The Sugar Bounties.

Evening Star, Issue 7360, 4 November 1887, Page 4

The Sugar Bounties.

The following letter was addressed to the Wellington ' Evening Press,' and appeared a few days ago in the columns of that journal. Its interest is such as to make it worthy of study : Rupublique Francaise, Wellington, le 25th Octobre, 1887. Vice-Consu!at do Franco eu Novella Zelandc. No. 296. Sir,—l have just attentively read, with great interest, your yesterday's leader, entitled " Beggar my Neighbor," and relating to the beet cultivation and the beet sugar industry in France and other Continental countries. While I totally agree with you with regard to the evil principles and final results of the sugar bounties system, as it is carried en at present, I think it is my duty to offer you some rectifications upon a few of your assertions concerning the part of lesponsibility ascribable to France in this matter. 1. You are mistaken when you say that " the system of bounties was first introduced in France in order to enable that country to supply herself with sugar, independently of Great Britain and her colonies." It is true that the beet sugar industry, born in Germany, has been introduced into France, Prussia, and Russia simultaneously during the year 1814, as a consequence of the Continental blockade. It is true that on March 29. 1811, the Emperor Napoleon the First had ordered 75,000 acres of land to be sown with beet seeds, and L 40.000 to be distributed as encouragement amongst the beet-growers. But it is no less true that from 1815 to 1884 the» was no bounty, no premium, for exportation given to the French beet sugar makers in order to enable them to ceinpete with cane sugar. France possesses many colonies producing large quantities of cane sugar—Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion, Guyane, etc., etc. These colonies Lave their elected representatives in our Parliament for protecting their special interests. From 1815 to 1884 the French legislation of Customs has been mostly in favor of French colonial cane sugar, against ir.digenuus beet sugar. I acknowledge that by our iaw of July 29, 1884, the respective situation of both industries has been deeply changed, to tho great advantage of the latter. Why ? The French } Parliament has modified, in ISB4, the basis of tho excise duty on sugar, by necessity. Up to that time the internal duty was paid on every quantity of home-manufactured sugar, this duty being equivalent to the import duty on colonial cane sugar. In case of export, the duty paid was nearly exactly refunded, without bounty or premium. Unfortunately the fiscal legislation adopted, since tho year 1840, by our neighbor the German Zollverein (afterwards tho German Empire) had finally given such advantages to the German beet sugar makers that the change of our own legislation was for un, commercially speaking, a question of life or death. In Germany, indie I, the internal duty was paid—not on everyquantityof manufactured beet sugar, as in France —but on the raw material only, the charge being about one shilling per hundred kilogrammes (2201b) of beet to be pressed. For exported German sugar the duty was refunded, not according to the exact tax prepaid on beet, but on a certain percentage of sugar, legally fixed, which the beetroot was supposed to yield. Allow rnn, sir, to explain to you, in a few words, for the benefit of your readets, the general scheme of the Kugar bounties created by the Gorman Zollverein, and necessarily followed, though reluctantly, by France and others. Suppose a German sugar-maker bringing into his factory 1,000,000 (one million) kilogrammes of beet root. He bad to prepay an excise duty amounting (one shilling per 100 kilos) to 10,000 marks (L 500) This 1,0C0,000 kilo's of beet were legally estimatud, in regard to export, as yielding (say at 8 per cent, of sapcharino matter) 80 tons of sugar. But by improvement of his cultivation and of his machinery, this clevor Herman sugarmaker obtains now a yield of 18 per cent, of sugar, say 120 tons instead of 80. Suppose ho exports the lot. Whi\t is the result? The internal duty ho lias prepaid on 1,000,000 kilos or beet (L 500) is refunded to him by his Government it the rate of 1,500,000 kilos t.f bee 1 , representing 120 .tons of sugar at 8 per cont. (L 750) say, in this instance a bounty of about L2 2s per ton of exported fcugar. Now, what has the French legislator of 188* dope? He has given to the French sugar-maker, to enab'e him to compete with the Germans (not with the cane syigryr-makers), the option either to pay the excise on manufactured sugar as previously, save ft deduction of 8 per cent., or to pay it t,a the raw material, as in Germany, the legal percentage of saccharine matter taxable being six and a-half tons of sugar per 100 tons of beet. This legal percentage is yrarly increased so that after five or six years the actual bounties, progressively decreasing, will be prac? tically abolished. I think, sir, you are now acknowledging the fact that Franco has not been the first to introduce tho actually existing bounty system, but has only made it provisional ac a measure of retaliation.

2. Your gad description of the situation of the French agriculture in the beet-producing and sugar-manufactwtcg countries does not seem to me to be wholly accurate. O.ur soil is not at all exhausted by an enormous production of beet, because v/e hs.ve everywhere a three years' or five years' rotation of crops. Besides, by the cultivation of beetroot, our farmers obtain a Jarger yield of wheat and other cereals, savo a great deal of e«pcns.3s in cattle feeding, dairy farm, etc. On the other hand, the general situation of the French sugar factories is good, except for the small ones who are obliged to cons diJato for existence. The dividends average 19 per cent. I know of some instances where ih£ shareholders have got G5 per cent, in 1886. No failure of large factories have been reported for the last eighteen months. In my opinion, without bounties Ilia beet sugar industry in France would bo now, as previously, very remunerative, provided that our neighbors be on the same footing. 3. As regards the compared cost of production of sugar from beet and from cane, you assert that this cost ia two or three times greater for the former than for th,s latter. That was true some years ago for the manufacture, but not for the cultivation of the beet. Bui now, with labor-saving implements, improved machinery, new chemical discoveries, the cost is nearly identical, and in some instances, without taking the bounties into account, at the advantage of beet 4. Ia the beet sugar incomparably inferior to thecane sugar?—Of course, generally. But many French and German factories', and that at Alvarda, California, with improved refining meanF, make, from beet, sugar which cannot be distinguished in any way, as to appearance, color, sweetening power, crystallisation, etc., etc., from the best sugar cane by tho most skilled analyst. Of course it is a little dearer now than the average cane sugar obtainable. To bring this long letter to a close, I ailude ytith great pleasure to the words you have quoted from Mr Lance, M.H.R. It is perfectly tr.ue in some places—in Normanby, Picardie, Fiandre, »n,J elsewhere—farmers clear as much as 1/50 per annum from previously unproductive land; that villages have reared themselves into wealthy towns in a few years through the development of the beet alone. Why ? Because the beet is not useful only as a sugar-producing matter; the accessory profits derived from it, the improvement of land, being far more important in France, Germany, Russia, and others, than the sugar itself, ft r many cultivations, many industries, and for the general welfare of those countries.— I have, etc., COMTE L. DE JOUPFBOr D'ABBANS.