156 SUGAR 



from its enormous economic importance, it deserves the 

 utmost encouragement and support that our Federal and 

 State Legislatures can give it. The Commission have 

 put this view in the strongest terms when they say : 



' The problem of the sugar industry to-day is not, 

 save in subordinate respects, a problem of industry, of 

 wealth, or of production; it is primarily and essentially 

 a problem of settlement and defence. No nation can 

 afford to regard lightly the development of its industries, 

 the progress of its wealth, or the economic efficiency of 

 its productive machinery. But, important as these things 

 undoubtedly are, they rank, as regards the sugar industry, 

 on an inferior plane. The Commonwealth to-day is 

 brought face to face with one of the gravest problems 

 that has ever taxed the ingenuity of statesmanship that 

 of the settlement of tropical and semi-tropical areas by a 

 white population living under standard conditions of life. 

 And intimately associated with this problem is the question 

 of national defence. 



" If the ideal of a White Australia is to become an 

 enduring actuality some means must be discovered of 

 establishing industries within the tropical regions. So 

 long as these regions are unoccupied they are an 

 invitation to invasion as well as a source of strategic 

 weakness. Granted so much, it follows that the supreme 

 justification for the protection of the sugar industry is 

 the part that the industry has contributed, and will, we 

 hope, continue to contribute to the problems of the settle- 

 ment and defence of the Northern portion of the Aus- 

 tralian continent 4 The recognition of the nature of this 

 supreme justification is the first condition of a sound 

 public policy in relation to the sugar industry. Relating 

 to it all other issues are of minor importance." 



