A VERY SUGGESTIVE CHAPTER. 151 



which the plantation may be situated. Many of the canes 

 grown in Fiji possess these latter qualifications, and appear to 

 be short of the former ones ; in a word, they give a maximum 

 amount of work in cutting, etc., and yield a minimum quantity 

 of the sugar. The desired result is not the greatest weight of 

 cane which an acre of land will produce, but the greatest 

 amount of sugar per acre which the cane will yield. On 

 several estates in the Sandwich Islands, I have seen six tons 

 (over 12,000 Ib.) taken per acre per annum from large tracts of 

 sugar land that is to say, from plant canes ratoons yielding 

 sometimes as much as three or four tons. For virgin land like 

 Fiji it would, I think, be safe to take two and a half tons, or 

 say 5000 Ib. per acre, as an average. At the present time about 

 3000 acres are under sugar-cane cultivation. 



According to the estimate of an expert, a sugar-mill capable 

 of turning out seven to eight tons of sugar per day of twelve 

 hours, would give fifty tons per week, or allowing the 

 factory to be actually at work for twenty weeks in the year, 

 say a crop of 1000 tons of sugar per annum. The cost of the 

 plant here, my informant says, is 7500, and he puts 7500 

 for freight, insurance, and all expenses till it is ready for 

 working ; an unnecessarily high figure, in my opinion, as 

 5000 would be ample. Under this head the cost of cane per 

 ton of sugar may be taken at about 10 per ton, skilled and 

 other labour at 4 per cent., fuel 1 per cent., and interest and 

 depreciation at 20 per cent. The market value of sugar in Fiji 

 is 25 per ton, so there is on an expenditure of 15,000 

 a clear credit to the right side of profit and loss of 7500 per 

 annum. I do not wonder now at the princely houses which 

 some of the sugar aristocracy boast in every city of their 

 choice. By last accounts some 3000 acres were under sugar 

 cultivation. This acreage of sugar shows a marked increase 



