624 



F A R JM E U S ' U i: G I S i' K K 



[No. 9 



it still abides in the mass of the British nation, 

 and in minds which ought to be above it, is appa- 

 rent from some limited and ralher do<rmaiical 

 views contained in No. CXXXI. of the 'Edin- 

 burgh Review.' 



The protection of the beet sugar culliire in 

 France, and in other nations on the cuniincni, :s 

 very high, as we have seen: much iiigher than 

 protection of any article of general and necess- 

 ary use ought ever to be. It is at least a Imn- 

 dred per cent, on the cost. But we liave also 

 seen, that this business did not succumb to the 

 lointraent occasioned by the tail 



It does not appear, thai our conlcnjporary had 

 exanfined any of t!ic French works upon his sub- 

 ject, except a couple of pamphlels by a n)erchant 

 of Havre, who wiis probably interested in the colo- 

 nial sugar trade, wifich, when beet sugar arose, 

 was enjoying an absolute mono|)oly oi'the kingdom. 

 The beet sugar has reduced ilie |)rice of sugar in 

 France 25 per cent., and has ol' course much in- 

 creased tl\e consumpfion of the article. The first 

 of these fads is not noticed, and the second is de- 

 nied. We have often heard the French manu- 

 liicturers regret, that competition has reduced the 

 [nice of sutrar, since their establishments commen- 

 ced, from 15 to 10 sorts the pound; and it appear? 



shock and disapp 



from a protection of three hundred per cent, to no 



protection at all. After the general peace, sugar I hy the report'in the Chaniber of Di'puties, prefixed 



fell as low in France as it is in free ports of! to his article, that the sales at Paris alone, Ironi 



Europe at this time. An immense stock hud accu- | October 1st, 1S35, to Septen^ber 30th, 13.36, i n- 



mulated in the sugar colonies,which had been sue- j creased 17,000,000 lbs. But the French Cham- 



cessively captured, and weie in the hands ol' the i bers, in 1837, laid a duty on indigenous sugar, 



British, insomuch that they actually fed horses | which will amount, expenses of collection included, 



and other animals upon sugar. Yet, at that very ; to 1.7 cents a pound. Of course, this leaves the 



moment, the working classes of Great Britain, ' protection in France at 2.55 cents ; no more than 



under the onerous duty of 6 cents a pound, were that which the cane sugar planters ol' the United 



drinking their cofiee without sugar, as hideed 

 they continue to do, to a great extent, to this day. 

 This is to give a monopoly of the market to the 

 West India planters. Hero is lolly and extrava- 

 gance of taxation and protection, which quite 

 eclipse the French beet sugar policy. The Edin- 

 burgh reviewer, states, that "the great impetus 

 given to it was in 1806." Now, in truth, the 

 beet sugar manutiicture did not exist in France 

 at that time, nor until four years after, and not 

 then to an extent worth naming. No "impetus" 

 was given to it until the experiments of 1811, and 

 the decrees of the emperor awarding premiums, 

 and establishing schools and model factories, in 

 1812, Again he aserts, that "in two or three 

 years more, France will be fleeced of £2,600,000 

 per annum, lor the benefit of the landowners of 

 jllsaceJ'' Such allusions, however slight in them- 

 selves, lend to gain the confidence oi' the reader 

 in the minuteness and accuracy of a writer's know- 

 ledge. But Alsace is not a seat of this manufac- 

 ture; comprising two departments, the Upper and 

 Lower Rhine, it has but five sugar manuliictories, 

 while the Department du Nord has two hundred 

 and twenty-six, and the Pas-de-Calais, one hun- 

 dred and "thirty-eight. These errors show, that 

 the writer had not examined the history and pre- 

 sent state of the beei sugar business in France, 

 and was not therefore fully competent to pronounce 

 an opinon upon it. His essential error lies in not 

 taking into view the fact, with which he was pro- 

 bably unacquainted, that it has already encountered 

 and survived that test ofits utility, which he him- 

 self proposes, and before which he says it "would 

 quickly disappear," viz: a li-ce competition with 

 colonial and foreign sugar, and an extreme depres- 

 sion of price. 



The condemnation of beet sugar, in the eye of 

 the Scottish economist, is, that it Iras received pro- 

 tection. Tried by the same rule, what must be 

 the fate of West India sugar, or of any great branch 

 of British industry? Or of the Louisiana cane 

 planters, or of the American cotton and woollen 

 manufacturers, coal miners, salt makers, hai ma- 

 kers, tailors, and shoe makers? The article is, in 

 fact, a dash at <ar/^s. That battle we at present 

 decline, referring the assailant to an abler anta- 

 gonist in the same journal, about eight years back. 



States enjoy, and not so much by 6 cents a pound 

 as the British discriminating duty in favor of her 

 sugar colonies ! 



Will the beet sugar manufacturers of France be 

 able to sustain themselves under this change of 

 policy? This is a question which experience 

 must" decide. Undoubtedly, the legislature firmly 

 believed that they would, or they would not have 

 imposed the duty ; for the French no more think of 

 sacrificing this inteicst at home to the colonies, or 

 to any other object, than ihey think of removing 

 Paris to the island of Martinique. Many of the 

 manufacturers will succumb, because it is a law ol' 

 political economy, that if a business is better than 

 ordinary, it will cause a proportional rush of com- 

 petitors to it, a part of whom will adventure wiUi- 

 out adc(iuate skill and capital, trusting to the good- 

 ness of the business to make up lor these defi- 

 ciencies. 



The culture and manufaclure of beef sugar in 

 France, according to the result often cases, which 

 we have examined, has yielded of late years an 

 average profit of 49| per cent, on capital. In some 

 of these cases the profit was as low as 9, and in 

 others as high as 90, per cent. Now, as the duty 

 of 1.7 cents amounts to a reduction of 22 per cent, 

 on the former rate of profit, it follows, of course, 

 that all those establisliments, which, on the scale 

 of profit are below 22 per cent., must go down, un- 

 less sustained at an annual loss. Even many of 

 those which would range on that scale above 20 

 per cent., but which have proceeded principally or 

 wholly (which is not often the case in France) on 

 borrowed capital, trusting to larger profits for the 

 means of extiuLfuishing the original debt, will 

 doubtless fail. The probable number of failures 

 in consequence of the law, was estimated at two 

 hundred, out of a total of five hundred and fifty 

 establishments. Others will probably remove from 

 France, and set up in Belgium, Germany, Russia, 

 or i\.ustria, where protection is greater, anci, what 

 is more material, stabler; for tliose countries have 

 no colonial inleiest to consult. Opinion is, how- 

 ever, that the law will undergo some mollification 

 before it shall have produced this last consequence. 

 These liiilures or removals, if they shall take place, 

 will not show what protection, or whether any pro- 

 Itction is reallv needed. Thev will be the natural 



