In 1907 2,498,000 lb. of foreign refined sugar were imported, their value being £181,755; but on the other hand 140,370 lb. were exported during the same year.
It is to be hoped that the price of sugar will not fall too low, as this might bring about the ruin of an industry which is worth encouraging and preserving: but it is essential, on the other hand, to oppose an excessive inflation, which would diminish the consumption of this valuable alimentary product, and would force the consumer to pay the exaggerated profits of a small number of manufacturers and planters. This is the inherent peril of excessive protection.
The law of 23rd January 1904 and the regulation of 25th October of the same year have provided for this condition. One must not forget that all commerce is conditioned by the law of supply and demand, and that to avoid overloading the market with produce, production must be limited, according to circumstances, and in proportion to actual requirements; and beyond the limit of absorption the productive energies of the country must be diverted to other cultures or industries, more remunerative and more certain as to results.[66]
[66] See the important work entitled La Culture des Plantes Industrielles dans la République Argentine, by Carlos D. Girola, published in the Recensement de l’agriculture et de l’élevage de la Nation, Vol. 1. 1908, from which these data are extracted.
Of all the sugar sold in the Argentine, only part is refined; there is at present only one refinery[67] in the country; namely, the “Refineria Argentina” of Rosario. The greater proportion of Argentine sugar is delivered to the consumer in the form of “moist” or brown sugar, which is graded according to its colour and the care taken in its manufacture.
[67] The thirty-two factories hitherto referred to would presumably be crushing-mills, where cane is crushed, the juice evaporated into syrup or molasses and in some cases dried, the product being “raw” sugar.—[Trans.]
There are in several districts, and especially in the neighbourhood of Misionès, rudimentary factories where an impure sugar known as “rapadura” is prepared, which is sold in cubes or tablets. We have no precise data as to the production of the various grades of sugar.
During the last twelve years the manufacture of sugar
has been greatly improved, as a consequence of the crisis through which the industry passed, which demonstrated the necessity of perfecting the methods of preparing and refining the “sap,” etc. To-day a yield is obtained of 71⁄2, 81⁄2, and even 9 per cent. of sugar.
The capital sunk in the sugar industry in the Province of Tucuman amounts in round figures to £4,136,000, and is distributed as follows: Land, £1,232,000; plantations, £440,000; machinery, £1,496,000; buildings £968,000.