Our First Half-Century: A Review of Queensland Progress Based Upon Official Information

by Queensland

The first blow struck at the old-time theory that the tropics were created solely to supply the needs of dwellers in temperate climes was dealt by Napoleon when he took steps to establish the beet-sugar industry in France. His object was twofold—to render Continental Europe, which was then lying at his mercy, independent of Britain and the British colonies; and to cripple the trade of the only Power which had never stooped to his sway. Unconsciously, at the same time he laid the foundation of a tropical Britain peopled by the British race.

The successful establishment of the beet-sugar industry called for the application of industrial, scientific, and organising capacity of the highest order, and the Governments of France and other European countries fostered its development by heavy bounties.

The abolition of slavery in the British West Indies in 1834 and the later emancipation of the negroes in the United States so disorganised the sugar industry of the West that those engaged in it were too engrossed with their own affairs to heed the progress of the beet industry of Europe. The output of beet sugar steadily forged ahead until, in the early eighties, it was almost equal to the output of cane sugar. Tropical planters and manufacturers then found themselves engaged in a life-and-death struggle for which they were ill-equipped. Forced by inexorable necessity to face the situation, they realised that only by following the example of their rivals—by calling in the aid of science both in cultivation and in manufacture, and by paying the strictest attention to the financial side of their enterprise—could they hope to hold their own.

Just at the time that the Southern States of America were fighting desperately in defence of the slave system, the foundations of the Queensland sugar industry were being laid. Despite the high prices then ruling for sugar, the profits were not large, owing to the primitive methods of cultivation and manufacture adopted on the plantations. In time, even in this remote quarter of the globe the growth of the beet industry compelled the planters to make radical changes. Antiquated husbandry, crude processes, and wasteful management were superseded by modern scientific methods. The subdivision of large estates, the substitution of small white growers for gangs of unskilled coloured labourers, and the establishment of co-operative central factories were Queensland's contribution to the solution of the problem of Beet versus Cane.

As Napoleon in his wildest dreams had no conception that his anti-British policy would ultimately lead to the expansion and evolution of the sugar industry of the tropics, so the Queenslander who first planted a few sticks of sugar-cane on the shores of Moreton Bay half a century ago little foresaw that from that humble beginning would develop the greatest agricultural industry of this State—an industry which, if treated with continued consideration and sympathy by the Commonwealth, bids fair to revolutionise the hitherto accepted view of the relations of the white races to the tropics. Yet, if we read aright the brief history of the Queensland sugar industry, and appreciate its present position, that first planter commenced a work which is likely to lead to permanent settlement in the tropics by men of European descent.

There was little to distinguish the establishment of our sugar industry from similar ventures in other parts of the tropics where the supply of cheap coloured native labour was insufficient for the requirements of the planters. The men who opened up the first plantations in Queensland were not Australians, except by adoption. Their experience had been gained in Java, Mauritius, the West Indies, and elsewhere. They came to this country imbued with the old notion that the best and most economical means of carrying on tropical agriculture was to cultivate large estates by the aid of gangs of coloured labourers; and it is a moot point whether, fifty years ago, any other method of establishing tropical industries in Queensland was possible. Certain land concessions were given to encourage the newcomers, and they were permitted to import Pacific Islanders, under Government supervision, as contract labourers for work in the fields.

Not all the early planters had been sugar-growers previously. In the Mackay district, which has always been one of the chief sugar centres, the first settlers grew cotton, tobacco, and arrowroot. But early in the sixties it was recognised that the production of sugar offered the most satisfactory and profitable field for their enterprise. Generally, they were representatives of that class of whom Benjamin Kidd, in his "Control of the Tropics," says: "The more advanced peoples, driven to seek new outlooks for their activities, will be subject to a gradually increasing pressure to turn their attention to the great natural field of enterprise which still remains in the development of the tropics."

It was not sufficient for these early planters to take up land and plant their crops; they had to erect mills, where the cane could be converted into sugar, and this required capital. The cost of labour, provisions, and supplies was enormous. Communication along the coast was such that goods were taken North in small sailing vessels, and the pioneers were quite accustomed to travelling in a small steamer which anchored under the lee of a convenient island during the darkness of the night. Those who see the condition of the industry which has evolved from these first efforts must, in justice to the pioneers, recall the difficulties and risks which were faced by them.

Forty years ago the industry was an infant struggling with its teething troubles, still liable to premature death. In 1871 there were only 9,581 acres under sugar-cane in the whole of Queensland, and the production of sugar was only 3,762 tons, not equal to half the output of one of our large modern factories. The industry was then chiefly confined to the South, but it soon made its way northwards, and expanded so rapidly that, in 1881, the area under cane had increased to 28,026 acres, and there were no less than 103 mills in operation.

The industry then entered upon the first of its great reverses. Owing to the enormous increase in the output of beet sugar in Europe, prices fell rapidly. The first of the larger class of factories, conducted on modern lines, with improved appliances, came into existence, and small mills, unable to compete successfully, began to close. Labour supplies from the South Sea Islands became more expensive, and a class of white men, originally labourers who had saved money, took up selections as sugar farms, and sought to dispose of their crops of cane to the planter-proprietors of existing mills. The latter, alarmed by the passage of legislation decreeing an end to the employment of coloured labour, planted larger areas with the object of taking off as much cane as possible before they were deprived of the services of the Polynesian labourers then under contract. The immediate result was that the small farmers were unable to sell their crops at reasonable rates; and to help them the Government of the day, whose avowed policy it was to have the industry carried on by white labour, decided to advance money to groups of these farmers to enable them to erect co-operative factories for the treatment of their cane. As an experiment, two such factories were built in the Mackay district, where the need was most clamant; and thus was laid the foundation of the central mill system, which has given such an impetus to the growth of the industry, conducted on the basis of white labour. Tentative though the experiment was, and though for many years not a complete financial success from the point of view of the mills, the erection of these mills at least showed that the interests of the farmer and the factory were mutually interdependent.