72 



and receiving back refined sugar. The explanation for this is 

 to be found in the fact that the price of refined sugar has 

 enormously fallen, owing to the competition of bounty-fed beet 

 sugar in France and Germauy and the difficulty of getting cane 

 grown near factories on a sufficiently large scale to make the 

 manufacture of sugar by improved processes profitable. The 

 latter difficulty is not, however, very formidable, and if a 

 satisfactory solution of the sugar bounty question in Europe is 

 arrived at, a considerable extension of the sugar industry in 

 this Presidency might be hoped for.*^ 



Spices. — The trade in spices is an ancient one in this Presi- 

 dency. The exports were in 1855-56 of the value of 24 lakhs 

 of rupees and in 1889-90, 71 lakhs. 



Food-grains. — The net exports of food -grains have not 

 increased, but on the contrary show a slight decline, owing to 

 competition of cheap rice from Burma and Bengal. 



Piece-goods. — The exports of cotton piece-goods were in 

 1855-56, 1,894,504 pieces and 223,140 yards valued at 211 

 lakhs of rupees. In 1889-90, 1,100,165 pieces and 13,638,070 

 yards valued at 45 lakhs of rupees were exported. The cloths 

 were partly the products of hand looms and cotton mills estab- 

 lished in the country and partly foreign manufactures dyed in 

 the country and re-exported. There were at the end of 1889-90 

 8 cotton mills worked by steam. The number of persons 

 employed was 6,000, and the quantity of cotton worked up 



^f* A recent enquiry instituted by the Government of India showed that the difficulties 

 in the way of the introduction of improved methods of manufacture of sugar on an exten- 

 sive scale were the following : 



' ' (a) The cultivation of sugar-cane is limited by the supply not only of water for 

 irrigation, but also of manure, {b) As cultivation in India is confined to small farms or 

 holdings, each cultivator who is alale to grow the crop at all can only find manure enough 

 for a small area, generally less than half an acre, of sugar-cane. The plots of sugar-cane 

 are, therefore, greatly scattered even in a canal irrigated tract, [c) A central factory 

 has accordingly to bring in its supplies of cane in small quantities over varying distances, 

 in many cases the distances being great, {d) The carriage of canes over a long distance, 

 even in a climate like that of the Mauritius, is detrimental to the juice for purposes of 

 sugar-makmg. It is much more so in India, where the canes ripen at the season when the 

 atmosphere is driest and suffer, therefore, the maximum of injury, (e) The Mauritius 

 system of growing large canes at intervals is not adapted to the greater part of India, 

 where in order to prevent the ingress of dry air into the fields, small canes have to be 

 grown in close contact. (/) The amount of cane which can be grown, limited as it is by 

 the supply of water and manure, barely suffices for the wants of the Indian population. 

 It seems to be at present as profitable "to produce coarse sugar for their use as highly 

 refined sugar for export. There is, therefore, no sufficient inducement to capital to 

 embark on the more difficult and expensive system." 



]\Ir. Tucker in his report on the inland trade of India, for 1888-89, adds—" a further 

 obstacle to sugar refining in India exists in the high differential rate, which the conditions 

 of the Indian excise system require to be placed on spirits made on the European method 

 as compared with that levied on spirits manufactured by the indigenous process. The 

 sugar refiner in India is thus placed at a disadvantage in respect to the utilization of his 

 molasses in the form of spirits." In this Presidency, however, the so-called country 

 liquor is mostly made from molasses according to European methods of distJiUation, and 

 the other difficulties in regard to the cultivation of sugar-cane wiU not be difficult to 

 overcome if the bounty system in European countries be abolished. 



