The Hawaiian gazette., 1904-03-25
SOME SUGAR FACTS.
Increase in the Consumption Of Swee-Buyns Sugar Of
Germans-Why Not Raise II Here-Cai-
fornia's Opportunity.

| SUCH DIS - III COllIlIlO1l use, anu uOcS llOt,
like the brown cane-sugar, need to be
put through refinery. In some South
| American States, where cane-sugar is an
very-day product, ordinary people can
not afford to eat white sugar, and cube
sugar is very much of a luxury. There
| is only one plantation in the world
that carries the manufacturing process
| right on to a completed white product;
even the Hawaiian Islands ship their
crude results to San Francisco refine
! ry; and the manager of a 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 $r6,ooo,ooo worth of sugar, over
100000 OF which was beet-sugar, from
Germany, Austria, and Russia; this had
10 pass by the East Indies, those great
producers of cane-sugar. And not only
did Japan import it, but of $4,000 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
in direct competition with beet-sugar
from Europe, despite which the latter
not only holds its place but expands
At first there was great prejudice
against it, but it 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
n-I
refneries 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 a 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, hav-
ing the transportation effected through
our finest orchards Our fruit-growers
would form pretty favorable opinion
of Africa's capacity to grow fruit, and it
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 Calfornia-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 a 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
territory, is being advertised on whole
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 |
opportunities to the beet farmer; but
there is one point lacking, towt: fac
tory to furnish a market for the crop.
1t is like a rich pile of gold-bearing
quartz waiting for the erection of
stamp-mill.
This great West has been so greatly |
blessed agriculturally that the writer
ventures the prediction that within ten !
years beet-sugar grown here will drive |
the European article out OF the Asiatc |
East. We have been sugar buyers too |
long; ii 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 it has |
two factors OF increase: increased in !
dNldual consumption and increasing |
population, the combined result of which |
means that many year must elapse be- |
fore this country as a nation exports !
sugar, Consequently the West will have |
rcaped a golden harvest before our East !
fully ees that while nature has not been |
so liberal i'll 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 III wonder at our vast imports. |
True, 1t 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 |
common sense supports the prediction |
In the meantime why does not the West !
realize that, inaSmuch as she started the |
beet-sugar business III America she /
should begin to develop her marvelously
rich sugar districts and supply that !
L
mean California. We showed the world .
that Europe had no monopoly of the
beet; it took Napoleon to show what it
was; he developed great industry in
France because the nation needed the SUI
gar and England's navy forced them to
grow it, it was impossible to import.
California took the European idea, made
demonstration of success, and instead
OF going ahead in two OF the richest
valleys known to man, switched her
energies 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
test; it was absolutely novel, the grow
ing OF sugar beetS by irrigation, but
California again achieved success, one
that the sugar world admires, so that
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