Something about sugar

by George M. Rolph

By such means little more than one-third of the sugar in the cane could have been recovered, and the product obtained was heavy and dark in color.

From 1816 to 1845 a change was gradually made from the clumsy apparatus just described to three-roller vertical mills, and from wind- and water-driven mills to steam power, thus increasing the extraction. No perceptible improvement was effected in field methods during this period.

In 1852 a number of vacuum pans and centrifugal machines were in use. Some eight or ten years later the efforts made to combat the diseases of the cane began to bear fruit and the planters of the coast and inland estates started to exchange cane tops.

During the period of 1866 to 1875 single crushing was almost universal. A few factories used double crushing with maceration, but the mills were not powerful. Marked progress was made in the chemical treatment of the juice. Shortly afterward the planters began to appreciate the vital importance of chemical control in their factories and scientific principles were applied to the culture of the cane.

Up to 1835 the labor in the fields had been done by African negro slaves. The emancipation of these slaves was declared on February 1st of that year, and their final liberation took place in March, 1839. In anticipation of this, the authorities had arranged five years previously for the bringing in of a number of immigrants from India, and from that time down to the present virtually all the labor required in the cane fields has been drawn from India. In 1834 the immigrants from India numbered 75 and in 1908 the Hindu population was 263,419.

One of the most important events in connection with the growth of the sugar industry of Mauritius was the formation of the Chamber of Agriculture in 1853. This body fostered mutual co-operation and interchange of ideas among the planters. It exercised its influence in bringing about legislation affecting agricultural and industrial questions and the development of the resources of the colony. The Station Agronomique, instituted in 1893, and the Bacteriological Station in 1908, came into being as a result of the efforts of the Chamber of Agriculture, to which credit is also due for the extension of the cane-raising area to its present proportions.

During the last hundred years the island of Mauritius has suffered from a series of disasters—epidemics of cholera, smallpox and bubonic plague, hurricanes and droughts.

In 1892 a hurricane of extraordinary violence sowed frightful devastation, destroying cane, wrecking houses and killing numbers of people. Ten years later nearly all the draft animals were carried off by surra, a deadly cattle disease, which made its appearance just as the largest crop on record was about to be harvested. In addition to the direct loss of horses, mules and cattle, the difficulties of transportation delayed the work of gathering and crushing the cane long after its maximum richness had been reached. The yield for the 1903 crop was thus appreciably reduced, and the growing period for the crop of the following year greatly curtailed. The shortage in 1903 has been placed at 11,000 tons, while that for 1904 amounted to 23,000 tons. These losses caused such distress that it became necessary to invoke state aid, which was provided by the Mechanical Transport loan of 1903.

All agricultural centers are subject to crises more or less serious in character, and, as has just been shown, Mauritius is no exception to the rule. Depressions resulting from crop shortages, however, should not be confounded with the general troubles that have seriously menaced the cane-sugar industry during the last half century, almost all of which are attributable to the competition of the beet. Over sixty years ago the Mauritian planters began to feel apprehensive concerning the future of their sugar trade, owing to the rivalry of beet-root sugars in the markets of Europe, and between 1870 and 1880 the prospects were indeed gloomy. What chance had the cane-sugar-growing dependencies of Great Britain against bounty-fed beet sugars raised on the continent? If the increased production had taken place in the cane industry, the disturbance in trade conditions would have been gradually overcome by a process of natural adjustment. But unfortunately for the cane planters, the enormous extension of sugar-raising possibilities by new means in territory not hitherto available found them totally unprepared to cope successfully with this new competition.

In 1885 the Chamber of Agriculture instituted an inquiry into the causes that had brought the cane trade to such a critical state. The attention of the planters was called to the improved methods employed by the beet-sugar manufacturers and to the rapidity with which their trade was expanding. The cane growers were earnestly urged to take steps to meet the conditions that confronted them. Manifestly the cost in field and factory was too high. The task of working out the problem took considerable time and involved the outlay of vast sums of money. It was all the more difficult because of the necessity for finding new capital in the face of decreasing revenue, but it was undertaken with courage and perseverance, and the results have justified the efforts put forth and the sacrifices made.