2 SUGAR 



you would mourn the limitations that would be put 

 on your daily fare by the total abolition of sugar from 

 universal food-supplies. Indeed, so firm a hold has 

 this commodity taken on popular taste, that its 

 essential quality is symbolic of all things nice, and 

 I venture to believe that there is not one of you for 

 whom the " salt of life " has not a formidable rival 

 in the " sweets of life." 



Your interest in sugar has recently been stimulated 

 by various plans and rumours of plans for adding 

 sugar-production to our English industries. Naturally 

 enough, you are now specially anxious to know many 

 things about this industry. But surely there have 

 been previous occasions when, simply as a result of 

 your being intelligent mortals, you have felt a momen- 

 tary curiosity about the details of sugar-growing and 

 sugar-making ; am I not right in my interpretation 

 of the nature of that curiosity, and my conclusion as 

 to why you have never followed it up and found out 

 what you thought you would like to know ? Your 

 attitude was, I take it, exactly the same as my own : 

 you did not want to wade laboriously through annual 

 statistics of the Sugar World's output, or to make 

 an exhaustive study of records concerning agricultural 

 and scientific experiments to increase production on 

 certain sugar-growing areas, and of inventions to 

 improve sugar-making machinery. To all such matters 

 you were prepared to give just so much attention as 

 they could reasonably demand from an intellectually 

 alive lay public ; but your first and foremost desire 

 was to get into touch with the sugar industry in its 

 natural environment, to see the surroundings in which 

 sugar is grown and made, to know about the people 



