1 Sepr., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 311 
to introduce. it when Germany is since 
bounties. The great European offender 
does not go to India, because what she makes is unsuitable. The Indian 
Government could probably stop the use of eranulated to-morrow by simply 
having the fact circulated among the priests and Brahmins that it was refined 
- with animal charcoal, probably containing the bones of the sacred animal, the 
cow, and very probably those of the unclean animal, the pig, as well. No 
orthodox Hindoo would touch it if he knew this. Not thatit would be desirable 
to pander to such superstition, but from an economical point of view it would 
be ee objectionable than countervailing duties. 
The “ anti-bounty” mind has been naturally much exercised over the Indian 
question. Relatively trivial imports (such as we have named) are treated as 
threatening the destruction of the Indian industry, and dismal predictions are 
made of the extinction of large portions of the land revenue, on which the 
Government lives, and of the abandonment of large quantities of irrigated land, . 
to the great loss of the taxpayer, who has erected the canals. ‘The irrigated 
area in 1896-7 under food crops was 27,500,000 acres. Of this, 25,500,000 
was under cereals, and 2,000,000 under other food crops, sugar not being 
separately stated in the statistical abstract, but not likely to amount to any large 
total, as the cultivation is spread over the whole Empire, of which the irricated 
land forms a small proportion. The whole outcry purports to be based ‘upon 
the fact that the Indian sugar area fell off 84 per cent. in 1896-97 ; but surely 
the famine fully accounts for this, other foods being more profitable. The cat 
is let out of the bag by the assertion that Indian refined sugar, which used to 
sell at 11 to 16 rupees per maund (25 lb.), coul 
d not compete with German beet 
at 8 rupees per maund—in fact, what the Indian sugar refi 
protection, in order to raise the pues they get 30 to 
stood that for many years, and till quite recently, sugar-cane was the most 
lucrative of all the Indian crops. In the bad Sugar year (1896-97) the Indian 
area under sugar was below 20,000 acres less than In 1893-94, the only other 
year we have the figures for, so that, if it fell off 83 per cent. as alleged, there 
must have been. a great increase in 1894, 1895, and 1896. The Ryots, however. 
cannot escape the effects of the great depreciation in values all over the world, 
and this may lead to some redistribution of crops. 
\ But, if so, the land tax 
being on the cultivated area we cannot see where the In 
4 ; ‘ dian revenue would lose. 
Sugar land, indeed, sometimes has a special rate levied, but otherwise it 
ays the rate of ordinary “wet crops.” The substitution of one wet crop 
or another could not have much effect over a term of years. Tt is possible that 
the Indian land revenue might decrease if the Ryots on the whole found their 
total earnings from land under all crops fall off so much that the land tax 
had to be reassessed on a lower scale. This, however, if it ultimately took 
place, would be an effect of a general movement in ¢h, 
>M.eL € price of agricultural 
produce, and could not be affected by the substitution of one 
: : ; crop for another, At 
the present moment jaggery sugar is fetching 30 to 40 per cent, more in. this 
market than it did a few years back, and this does not look like the annihilation 
of the Indian sugar trade, with its cultivated area of nearly 2,789,000 acres in 
the unfavourable year, 1896-97. It must be 
] 3 _ © remembered that the position in 
the East Indies is totally different to that of our West Indian Islands. Indiaisa 
producing and consuming country, and only at intervals an exporter, while most 
of her supplies of fine sugar have for years been imported, owing to the 
inferior Indian methods of manufacture. It is to be remembered, too, that, as 
the economical condition of the Indian peoples improves, as we are glad to 
believe it does, they will, like ourselves, call for better sugar than the sticky 
black substitutes as yet supplied to them. I So, the crystals must be imported, 
as they are not locally produced. Low sea freights and railways in India have 
no doubt enabled foreign sugar to penetrate more deeply into the Empire, and 
the local Government seems to have taken fright at what is a purely economical 
change, having nothing or next to nothing to do with bounties. Tt would have 
been better to take steps to put up model sugar factories in India itself, to 
rely desirous of putting an end to the 
in this respect is France, and her sugar 
ners want is sugar 
100 per cent. It is under- 
