The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-09-19
AN AUSTRIAN VIEW OF THE BEET
SUGAR QUESTION.

The Sugar Beet Gazette says that
Messrs. Victor Heller and Ferdinand
Goss of Vienna, Austria, representing
a syndicate of the Austrian manufac-
turers of sugar, are visiting the States
during their journey to Japan. These
men state to the editor of the Sugar
Beet Gazette, that in their opinion the
United States will produce their own
sugar within period of ten years, and
will ultimately even become compet-
itOrs as sellers of sugar in the world s
markets.
These views are too sanguine and
optimistic. They disregard the natural
history of all industrial enterprises
which involve large capital and special
training. The speculative period in
the sugar beet industry is over. The
illusions are gone. The brilliant pros
pectuses are thrown in the waste bas-
ket- The opinions of promoters, in the
great majority of commercial enter
prises, are generally unsound, and in
the beet sugar industry, have no longer
any weight.
If within ten years, the United States
will supply its own sugar, mainly from
the beet it goes, without saying, that
the value Of the cane sugar industry
will decline, because it will lose the
protection of the tariff But the safer
estimate is that it will be twenty years
before that condition exists.
1t is claimed by the enthusiasts in
the sugar beet industry that the knowl-
edge and skill acquired by a better
knowledge of agricultural science, the
accurate observations of trained
thinkers, makes it possible to reach
profitable results in five years which
could not be reached in twenty years,
during the last generation. There is
truth in this conclusion. but it is not
yet a general truth.
1t is said, in illustration of this rapid
method of progress, that the intelli-
gent farmers already see that the real
profit to be obtained out of the sugar
beet industry lies in the by-product of
cattle food, and not in the sugar itself
or in other words, the profits of the
residue, of the beet, after the sugar is
extracted, to be obtained from cattle
feeding and the enriching of the soils
by manures, viii reduce the cost of
beet sugar to point where 1t will defy
the competition of the cane sugar. Per-
haps it may.
1t is also said that the day of cheap
labor in the tropics is over, that in the
countries from which the laborers in
the sugar cane fields have been drawn,
India, China and Japan, the price Of
wages is gradually rising, and that,
every year, the facilities for cheap and
rapid transportation are increasing.
If there is permanent rise of wages, |
it will affect of course the cost of the
cane sugars.
But there is. and will be, more and
more, sharp competition between the
beet and cane sugar planters. The cost
of producing cane sugar has been re-
duced to a surprisingly low figure. At
the same time, brains and experience
are reducing the cost of beet sugar.
The unknown factor is the brain power
at work in economical production.
The raisin makers of California do now
produce as good and cheap an article
as that which comes from the Mediter
ranean, while they pay $500 per day
for labor as against so cents paid in
Italy and Spain. Any one who makes
a valuable prediction as to what the
cost of beet sugar will be in the United
States, must be familiar with the acute
perceptions and the marvellous skill of
the American mind in inventing labor
saving devices. Every forecast of al
limitation upon it, in the past, has
been in error.
The American farmers are driven to