SUGAR COMMISSION

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 4 December 1912, Page 5

SUGAR COMMISSION

CABLE NEWS

(United Press Association— By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.)

A MAJORITY REPORT

(Received This Morning, 12.5 o'clock.) I MELBOURNE, December 3. I Tho Sugar Com mission's report lias been signed by all the members except Mr Crawford, who has presented [a minority report. The majority reI port is based on an adherence to the "whito Australia" policy, and tho national importance, from the standpoint of defence, of settling and cultivating tropical areas. Tho report states "that the justification for the 'protection of the sugar industry Is the part it plays in solving these problems. There is, it says, no reason why white labour should not he employed on the plantations and mills. The net protection through duty, excise and bounty, is generally estimated at £5 per ton (the commission estimates it at £5 5s per ton). This involves an annual subsidy of £1,000,000 from the community, and which tends to increase. The grower? are dissatisfied with the return received for their outlay. The commission explains that because the price of the raw sugar is not determined by competition, but is fixed by the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, 94 per centum of the labour is white. To prevent a reversion to coloured labour, the commission prefers the direct prohibition of coloured workers, and recommends that tho system of bounty <lltd excise be abolished, and that with a view to securing this, the Commonwealth negotiato with the States for tho purpose of promoting a white labour policy, and the maintenance of the standard wage; that pending such an abolition, the bounty be made equal to the excise, dating as from July Ist. 1912. Owing to the special order of August, raising tlie wages, thnt the duty on raw or refined sugars fluctuate according to the foreign markets : that the duty be the amount of difference between foreign market prices and sugar (>rade 1 A and the standard nric*> of Australian sugar to be not less than £2l 10s per ton; that the. duty be the same on ibeet as cane sugar, and that a. duty be imposed on molasses of £1 10s per ton.