104 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Ava., 1898. 
its seaboard, but the main cause was the bad outlook and ruinous competition. That 
estate alone turned out 6,000 tons of sugar. You see it is the terrible uncertainty that 
causes us to abandon the estates. We could never have kept going so long had it not 
been that the plantations have, as a rule, been worked by big capitalists. Hven if we 
could compete witha 30s. or a £3 bounty to-day, we always have to fear a £6 bounty 
to-morrow, for, roughly speaking, France has had a bounty of that extent before. Itis 
the uncertainty that kills. So far, we have been hoping against hope. In the old 
slavery question there was a given quantity with which to fight. In this question 
there 1s none; you cannot ascertain the cost of sugar when it depends on the whims 
of foreign Governments. Business men will readily acquiesce when I say that there 
is nothing worse than uncertainty of this kind, 
“The foreign producers are often selling below actual cost, I suppose ? 
“T will give you an illustration of that. I went to see the French chemist 
concerning whom I spoke to you just now, after he had returned home and started a 
beet-sugar factory. He was showing me round, and I put the question to him of the 
cost of his sugar on the factory floor. The answer I got was that the cost to him 
was nearly £14 per ton. He was selling it at rather more than £12 per ton, and 
making about £2 profit. There is the beauty of the bounty system.” 
“Your opponents consider that the West Indies might produce other things than 
sugar more profitably,” was our representative’s next remark. 
“Well, I have grown sugar and several other things in various parts of the 
world,” was the reply, “and I do not see what could be done. You must consider 
each place by itself. Barbados, for instance, is singularly adapted for sugar. Under 
normal freetrade conditions, it is by far the best sugar island in the world. A very 
fertile soil and excellent natural drainage combine in its favour. I do not know what 
else they could grow more profitably than sugar. Then, take thé case of Demerara. 
The coast lands are good for little else than sugar. ‘The cost of working and artificial 
drainage will act against the small plantation. Up river, a little coffee can be 
produced, a little cocoa, perhaps, and some cotton. But—who would do it? Look at 
the enormous amount of capital that will be lost if the sugar fails. Who is going to 
make any further effort 2?” 
“But when the Ceylon coffee-planters failed t' ey took to tea, and made big 
profits. Surely you could change from sugar to something else ve 
“Yes. But it is necessary to bear in mind that it costs little to change from 
coffee to tea. There were not big amounts of capital to be abandoned. You talk of 
energy. The Ceylon planters never showed anything like the energy of the West 
Indians. We used to grow sugar at £23 to £24 a ton. We have fought all the way 
down to £10, and we have done it by improved methods und so forth. We have not 
stood still, | can assure you.” 
“ How about Indiarubber as an alternative product 2” 
“ Well, we tried it in Ceylon, and it was a great failure. Itis a difficult tree to 
grow, and takes some time to establish. The planters will not throw money away in 
wild speculation of this kind. You might as well talk of establishing oak forests in 
England to start a new industry with. ‘Tea gave profits in three years to the Ceylon 
planters. Indiarubber would take many years before success was assured.” 
“Then there is the appeal for justice,” Mr. Hogg continued. “We are surely 
entitled to access to our own marke’s on reasonable terms. Here we are practically 
shut out of our own markets by foreigners, and our countrymen merely look on and 
smile while a big indust: y and important colonial possessions are ruined. Tam a firm 
believer in the British elector, if the facts could only be placed before him. J have 
addressed several audiences of working men in the Ncrth, at Hull, and other places. 
I have always found them open to reasonable consideration of the difficulty. For it 
is a question that very considerably affects their interests. All the machinery in use 
is British machinery, we burn British coal, the stores are British, and we employ 
British men in the official capacities. It will be a big matter for English Sa eee 
men if the sugar industry is doomed to failure. The loss, too, of 280,000 tons of 
sugar that is at present carried in British ships is no unimportent detail.” 
“You do not attach much importance, then, to the ruin of British industries by 
the rise in the price of sugar 2” 
“T suppose you refer to Lord Farrer’s notion that the jam and biscuit industries 
will be injured. Thatis absurd. In England a jam-maker pays considerably less 
than the Continental maker for his sugar. In the cheapest Continental country he 
pays £9 per ton more. In France he pays £25 per ton more, this being due to the 
uty imposed in the country in order to produce the bounty. ‘The English manufac- 
turer has £10 to £25 the advantage of the position; and to think that he will be ruined 
because sugar is raised £1 or so a ton is ridiculous.” 
