544 
THE TROPICA!, AGRICULTURIST. [Feb. 1, 1902. 
weight of the income-tax." We wonder if it has 
ever occurred to " R. G." to look into the scale 
of the license duties or to examine proposals for 
the taxation of ground values? If his outlook 
were not so restricted, and if his mind were not 
possessed by a desire to raise artilicially the price 
of the necessaries of life, lie would hardly have 
committed himself to the statement that; "ob- 
viously to bring in money the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer is limited to taxes of the nature of the 
bugar duty, which he imposed last year." " R. 
G." obviously thinks that women and children 
slioiild pay for war ; it is a chivalrous doctrine, 
worthy of the City and of Printing House-square. 
We cannot for the life of us imagine why tea 
should be taxed up to double its natural market 
price when the State, through its magistrates, is 
fifiving away valuable monopolies in the shape of 
licences every year to the tune of many millions 
of money ; but " it is safer," writes our City 
Pundit, " to trust to such things as tea and sugar 
or a moderate corn duty, sucb as we retained in 
our Hnance-down to 1870. There is ample room in 
this direction for duties that will bring in many 
millions and leave the country no more burdened 
than it was thirty years ago, when the taxes were 
nevertheless light." If the Glianeellor of the Ex- 
chequer should attempt such a policy as this, we 
Tcay look forward to a period of profound indus- 
trial and political discontent. When the depres- 
sion comes (and " R. G " expects it "during the 
next few months") the crisis of the unemployed 
will be loud enough and the position of employers 
will be painful enough ; but if the situation is 
aggravated by the substitution of dear bread for 
cheap bread, with dearer tea, dearer sugar, and 
dearer meat, then the Government, which en- 
tered with so light a heart upon such a war, 
will find that it has brought ihe country to the 
verge of a revolution. The towns of England and 
Scotland are Just beginning to awake from a 
hideous dream! Their poor went mad and drunk 
with their rich in 1899 and 1900. But in every 
class in every town there was a handful of men 
who kept their heads, who foresaw the misery 
which the war must bring, not only to South 
Africa, but to our own doors. These handfuls 
have been growing into multitudes, and they will 
become irresistible when once it is made clear 
by events that the British poor are to be pinched 
and starved in order that Park-lane may reduce 
wages in Johannesburg. 
THE LA.RGKST SUG;\R PLANT IN THE 
WORLD. 
Mr. E B Hawley of Louisiana, an ex-Congressman, 
and sugar planter in the Southern States, has be- 
como interested in a large enterprise in Cuba. A 
private syndicate of which he is the head hns secured 
64,000 acres of the finest land in Cuba which they 
intend to plant in sugar canes for export to the 
States. This has caused something of a sensation 
in planting circles, and the opinion has been ex. 
presKcd that the competition which will result will 
seriously affect the Louisiana sugar industry. Ac. 
cording to the "Picayune " iilr. Hawley has shipped 
to Cuba the largest sugar manufacturing plant that 
has been made in America, or, for that part, in the 
world. The name of the company is the Chapparra 
SugHr Company, its domicile New York, and the 
plantation is situated at Puerto Padre, Cuba, extend 
ing over many miles of territory and embracing 100 
p^uare miles of the tiaeat sagaK landa on the island. 
The crushing plant was built by the Whitney Iro** 
Works, New Orleans, and consists of six Corliss en- 
gines, of 150, 250 and 30 horse power, two of each size. 
Two sets of nine roller mills, with Marshall crushers 
in each, the rollers seven feet by thirly-fonr inches, 
fitted with hollow steel shafts, built at Bethlehem, Pa. 
This is only the crushing plant, and that alone was 
built here at a cost of somethiusi more than |150,000. 
The boilers were produced in New York. They are 
of 6,0;i0 horse power, of the Babcock & Wilcox type, 
40-tubft boilers. The refinery plant was bought in 
Philadelphia, with the exception of one machine, 
which was proprietary, and had to be produced in 
Europe. The refinery plant consists of three 13-foot 
vacuum pans, two sets of triple efiects, of the Lilly 
type, twenty-four crystallizera in motion, and twenty- 
four water-driven centrifugals. The capacity of the 
mills and refinery is 3,000 tons per day, and it is pro- 
posed to increase the plant at the earliest momeut, 
as it will not be sufficient for the needs of the com- 
pany another year. Tne Company has several locomo- 
tives, and a complete t'-ansportatiou plant on the 
island already, which will be extended as the land 
is gradually brought into cultivation. The Deming 
system of clarification is to be used in the refinery, 
and the inventor of the system is now building the 
plant for the Company at the Payne-Joubert woiks 
in New Orleans. This is the largest single consign- 
ment of machinery that has ever gone out of the city, 
and it is to be followed by more from the same source 
for the same Company. Altigether it will constitute 
the largest sugar cane crushing plant on a single 
plantation in the world.— JVcc; Orleans Pieaijune. 
PLANTING NOTES. 
Tka. — With regard to tea-growing in the 
United States, the G'asrjow Herald says:— "lb 
will be interesting to .see the practical result of 
the successful experiments reported iu the official 
statement from Waihington. It is, of cour.se, 
likely enough that, in the vast vaiiety of it.s 
soil and climate, the United States has good op- 
portunities for the culture of the tea plant : but 
soil and climate are not the only important factors 
in the case. One most vital consideration is the 
cost of labour, and iu regard to this, it is hard to 
see how America can compare with China, India 
Ceylon, or even SAta,\.— Indian Witness, Jan. 16 
Coffee.— One-half the world's production of 
coffee berries is brought to the United States. 
Americans are the greatest coffee drinkers on 
the face of the globe now, and every year the 
consumption of coffee is increasing here. Last 
year it was more than 80,000,000 pounds for the 
whole country or more than ten and a half pounds 
a head of the population. Germany and France 
together only consume half as much coffee. 
Germany, less than six and a quarter pounds per 
head, and Fiance only four and a half pounds 
per capita. The United Kingdom used little more 
than half a pound of the berries per head of the 
population, but over there they made up for it 
by drinking more tea tban any other nation. 
More than a million dollars is sent out of the 
United States every week in payment for coffee. 
South and Central American countries, which 
supply us with more than 6,000,000 pounds of 
coffee a year, get most of the money. Porto 
Kico, Java and the Philippines get almost all 
the Rest, but a little goest to Hawaii. Last year 
the total value of the coffee imported into the 
United States was about $60,000,000, and that; 
was less than for several years, because the 
import price of coffee has fallen about one-half.— 
Pradst Get's, * 
