206 ; QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Mar., 1898. . 
Tropical Industries. 
GUARANTEE SUGAR-MILLS. 
THE NAMBOUR SUGAR-MILL. 
By A. PITMAN CORRIE. 
Wiru considerable interest many Queenslanders are watching the development 
of the sugar industry under the new and State-aided system of “‘ guarantee” 
mills. The system, ’tis true, has not gone beyond the tentative stage ; but, 
nevertheless, it may be regarded as a success, if one is entitled to judge from 
its present state of development. Because the prospects are encouraging, this 
system (which has been extensively availed of) is awakening hopes where 
previous experience had given disappointment, and inspiring confidence where 
distrust and suspicion once held possession. 
Sugar production in Queensland is a large and important industry, and 
upon its success or failure a destiny depends. Already it has experienced 
many ups and downs. Fortune is so fickle. But, in spite of disasters—in 
spite of the fact that, to some at least, the industry seems to have been born 
under an unlucky star—it has survived the repeated shocks, and gives signs of 
great vitality. 
In some parts of the colony the industry, at its inception, carried things 
by storm. It conquered by force of its own attraction. People were captivated 
on all sides, and the Nambour farmers did not escape the influence of the 
spell it cast. They yielded to the common infatuation, and their enthusiasm 
—perhaps a little unreflective in the cireumstances—threw upon them a load 
of disappointments when the reaction set in, and the pendulum swung back. 
Some twelve or fourteen years ago a speculator proposed to put down, on 
the Maroochy River, several cane-crushing plants and a refinery for treatment 
of juice. ‘To this end machinery was ordered and delivered in Brisbane. The 
hopes of the farmers were raised to the highest, when financial embarrass- 
ments cropped up, and soon the enterprise was knocked on the head. 
Unfortunately, many of the farmers had mortgaged their farms so as to plant 
cane, and now they were on the horns of adilemma. They had their newl 
planted canefields, their mortgages; but—aye, there was the rab—no mills, The 
enterprise was nipped in the bud of promise. In their sad and sorry plight 
what could they do but retrace their footsteps. So they demolished their 
fields, abjured cane-culture, and, with feelings of chagrin and disappointment, 
returned to potatoes, corn-growing, timber-getting, and other prosaic pursuits. 
These are a part of “the skort and simple annals” of the Maroochy River 
farmers, many of whom are included in the district over which the Nambour 
Sugar-mill now holds sway. They found that— 
The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 
Yea, the grave of buried hopes and expectations. 
For a decade at least it was held not polite to allude to the sugar industry 
in the presence of some of the more impetuous ones who had burnt their 
fingers. The iron had entered their souls; and although sugar is all sweetness, 
they were, by some strange law of contradiction, turned to bitterness. Bearing 
these facts mm mind, one can see that a proposal to reintroduce the sugar 
industry would get, in an ironical sense, “a warm reception.” But things 
had altered. In the meantime the North Coast Railway had been extended 
