it is said in the expose of 

 the minister, makes this very moment, as well by 

 the preparations which are making for the erection 

 of new factories ae by the adoption of new pro- 



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