A BIG BEET SCHEME

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 120, 29 August 1910, Page 3

A BIG BEET SCHEME

SERIOUSLY CONSIDERED. A representative gathering of Wa-nga-nui farmers and citizens, at a meeting last week, considered the possibility of establishing the beet sugar industry in or near Wanganui. The Mayor, who presided, after referring to the number of flourishing industries already established there, went on to comment on the desirability of establishing the sugar industry, which, he believed, would! 'become as successful as the others. To keep a factory going some 2000 acres of | beet would have to be grown annually, and he thought that such an amount of land could be easily devoted to a crop in the district. The capital outlay would probably be about £l'Oo,oOo—not much more than had been { sent out of the town during the gold boom. He moved l : "That this meeting form itself into a committee to make enquiries, and, if deemed expedient, to promote the establishment of the sugar beet industry in Wanganui." In the discusison which followed some of the farmers took the pessimistic note, I not with regard to the capability of. the land to grow beet, but with regard to the labor problem. Mr. J. B. Murray said that the industry succeeded in- Germany only because women and children worked 15 hours a day at it, and he would be sorry to see it'established under such conditions. Mr. W. (Ritchie, another well-known farmer, spoke similarly, denouncing the scheme a 9 a wild-cat one, and advising the farmers to stick to' butter-fat.

The Mayor retorted that, so far as child labor was concerned, no industry was .worse in this respect than dairying, and beet-growing would give the farmers a second string to their bows. Mr. W. 0. Bassett said that, if they were forestalled by another town, they would probably be sorry for themselves. Speaking from personal knowledge of the Queensland cane fields, he said that the sugar industry still thrived there, in apfte of the abolition of cheap Kanaka labor. An offer was received from a Brunswick former (Mr. G. Campbell), who already had made satisfactory experiments in beet-growing, expressing his willingness to conduct further experiments for the information of farmers. After several other had spoken,' the Mayor's motion was carried unanimously, and! also a motion that hia Worship and Mr. T. B. Williams be a committee, with..power to.add to their number, to inter.view the Hon. T. Mackenzie, with a i view to obtaining'a -visit'-from an expert I of the Agricultural Department