SUGAR WILL NEVER SLUMP

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 17936, 2 August 1920, Page 5

SUGAR WILL NEVER SLUMP

THE WORLD IS CEASING TO GROW BEET. Wheat may in time fall in price, though that cannot happen for years to come; but as for sugar, it is very certain that we shall never again see that commodity sold at 3d a pound. Let us go into the matter. Sugar is made from cane and from beet. In 1914, the world produced 11,000,000 tons of cane sugar, and 8,725,000 of beet. The former was grown by coloured labour—negroes, Hawaiians. Cuban.-,, Javanese and Hindoos, while the be6t sugar was produced entirely by white labour. Iffi 1918 the output of cane sugar was much the same as in 1914, but the beet had, fallen to 3,250,000 tons. And there was very little improvement in the output last year. The reason is this: Wages have risen So greatly since the War in all those countries in which beet sugar is produced, that farmers are not going to risk putting capital into beet. They know that they are up against the competition of cane sugar grown by half-clad, half-paid natives of tropical countries. Naturally the farmer is reaching out for the crops which will pay him best, and sugar beet is not among them. So it seems that, as years go on, the white nations will depend more and more upon cane sugar grown by cheap labour, but not cheap to us because it has to be carried over great distances to our markets. Nor is it likely that the acreage of sugar cane will greatly increase, because other tropical crops, in particular the coco-nut, pay so very much better.