Sugar v. Gold. 325 
cessive waves of the incoming tide. The decreasing 
number of estates goes to prove that sugar does not pay 
on a small scale as well as it does on a large one. This 
is quite obvious. It costs as much for a man to look after 
a pan that strikes five tons of sugar as it does for one that 
strikes ten, and many other things are the same. 
There can be no doubt that the profitable production 
of sugar at the present time is not an easy task, but 
competition is so keen that the same remark holds good 
of every business. I have no doubt that the French wine 
grower and the English farmer would make the very same 
observation, yet we do not hear that those businesses are 
* tottering to their fall' and no one expects that the 
vineyards of France or the farms of England will be 
• given over to weeds'. 
That there will always be fluctuations in a business 
with two such uncertain factors as weather and the state 
of the markets must be expected. The vision of the fat 
kine and the lean kine was applicable to agriculture. 
There are signs that the tide is on the turn and the 
long years of depression are coming to an end. The 
returns of the last three months of 1893 are m ost en- 
couraging. On all sides one hears of large returns from 
the soil, small expense in the factory, and sugar turned 
out at a cheap rate. 
With regards to the tightness of the labour market 
owing to gold, there are two things that should not be 
forgotten. First, it is only one kind of labour that goes to 
the diggings. It is a very valuable kind and planters 
regret losing it ; but our coolies are left to sugar, and so 
are the women and boys, and in this country women and 
boys are very useful members of the labouring classes. 
SS 
