BRITAIN GROWING OWN SUGAR.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3144, 20 November 1922, Page 8

BRITAIN GROWING OWN SUGAR.

(By J. Saxon Mills.) Those who have been trying for many years to get the sugar-growing industry naturalised in England, must be very gratified to know that there are now two sugar-beet factories in England in active operation—one at Cantley, in Norfolk, and the other at Kelbam, near Newark. Wo all learnt during the war when the sugar-dole was 6oz. per bead per week that sugar is something more than "the delight of infancy and the consolation of old-age." We realised that it is one of the raost vuvpoctaut articles of elementary consumption, entering as a raw material into many important manufactures and necessary to the utility of many fruit-crops. Wo are enormous sugar-eaters in England, and that is satisfactory, because it is .said that sugar-consumption is a rough test of comparative civilisation. Our figure before the war was 91b per bead per annum, which is the second highest in the world. In the year 1913, the last full year of pre-war peace, we imported into England very nearly two million tons of sugar, the much larger proportion of which was sugar manufactured from the beet. It shows how little we thought of the security of our foodsupplies during a possible war that 5.'? per cent, of our sugar requirement came from Germany and Austria, the very countries which we were destined to fight. ' Now it is not too much to say that if wo chose we could grow all the sugar we need in our own soil. Experiments and experience have shown conclusively that our soil and climate are not onlv suitable to the growth of sugarbect. but. almost exceptionally so. Of course, it will be a tremendous enterprise, lasting over many years, to enable us to grow even a quarter of the immense supplies we require. But even that would ho a magnificent achievement, and would revive the life and prosperity of our rural districts as nothing else could. For sugar-growing is the finest agricultural industry in the world. No nation that has ever adopted it would dream of giving it up. With its two great departments of field and factory, it distributes its employment over the whole vear. providing work and wages in the' winter months when they are. usually scarcest. The seed is sown in April, and the roots lifted in October. Then collies the process of extracting and refining the sugar, which fills the dark side ol the year. Tin- building of a sugar factory in iinv countryside in the midst or the acres which fill its pans and vats with the roots moans new wealth and welfare for that district. From a farming point of view the industry is invaluable. It raise the whole standard of farming, compels clean and deep culture, and greatly increases the yield of all crops with which the beet is grown in rotation. A few figures about what has been achieved mav be useful. The two factories at Cantley and Kelhani, which were not running at more than hall I licit- capacity, employed last year 800 men, with a' wage list of £3OOO per week during the manufacturing season. Last year 7937 acres were under this crop, wages amounting to- £03,500 being found for 1000 additional laborers. At the two factories G363 tons of sugar were produced, amounting to about two davs' consumption in this country. 1 should add that this year about 8500 acres are growing the beet. Some idea mav be formed of the benefits we shall derive from developing the industry. If only a quarter of the sim-ar we imported in 1920 were produced here, 30,000 additional men would get work on the land, and 15,000 in the factory during the winter, with 2.300 also in the factory certain work there in the summer. Well may we wish the pioneers of this enterprise everv sucoss.