THE SUGAR SUPPLY

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 254, 21 July 1920, Page 7

THE SUGAR SUPPLY

A VITAL FIJIAN INDUSTRY. "New Zealand is vitally interested in the question of sugar-growing in Fiji," slates the report of tho Island Trade Commission. All the Dominion's sugar comes from Fiji, aud anything that affects the industry must be felt in this country. The commission found that the position. bf the industry was not satisfactory. Much land owned by the Colonial Sugar Company and leased to white planters has been given up, and other land has been withdrawn frcn cane cultivation. The reasons given are shortage of labour, the low price offered for cane; and the conditions under which the planters work. The price paid for the ctiuo is understood to have increased under the new contract recently concluded by the company with the New ZealtUld Government. There are 60,000 Indians at present in Fiji, many of them_ owning land and in a prosperous financial position, but Fiji could give employment gradually to many times this number The chief grievance of the planters, apart from price, is that the Colonial Sugar Company buys for only one year ahead. The grower takes three years' crops off one planting of cane, and he complains that owing to the shtort contract he is unable to pian his operations in ndvanco with any confidence. Much land would be returned to sugar cultivation if tho planters were given better treatment.

"If the output of sugar is not maintained in Fiji it will be a most serious matter for consumers in New Zealand," adds the 'report. "Indeed, it is necessary that the production should not be merely maintained, but that it should be increased. The exports of sugar from Fiji last year were little more than the exports in 1910, when the population in New Zealand was much smaller than it is now. In 191G 120,000 tons.of sugar were exported; since then tho output has gradually fallen until last year it reached 64,347 tons. This drop in the export of raw sugar from Fiji is undoubtedly the cause of the dearth of sugar which has taken place in New Zealand during the last twelve months. New Zealand depends on Fiji for this most' necessary article of diet. At present Fiji depends on sugar cultivation for her very existence. Anything, therefore, which militates against the maintenance and expansion of the sugar industry must most seriously affect both Fiji and New Zealand."