The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-03-23
SOME SUGAR FACTS.
increase in the Consumption of Swses-Buyns Sugar of
Germans-Why Not Raise It tsre-CaI-
fornia's Opportunity.

every -udy pIOQICt, ordinary people car
not afford to eat white sugar, and cube
sugar IS very much OF luxury. There
IS only one cane-plantation in the world
that carries the manufacturing process
right on TO completed white product
even the Hawaiian Islands ship their
crude results to a San Francisco refine
~; and the manager of plantation
down there may have white sugar on his
table that as the raw article left his very
presence TO travel TO California, there to
be refined and reshipped to Honolulu,
and to appear in a white suit at its birth
place. Japan, alone, in 1901 imported
some SI6,ooo,ooo worth of sugar, over
100000 of which was beet-sugar, from
Germany Austria, and Russia: this had
to pass by the East Indies, those great
producers of cane-sugar. And not only
did Japan import it, but of IS, 900 tons
of all kinds of sugar imported by China,
10000 tons was European beet-sugar
Hongkong IS the greatest sugar mar
ket of the East, there being two large
refneries wnlcn handle the 'raws" from
Java and the Philippines, and distribute
the refined article throughout the East
III direct competition with beet-sugar
from Europe, despite which the latter
not only holds its place but expands
AT tlrst there was a great prejudice
against 1t, but 1t has worked itself into
broad use and proved, by gaining
market, that it is in every way equal
to the refined cane-sugar. In truth, to
quote a standard authority: The sugar
refineries of Java do not produce an ar
ticle equal to the product imported from
Continental Europe. Even little Bel
GUM sends sugar to the Far East. Rus
STA has the reputation OF making good
sugar also. Considering everything, we
learn that sugar from the cane not only
Supplies much less than half the worlds
wants, but is actually so weak that the
quiet beet has gone ahead and captured
some OF its very strongest markets that
literally lie under the shadow of the
growing cane.
Imagine California drawing on Africa
for fruit, and, what Is even worse, hay
ing the transportation effected through
Our finest orchards. Our fruit-growers
would form pretty favorable opinion
of Africa's capacity to grow fruit, and 1t
would not be long before either State
or national effort would have investi-
gated every feature of the African in
dustry. That is exactly how it is with
the sugar beet; wideawake men have
been making fortunes for years. East
of California-that is in Utah, Colorado,
Nebraska, Michigan, Ohio, New York,
and Canada-the beet is fast becoming
a common crop, and why? Because the
farmer, thanks to the enterprise of cap
ital gets chance TO grow beets. They
don't do things east of here as we do.
For instance, one of the greatest ranches
in the State, heretofore principally wheat
r1,Cla
sale scale as a magnificent property per-
fectly adapted, among many other things,
to the growth of the sugar beet, and it
really is so suited; it offers innumerable
to the beet farmer; but
there is one point lacking, to-wit fac
tory to furnish a market for the crop.
1t is like a rich pile of gold-bearing
quartz waiting for the erection of a
stamp-miil.
This great West has been SO greatly
blessed agriculturally that the writer
the prediction that within ten
years beet-sugar grown here will drive
the European article out of the Asiatic
East. We have been sugar buyers too
long; it is time to make complete
change in our policy, sell it instead; but
to do that we must wake up, must see
clearly that not only is there a tremen-
dous want to be met, but that 1t has
two factors of increase: increased in
dividual consumption and increasing
population, the combined result of which
means that many year must elapse be-
fore this country as nation exports
sugar. Consequently the West will have
reaped a golden harvest before our East
fully sees that, while nature has not been
so liberal in arranging their agricultural
resources, farmers there have neverthe-
less been given such facilities to grow
the sugar-beet that some day we shall
look back in wonder at our vast imports.
True, it will be many year, but the
raw material is there, and the demand
for the finished product, refined sugar,
is not only enormous but is growing, so
sense supports the prediction
In the meantime why does not the West
realize that, inasmuch as she started the
beet -sugar business in America, she
should begin to develop her marvelously
rich sugar districts and supply that
great demand? And by the West l
mean California We showed the world
that Europe had no monopoly of the
beet; it took Napoleon to show what 1t
was; he developed a great industry in
France because the nation needed the STU
gar and England's navy forced them 10
grow it; it was impossible to import.
California took the European idea, made
4 demonstration of success, and instead
Of going ahead in two of the richest
valleys known to man, switched her
into several of our minor Coast
districts, and sent much of her best
blood to the poorer regions OF Utah, |
Colorado, the East, and Canada. Prob
ably there was a purpose in the Utah |
est; it was absolutely novel, the grow
ng of sugar-beets by irrigation, but |
California again achieved a success, one
hat the sugar world admires, so that
oday irrigation guarantees success to
he dry lands of the interior The farmer |
s ready to try it, but San Francisco
seems afraid, more so than twenty-five |
7ears ago, when there was not an oper-
lting beet-sugar factory on the Amer |
can continent Then San Francisco, |
md a small country town twenty-five |
niles out. raised the money TO build what |