94 
ugar and its accompanying products have been calculated to 
yery similar position. In Jamaica, notwithstanding the redi of 
other industries, sugar only forms 20 per cent. ofthe total export.* 
Trinidad, happy in the possession of a pitch lake, counts sugar as its 
staple production, With rare exceptions the West Indian Colonies may 
be correctly stated to regard the prosperity of the piger industry and the 
. pros perity of their local populations as synonymous terms. Jepression 
in the sugar trade means for them financial embarrassment in private 
circles, cca of the public revenue, discontent among the labouring 
ulatio: 
PE It isa a lüiier of common knowledge that depression in the West 
Indian sugar trade has now reached a point at which estates are going 
out of cultivation in some of the leading sugar colonies, and very serious 
consequences are anticipated both to the public and to the private pros- 
perity of the ec v irae ed.' Remedial measures have become 
markets of the world, nor to a diminished power of production. ‘The total 
sugar production of the world for the year 1880 was 3,830,000 tons. 
The total production of the world for the year 1895 was 7, 879, 000 tons. 
e increase is large for a period of 15 years, and if the West Indian 
Islands had kept a fair proportion of the increased production in their 
beer eas ought to have no reason to complain. iifabtonatcly, this is 
ot the case. ne sugar of the world is of two kinds, cane sugar and 
beet sugar. The West Indians are producers of cane sugar alone, and 
when the total of the world’s sugar production is divided under the two 
heads of vane and beet it will be found that the increased production 
has been almost wholly in beet sugar. ‘The figures for 1880 are :— 
Cane sugar, 2,200,000 tons; beet nes d ,630,000 tons ; and vhs figures 
for 1895 are—cane sugar, 2,904,000 to : beet sugar, 4 975, O0 tons. 
Nearly the beca inerease has been ades in the produetion of edt sugar, 
ion uut. Indian colonies has remained for many years in quantity 
tstationary. Had it remained stationary in value the situation 
might ‘stil have been endurable, but the natural effect of increased supply 
in bringing down the level of prices aes been artificially heightened by 
a system of foreign bounties, on the one hand. and of duties, on the 
other, until in the course of last year prices fell to something not far 
rom 50 per cent. of the values realized in the comparatively recent days 
of West Indian prosperity, According to a statement made before a local 
Nessuna d in 1894 to inquire ee the matter, in British 
cane sugar cost 14/. Od. to produce, and 
ita average value in ‘the market at that time was MT 19s. 2d. Unde 
these conditions the more sugar the West Indian planter produced the 
greater was the loss he suffered. 
“The conditions of production of beet sugar appear to have been in 
themselves scarcely more profitable. The total production of beet sugar 
for 1894 was estimated in round numbers at 5,000,000 tons, at a a = 
9l. a ton. ‘The price realized for beet sugar was 84. ton, 
senting what would under Bp conditions have been a total deem to 
the € industry of 1,250,000/. But the annual sum paid in 
bounties by the foreign Governments under whose protection the beet- 
sugar akeri is fostered, amounted for that year to 4,290,000/. If the 
* The Times stated 60 per cent. But this was an obvious error, 
