1 Jury, 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 111 
The first is the refinery. Say that it will cost £100,000. Now, twelve into 
£100,000 will be £8,000 per mill, say, to be paid up in eight years. Withinterest and 
redemption that will be about £1,200 per year per mill. Take it as a standard that 
each mill turns out 5,000 tons of sugar per year. 
Now I will take the Mulgrave mill. ‘The farmers receive 12s. 6d. per ton for 
their cane, and it costs the mill, to turn out their raw sugar, £9 9s. per ton of sugar. 
Now, their 5,000 tons of raw sugar, at £9 9s. per ton, is £47,250, interest and 
redemption on refinery. About £1,200 brings it up to £48,450; the cost of refining 
per ton of sugar, say, £1 10s., brings it up to £55,950; transmission from the mill 
to refinery will be in Brisbane, say, £1 per ton, that brings the total to £60,950. 
We demand tlie market price. say, at £16 per ton; that would be for the 5,000 
tons of refined sugar, £80,000. Deduct the above £60,950, the cost of milling and 
‘refining, and it leaves a balance of £19,050 net profit; thatis, about £3 16s. per ton profit. 
The average to make a ton of refined sugar is, say, 10 tons of cane, so that the net 
profit of £3 16s. per ton of refined sugar would represent to the canegrower an extra 
value of about 7s. 7}d. per ton of cane, which being added to the 12s. 6d. which he 
has already received, would give a total price of £1 Os. 14d. per ton of cane. These 
figures clearly show that by attaching a State refinery to the operations of our State 
central mills, the growers would receive the full value of their crops, which enormous 
loss must now keep them poor and render them unable to meet their engagements to 
the Government, and the same enormous loss of the farmer becomes the extraordinary 
profit of the two existing private refineries. 
I wish to draw your attention to the full benefit. “Not only would we receive 
nearly double what we are already receiving, but at the same time we are paying off 
the cost of the refinery, and in eight years it becomes our property. Then redemp- 
tion and interest having ceased, the grower would receive so much more. 
I hope you gentlemen at this Conference will see the necessity of a State 
refinery, and place the farmer in a position to render him able to discharge his 
liability to the Government. 
It is only the refinery that will save the sugar industry in the North; if it is not 
established, the industry will be bled to death for the benefit of private refineries. 
Mr. Chairman and gentlemen. I think I have clearly demonstrated by figures 
the advantage that the farmer would receive by the establishment of a State refinery. 
Noindustry can possibly stand such a tremendous draw on its vitality, and it explains 
the agonising struggles of us canegrowers, which really are all in a nutshell, and 
which will all be removed by at once establishing a State refinery. 
Now that I have struck the keynote let us agitate until a State refinery is an 
accomplished fact. 
DISCUSSION. 
Mr. Bi. Newrrr (Birthamba): It seems a large matter to ask the Government 
to establish a State refinery, although for my part I am very much in favour of 
a State refinery on behalf of the canegrowers of Bundaberg. That is what we 
haye need of. But there is no necessity for calamity-howling in the matter. 
. There is a man on the Mary River who is getting his 300 tons of sugar-cane off 
9 acres of land, and for this he receives 10s. a ton from the refinery that is 
already established there. What is more, he earns his own food off that land 
and does all the work himself. With regard to what has been said on the 
labour question, I may tell this audience that my poor old mother was able to 
erow cane in the Bundaberg district with success. 
Mr. Tos. Brynte (Cairns): In his reference to calamity-howling the last 
speaker has attacked the sugar industry in a way that was uncalled for. I 
would like to say this, however: We have not been trying to force ourselves 
and our industry upon the Southern people, but the Southern people have 
seemed to practically force us forward in a way that we did not need. I think 
there has been too much prominence given to the sugar industry. I live by 
sugar, but I think the industry has occupied too much of your attention here. 
Voices: No, 
Mr. Brnnin: Mr. Robert has read a paper on a sugar refinery. He is my 
next-door neighbour, but I do not believe in the paper he has read. The 
Mulgrave Central Mill and the other central mills that are doing well will 
gh iect to being forced into a scheme that will financially associate them with 
mills that are not doing well. Ina way I do believe in the principle of Mr. 
Robert’s paper, but, as saidgbefore, a mill like the Mulgrave would object to 
have to take the Mount Bauple under its wing. (Laughter.) i 
