CONCERNING SUGAR

Hokitika Guardian, 2 October 1930, Page 8

CONCERNING SUGAR

WHY NOT THE EMPIRE PRODUCT?

In glancing through the statistical report of “Trade and Shipping” ot the Dominion for 1929 it is curious

to note that in these days of “Trade Within the Empire” slogans and campaigns, New Zealand appears to have practically abandoned the idea of buying its raw sugar from British eountriesj and is spending quite a lot of money sweetening up the sugar interests in Cuba and the Dutcli East Indies.

In 1925 we spent over £1,000,000 in our neighbouring colony, Fiji, on sugar produced there by British labour and British capital, and brought here in British bottoms. We” also understand that the refined product made from the raw material from Java or Cuba. Fiji is also quite a fair customer of ..ours, and might be made a better one, but neither Cuba nor Java take anything from us worth quoting. Fiji is the nearest sugar field to uS, and there must be something peculiai about the world’s market if it pays better to import raw sugar all the way from Cuba or Java, than from so nearby a British country as Fiji. However, the Blue Book referred to shrows that in addition to £626,000 for petroleum products, and £58,000 for kapok, we imported over £400,000 worth of raw sugariJrom the Dutcli East Indies Mst year. Our total annual debits to that foreign territory amounted to the tidy sum of £1,153,000, and in return we were favoured with orders for goods to the value of £19,000, mostly butter, which was not greatly affected in price by filling the order, and the adverse balance of trade between us and the Dutch was still in the region of £1,500,000. We also imported from Cuba raw sugar to the value of nearly £250,000, with £6,000 worth of Havana cigars thrown in, and in return Cuba took from us goods to the value of £362, but just that products filled this generous order, it is difficult to trace through the .labyrinth of a bulky Blue Book. Buli the bald fact remained that “our debt to America” (through Cuba) was increased by another quarter of a million pounds sterling. It appears that Canada has a preferential tariff on Empire sugar, so the good Fiji sugar is shipped there, and the inferior foreign stuff is shipped here, mostly in foreign ships, while our own lie in “Rotton Row” in the Waitemata; at Port Chalmers, and other ports. The culture of sugar beet has been successfully carried out in New Zealand, but there may be some reason, why it could not largely replace the cane variety here as it has in England. It would be much better for our farmers if a million a year could be diverted from foreign creditors into our own agriculturists’ pockets.—N.Z. National Review.