208 THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURLST. [Sept. 1, 1898. 
SUGAR IN MAURITIUS AND TEA 
AND CACAO IN CEYLON. 
ANGLO-CEYLON AND GENERAL ESTATES 
COMPANY, LIMITED. 
Tlie twelftli annual ordinary General nieetinj; of 
the Anslo-Ceylon and General Estate*! Company, 
Limited, was lield yesteiday at the sHices, '20, 
East clieap, EC, Mr. Alec VV. Criciiton {manaj^ing 
director) presiding. 
The Secretary (Mr. Henry Gre?y) having read the 
notice couveuing the meeting 
The CiiAiKMAN said: I must "explain that I have 
been asked to take the chair at this meeting in the 
absence of Mr. Quintin Hogg. He has gone, as per- 
haps some of you have already been informed, to 
the Bast on a tour, principally to visit our estates. 
He is first going to tlie Straits and to Ceylon, and 
when he has finished his inspection there he will go 
on to Mauritius, where he will arrive in September — 
that is, shortly after the beginning of the crop. I 
believe that tliis latter visit of his — to Mauritius, I 
mean — will be a matter of particular satisfaction to 
you, becanse his long acquaintance with sugar machi- 
nery and maunfacture and with the economical ma- 
nagement and the capital values of sugar estates 
make him an excellent judge of their position, and 
\ou will be glad to hear his views at the next meet- 
in" and to have the benefit of his knowleilge of the 
actual present state of affairs which lie will gather 
during his visit, which can thus hardly fail lo 
be of advantage to the Company. He will arrive 
in Mauritius at a time rathtr critical in the his- 
tory of the Colony, when they have ju-st passed 
through one of the vfry worst years rn record, and 
when we feel, as I know that he does, that we should 
act willi great caution, and strengthen the resources 
of the company so as to be able to meet all contin- 
gencies. You will have se^n from a paragraph in 
our report the series of misfortunes which we have 
had to encounter in the course of the year 
IN Mauiutius. 
First there was the very s vere drought, and 
as an example of the effects of t' at I will take 
the estate of Beau Sejonr, a large and important 
property, which was lately cited, at a public meeting 
held in Port L^uis, as one of the best-managed estates 
in the island. The drought there was so severe that 
th y failed to harvest balf a crop, and that realised 
very indifferent prices. If we compare the position 
of this est.T.te at the close of cur financial year in 
March, 1897, with its position at the close of this 
financial year in March, 1898, you will find that by 
March, 1897, wo had received 36,000 bags of sugar 
from it, of which 27,000 l)ags were actually d- livcred 
and in the hands of purchasers who had paid us over 
E3 23,000 for them, whereas by March, 1898, we had 
received only 17,000 bags of sugar, and 8,000 bags 
were in the hands of purchasers, and we had only 
been pail Ii92,ll00. If you will consider those 
figures— 113,23,000 against R92,000— you will see the 
enormous 3iffereace, especially to us who have to 
finance the estate, and who have to provide, in the 
interest of this company, that the machinery and culti- 
vation should be thoroughly well kept up. 
In addition to the difficulties presented by the small 
crop, and therefore the small income, and the expendi- 
ture— because that, of course, must always go on — 
there was hardly any demand for sugar in Bombay, 
our principal market, owing to the prevalence of the 
plague there, and there arose, and not unnaturally, a 
financial crisis in Port Louis of great severity, which 
lasted for a long time, when the rates of money lent 
for ordinary commercial business rose to 15 per cent., 
and even over that rate, and they are very high now. 
Hence you will see that what has been suggested to 
us by several shareholders — that we should call in the 
mortgages on tlioso estates in which we are interested 
was absolutely impossible. Far from that, we had 
ourselves, in order to continue the liquidation of the 
Highlands Estate, to pay off the mortgage there. But 
you will say. as. in fact, it has been said, •' Notwith' 
etaiiding all these complaints of yours, by looking 
at the balance-sheet we see that you had a ve^ 
substantial sum of ready oaeh in hand, which at the 
end of March amounted to over £30,(XXJ." Thai was 
so , but a great part of that coubisted of moneys 
arising from sales of land in Cejlon belonging to the 
debenture-holders, which were not available for the 
purposes of finance in Mauritius, or for ibe diatribo- 
tion of dividends. As for the remainder of the 
i'30,000, if you will consider the cour.ie of out bubi- 
ness in Mauritius yon will remember that March is 
five or six months from the time when we can txpect 
any money to come in from the sales of the new 
crop, and it is in March that we liave lo make 
provisions, especially lu times of financial diflSciiliT 
such as this, for cash for the purpose of carrying on 
our estate, and this, in fact, does not represent the 
whole amount necessary. I think that unier those 
circumstinces you will see that the paragraphs iu 
our report are clearly justified. It is as unpleasant 
to ua as It can possibly be to you th*t we shoold 
have to recommend you not to divide these profits 
at present, and not to declare a dividend ; but it 
is our plain duty to do bo, having regard to the 
circumstances which I have referred to, and uhu to 
the somewhat uncertani future of cane sugar The 
principal element of uncertsinty iu that respect is 
the qufstion of whether the continental bounties 
which cause such an over production of beet sugar' 
and a glut in the market here, and sometimes in 
Lonibav, shall be allowed to continue. It is admitted 
that one word from this country would be sufficient 
to procure their abolition ; but if that is to be a 
determined or decisive word, who knows whether it 
will ever be pronounced. Other countries are ujak 
ing considerable sacrifices for their colonies atid for 
the fntnre of their trade, but it is impossible to sav 
what we are going to do in that respect. One thine 
18 certain, that if we had made up our minds Iodk aeo 
to preserve the freedom of onr trade iu our own 
markets for all— for the producers as well as con- 
sumers— against those bounties by means of which any 
trade whatever can be attacked and ruined, we should 
not have been in our present difficulty, and if we fail 
to seize the opportunity now of discrediting these 
bounties we may have to fight them under circum- 
stances which may be much more dangerous to our- 
selves and our trade. These Mauritius properties are 
good ones in their present condition, and capable of 
giving us good returns, provided we have natural and not 
unnatural, competition to contend with. Before I leave 
thesubjectof Mauritius I should direct your attention 
to an item in the balance sheet, "M,^uritiu.^ Suzar 
Estates, including lands under realisation," which baa 
increased to i;i01,.114 in the present bilance sheet 
After what I have said you will doubtless wish fop 
an explanation ; and it is very simple. In the 1897 
balance-sheet the item of 
Maurivius suoab estates 
contained nothing in respect of our interests in the 
Highlands property. That was then represented and 
considered as it was, a debt from the estate and 
was included in the sundry accounts receivable • 
but a large amount of the Highlands lands has 
now been sold under registered contracts, the terms 
of which are for payment tons of the purchase monev 
spi-ead over five years by yearly instalments, and 
under the advice of our auditor we have taken 
the amount of the registered sales, and placed it 
under the head of Mauritius Sugar Estates, lucLidins 
lands under realisation ; because we either recov r the 
moueys from the purchasers or we recover the lands 
themselves as unpaid vendors. I mav mention that 
in most cases the first instalment has actually b=en 
paid Proceeding with the list . f estates, the u^xt 
one I will refer to is the Selangor Estate the culti 
vation of which estate is being duly proceeded with 
We have a most excellent report as to the lie and 
capabilities of the lanl We have planted it not 
only with coffee, but with coconuts and iudiinibber 
and the coconuts and indiarubber particularly are 
likely to become very valuable products, and it is 
