SUGAR CANE AND ITS CULTIVATION. 
The writer thinks he cannot do better than conclude his paper with . 
an extract taken from the Report of the First Federal Commission on 
the Sugar Industry :— : Ae 
“The problem of the sugar industry to-day is not, save in 
subordinate respects, a problem of industry, of wealth, or of pro- 
duction; it is primarily and essentially a problem of settlement 
and defence. No nation can afford to regard lightly the develop- 
ment of its industries, the progress of its wealth, or the economic 
efficiency of its productive machinery. . But, important as these 
things undoubtedly are, they rank, as regards the sugar industry, 
on an inferior plane. The Commonwealth to-day is brought face 
_ to face with one of the gravest problems that has ever taxed the 
ingenuity of statesmanship—that of the settlement of tropical and 
semi-tropical areas by a white population living under standard 
conditions of life. And intimately associated with this problem 
is the question of national defence. 
If the ideal of a White Australia is to become an enduring 
actuality, some means must be discovered of establishing industries 
within the tropical regions. So long as these regions are unoccn- 
pied, they are an invitation to invasion, as well as a source of 
strategic weakness. Granted so much, it follows that the supreme 
justification for the protection of the sugar industry is the part 
that the industry has contributed, and will, as we hope, continue to 
contribute to the problems of the settlement and defence of the 
northern portion of the Australian continent. The recognition of 
the nature of this supreme justification is the first condition of a 
sound public policy in relation to the sugar industry. Relatively 
to it, all other issues are of minor importance.” 
603, 
