FIRST BEET-SUGAR FACTORY IN THE WORLD—BUILT AT CUNERN, SILESIA, 1802
Achard, who was of French extraction, had corresponded with a number of scientific men in France and through them reports of his work reached the French Institute. The verdict of this body was favorable and two sugar factories were built, one at St. Ouen and the other at Chelles. Both of these enterprises failed through lack of practical knowledge and the inferior quality of the beet-roots. Although this setback brought the manufacture of beet sugar to a standstill for a time, there is plenty of evidence to show that hope of ultimate success was never abandoned. The effect of the closing down of these two beet factories was to divert the attention of scientists to making sugar from grapes. Proust and Parmentier, both chemists of note, demonstrated that it could be obtained from this source and the French government issued instructions for the preparation of sugar and syrup from the vine. Parmentier published a bulletin advising against the attempt to make beet sugar in France as the soil of the country would not produce beet-roots containing sugar. In 1810 Napoleon ordered an appropriation of 200,000 francs to be divided as a premium among the factories recovering the highest percentage of sugar from grapes. Meanwhile the friends of the beet movement had not been idle, and early in March, 1811, the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry submitted to the emperor a report of what had been accomplished in the manipulation of beets, together with samples of the sugar obtained, and on the 25th of that month Napoleon issued the edict that established the manufacture of beet sugar in France. The decree provided that 79,000 acres of land in various parts of the empire should be devoted to the raising of beets and directed that all the acreage named should be under cultivation the first year, or at latest the second. It created six experimental stations for the instruction of the farmers and land owners in cultivation and also for the furtherance of the interests of the manufacturer.
Delessert had established a factory at Passy in 1801 and by dogged perseverance, despite many failures, obtained excellent results by a new method of clarification and the use of charcoal. Napoleon visited his plant in 1812 and ordered the construction of ten new factories at once. On January 1, 1813, all further imports of sugar from the East and West Indies were prohibited.
In 1812 and 1813 the output of sugar in France was 2200 tons and the factories of Germany and Austria gave promise of soon supplying the wants of their respective countries. During the following two years there were unusually heavy rains and the beet fields of France were occupied by hostile troops. The defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo and the consequent abolition of the blockade caused a decline in the price of sugar to a point where the new beet industry was unable to compete and only one factory succeeded in avoiding the general disaster.
From 1816 to 1821 the average yearly output of beet sugar was 1000 tons. The domestic product had a great advantage over the foreign article, as all sugars coming into France from abroad were subject to a heavy duty, while no tax was levied on home-grown sugar. In 1821, a duty of 49.5 francs was imposed upon every 100 kilograms (220.4622 lbs.) of raw sugar coming from French colonies and 70 francs on white sugar. The tax on sugar from foreign countries was 90 francs per 100 kilograms, and this was increased to 125 francs in 1829.
Shortly afterward the surtax[20] on foreign sugar was increased and an extra duty was exacted on sugar brought into France in foreign bottoms. Even with this protection the domestic producers were not satisfied. French colonial sugar, when exported, received the benefit of customs drawback of 120 francs per 100 kilograms, and the same privilege was accorded home-grown sugar upon which no duty whatever had been paid. This was tantamount to an export premium of 120 francs per 100 kilograms, and it may well be imagined that under this paternal arrangement old factories came back to life and new ones sprang into being. Under this régime by 1836 nearly one-third of the sugar refined in France was beet. The payment of this premium was so great a drain on the government treasury that in 1840 the authorities seriously considered the buying up of all the beet-root sugar factories then in operation for forty million francs and the equalizing of the tax on foreign and domestic sugar. The scheme was not carried out, but in 1843 beet-root sugar and cane sugar were placed on the same basis. This hurt the domestic industry severely, and if it had not been for the setback to the cane production by the abolition of slavery, the beet interests might have met with ruin. Nevertheless, in spite of many adverse turns of fortune, the general trend was forward.
NAPOLEON I
Beginning with the year 1836, the beet-sugar industry in Germany, which had been paralyzed by the raising of the Continental blockade, went ahead rapidly. The German manufacturers gradually succeeded in obtaining a higher extraction of sugar from the beet and consequently their operations showed an increased profit. Krause of Austria and Schubarth of Prussia, both of whom had studied beet-sugar making in France, did much by their efforts to rehabilitate the industry in Germany, where it has steadily grown in importance ever since.