May, 1910.] 



403 



Edible Products. 



SUGAR CONSUMPTION IN THE 

 ORIENT. 



(From the Louisiana Planter, Vol. 

 XLIV., No. 10, March 5, 1910.) 



In the world's increase of sugar con- 

 sumption, according to authentic reports, 

 the vast population of the south-east 

 quarter or section of Asia (with its out- 

 lying Island Empire), is beginning to cut 

 an important figure. In that part of the 

 globe China, with au area about as large 

 as our United States exclusive of Alaska, 

 contains according to census figures and 

 general estimates, 400,000,000 people. 

 The adjacent countries of Corea and 

 Japan and the colonial territories of 

 European nations would probably add 

 100,000,000 to that enormous mass of 

 population. Hence there are half a bil- 

 lion people, or about one-third of the 

 population of all the earth gathered in 

 south-east and Eastern Asia. 



Now here a little figuriug might prove 

 interesting. Supposing that the annual 

 sugar consumption of che United States 

 were 3,000,000 long tons (and it is a little 

 over that), and that we have 85,000,000 

 sugar-eaters. That gives us a consump- 

 tion of 80 lbs. per year. If those 500,000,000 

 Asiatics had as sweet a tooth as we, it 

 would take 40,000,000,000 lbs. or about 

 18,000,000 long tons of sugar (which is 

 more than all the world makes) to feed 

 them. 



Lying south and south-west of the land 

 of the Mongols and the Manchus is 

 British India, of nearly the same area 

 with a population of 300,000,000. Now 

 the Hindoos are and have been for cen- 

 turies far ahead of the Chinese in sugar 

 consumption. According to the most 

 reliable information procurable, much 

 of which has already been printed in the 

 Louisiana Planter as matter from its 

 East Indian correspondents, modern 

 British India, composed mostly of an- 

 cient Hindoostan, is easily the largest 

 sugar-producing country in the world. 

 It makes annually about 3,0^0,000 tons of 

 crude sugar, all of which is consumed 

 at home, together with a comparatively 

 small importation of refined sugars for 

 its English population and the well-to- 

 do among the natives. If the Hindoos 

 and foreigners of British India ate pro- 

 portionately as much sugar as the ruling 

 nation at home, they would need every 

 year 27,000,000,000 lbs. to feed them in- 

 stead of the 7,000,000,000 lbs. they eat. 



The production and per capita sugar 

 consumption in Japan is not conve- 

 niently accessible to the writer of this 

 article. The model government of Nip- 

 pon has been recently wrestling with 



a national sugar trust built somewhat 

 on the American plan, but possibly 

 better, if such could be possible ; and 

 its treasury department has been for 

 some time largely "at sea" in learn- 

 ing how much sugar has been received 

 in the home ports and consumed by the 

 people. Sugar-consumption is stated to 

 be increasing there very rapidly; and 

 in Formosa the cane sugar industry has 

 been and is being extended as fast as 

 possible through the great increase in 

 the acreage under cane cultivation and 

 the introduction of modern sugar mills 

 and machinery from Europe and 

 America. 



Our Philippines colony makes about 

 200,000 tons or so of sugar, and what 

 its people do not eat at home they sell 

 to the Chinese] and their latest con- 

 querors. 



Java, the Dutch possession, figures in 

 commerce as the second cane-sugar- 

 producing country in the world. In 

 one or two crops it has exceeded Cuba, 

 regarded as the first cane-sugar-pro- 

 ducer ; but in those instances abnormal 

 conditions were prevailing in the great 

 sugar isle of the Occident. The annual 

 Java sugar crop runs along about 

 1,200,000 tons, which up to very recent 

 years has been most largely sold to 

 England and America. 



Ex-Congressman Hawley and other 

 high sugar authorities, state that now a 

 considerable proportion of the Java 

 sugar crop is turning towards China, 

 Mr. Hawley says that it is because the 

 400,000,000 Chinese are at last learn- 

 ning to take sugar with their tea. Here 

 in parenthesis it would be well perhaps 

 to note that the Russians who are the 

 second tea-drinking nation in the world, 

 have been slow to form the habit of 

 taking sugar in theirs — we mean tea, not 

 vodka. They make about and above a 

 million tons of beet sugar at home every 

 year ; and, either from popular disinclin- 

 ation or through some bureaucratic 

 hocus pocus that permits the Govern- 

 ment and the manufacturers to divide 

 a premium on export sugars, they do 

 not eat it all at home. Think of a 

 modern nation with a population double 

 that of our American United States that 

 cannot eat a pitiful little million tons 

 or so of home made sugar. But there, 

 perhaps as a matter of compulsion, the 

 mujiks, who form an immense majority 

 of the population, must exclude sugar 

 from their daily rations of rye bread 

 mixed with chopped hay. 



Getting back to China we find that all 

 of its enormous population must depend 

 mostly on Java, with its annual crop of 

 1,200,000 tons, and the Philippines with 



