The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-04-24
For the National Era
For the National Era.
FREE LABOR vs. SLAVE LABOR.
PRODUCTION Of sugar-True Policy of the United
States

In the minds of many thinking men, there
seems to, be a natural connection between Su.
gsr and Slavery. 1t is an object, in the present
article, to show that the sweet may be obtained
without the bitter, and that there is no neces-
sary connection between bondage and Musco-
vadoes.
The chemist and the botanist know, and the
merchant knows, too, that the sweet Juice of
any vegetable will, by the process of evapora-
ton, produce sugar; and that many vegeta-
bles-do in reality produce sugar in as large a
quantity as the cane does-such, for example,
as variety of palms, Indeed, almost ALL the
maple, and the beet.
The palms belong to warm countries, mostly
the tropics. Four varieties are cultivated chief
ly to yield sugar, viz: the wild date, Elate ST.
restris, the palmyra, Borass,ts Fabellitormis,)
the sagevire, (Borassus Gomutus,) and the CO.
Goa, Cocos Mucyera) all oriental palms, and
the two latter natives of countries generally
within ten degrees of the equator-say Guiana
and Venezuela-and all of them the produce
of poor soils. The cocoa palm grows luxuri,
antly only in the neighborhood of the sea, and
the three others thrive best in sandy and billy
regions.
In the agriculture of the tropical countries of
the East and West Indies and their main lands,
the palms may be said to stand in the same re-
lation, as to production, that the vine and olive
do in Europe. At eight or nine years of age,
generally, they are fit to yield their juice; and
they yield it without much interruption-the
| quantity varying with the season-for from fif.
teen to twenty-five years. The daily produce
of each individual tree varies; so does the quail
ity. Upon the whole, the labor is so small, the
i. quantity of saccharine matter so great, another
manufacturing process (mere boiling) so sim
pie, that palm sugar is produced at at least one
quarter of the cost of cane sugar of the very
same degree of purity. This forms the great
consumption of the people who belong to the
regions of country we have just quoted, in all
the poorer and most mountainous lands they
possess. In the whole of the countries consti-
tutinR tie southern peninsula of India in the
Birmese and Siamese empires, in Cambodia,
| Tonquin, Ceylon, and the Eastern islands, palm
sugar is largely produced, consumed, and ex-
ported immense quantities could be made
thus useful and profitable on the whole of the
western coast of Africa, with free labor to ac-
complish it, well on all the coast of Brazil,
Venezuela, and New Granada, including the
islands adjacent, which, if it was done, would
supply the whole world abundantly with sugar
the palms growing in quantities on and about
the aforementioned places while we know
that cane sugar is but partial production,
raised either for the consumption of the wealthy
or for expectation. Skill and capital have never
been taxed in the improvement of this commod-
ity; but it may safely be predicted, that if ever
they should be so, it will be found that as cheap
and good a sugar, and as wholesome a spirit,
can never be elaborated, in as abundant a man
ner, from any known production, as from the
juice of the palms.
The next vegetable product which affords
sugar, is the maple.(acer sGcohari"um Of
LinnBus.) This is a far more limited produc-
ton, being confined to Canada and some of
the northern parts of the United States. The
maple sugar, though prepared with considerable
care, is inferior to that of the cane, and its con-
sumption is mostly confined to where it is made.
OF all the articles from which sugar has been
procured largely, the beet root appears to be
the most productive; but it does not equal in
quality the cane or maple. A few thousand
tons of this beet sugar are yearly forced into
existence in France, by heavy discriminating
duties levied on the cane sugar, in the same
manner in which we force our people to con-
sumo bad instead of good liquor.
The most important article in the sugar line
is, of course, the sugar of the cane, yielding a
fine, luscious, saccharine matter, in large guam
tity. The sugar cane, or saccharum obfcina-
rum, is native of the East, whence it was car
ried to the Island of Sicily and the coast of
| Spain, in the Mediterranean, where it was cul-
tivated before the discovery of America. There
is no tropical region of Asia or Africa, in which
the sugar cane is not more or less cultivated,
and its cultivation extends north from the
equator to 800 of latitude, while in the south
it is found as far as Otaheite in about 2O0
1t is difficult, or indeed impossible, to fix
upon any particular country in the East
as the apparent country of the cane for it is
common to almost all. The culture of the
plant, however, and the art of manufacturing
sugar from it, are two very different and distinct
things. The first is nearly general in the Indies,
the cane being produced almost everywhere, in
small quantities, as garden plant to be used
as a vegetable or sweetmeat but as consider
able branch of husbandry, or, in other words,
for the production of sugar, it is cultivated only
! in populous countries and in fertile plains. 1t
is easy TO enumerate countries of Asia in which
| the cane forms large branch of husbandry,
and is the produce of free labor-for example
the plGns of the Ganges; the southeast portion
of the Chinese Empire; the champaign por-
tons of Siam, Cochin China, and Tonquin !;
Suconia or Sucon, the largest island of the
Philippines; and Java, the richest island of the
Indian chipelago-composing an aggregate
area Of $4,000 square miles, and population
of llO,OOO,OOO.
In an agricultural point of view, the sugar
cane needs the same kind of soil that the best
wheat crops do. In its physical and botanical
character, it is in fact of the same nature with
the different descriptions of corn, being, like
them, one of the grawiga, or grasses. The
finest dry soils only are fit to yield the sugar
cane, in the same manner that the best lands
only are fit to yield wheat proftably. This
natural limitation, however, of the countries fit
to yield sugar, is fully compensated by the ex-
istence of extensive countries to which the
Manufacture has not yet extended. Among
these may be enumerated, in India, the great
and fertile province of Guzevat, much of the
| elevated and fertile table land lying between
the two Ghauts, the valley of the Nerbuddah,
| and the valleys of the Indus and its tributary
I streams Out of India, strictly so called, may
! be mentioned, the valley and Delta of the
: Irawaddy, and of the river of Martaban, TO-
] gether with considerable portions of Sumatra.
I In all of these, besides productive soil and
! congenial climate, there exists, what is indis-
penssble, population sufficiently Numerous