Chapter XVII: Part II: History of the Industry (8)

The refiners of India have begun to recognize the advantage to them in using raw European beet-root sugars and raw cane from Java and Mauritius instead of the more costly preparations of rab and gur. As a result, there is a considerable quantity of foreign sugar imported into India which is consumed ultimately by the high-caste native without his being aware of its origin.

The imports during the period from 1908 to 1916 were as follows:

1908-09 535,664 tons of 2240 lbs.
1909-10 556,840 ” ” ”
1910-11 608,785 ” ” ”
1911-12 508,591 ” ” ”
1912-13 675,017 ” ” ”
1913-14 802,978 ” ” ”
1914-15 428,595 ” ” ”
1915-16 515,909 ” ” ”

Of this tonnage, Austria supplied the greater amount of the beet, Germany the remainder, while the cane came from Java and Mauritius. In 1913 and 1914 the raw beet from Austria and Germany was almost entirely displaced by washed Java raws, the trade name for which is “Java white.” Some sugar is exported, but the quantity is insignificant.

As to the future of the industry in India, the theory is held by many that with modern scientific methods governing cultivation and manufacture, that country would be able not only to provide for its own requirements, but would be a competitor for export trade in the markets of the world. If such a condition is to be brought about, it will not be by improvement in the cane fields and the manufacturing plants alone. There are other problems to be overcome before there can be any great change for the better,—the stubborn opposition of the natives to innovations, the extreme smallness of individual holdings, poverty, lack of initiative and co-operation,—these are the main obstacles in the way of a material increase in the present enormous production, and they will not be easily surmounted.