GOVERNMENT AID TO WEST INDIAN SUGAR Consul W. R. Estes sends from Antigua, June 15, 1903, a clipping from the Antigua Standard of June 6 in regard to a disposition on the part of the Imperial Government to render financial assistance to West Indian sugar producers. The island, adds the consul, depends almost entirely upon sugar; it is in fact the only export product. The machinery in use is old and dilapidated. While 100 tons of cane should produce 13 tons of sugar, the present apparatus only succeeds in getting out 6 tons; and the new move on the part of the owners of the Bendals estate is the initial step toward improvement of the machinery and consequent cheapening the production of sugar. The clipping reads: Editor Antigua Standard. SUGAR FACTORIES, DEAR SIR: It is the wish of his excellency the governor that the conditions under which the proprietor of Belvidere estate will receive assistance from the Imperial Government for the reconstruction of his sugar factory should be made public; and I have therefore pleasure in forwarding for publication in your paper, if you so wish, a memorandum of these conditions. The matter is one of great public interest, more especially to the industrious peasant grower, who should now have a means open to him of considerably bettering his condition. I am able to state on authority that the conditions inclosed will also apply to the large central factory scheme, except, of course, that the amount of imperial assistance will be £15,000 ($72,997), and that the amount of peasants' cane to be purchased, if tendered, will be proportionately larger. Yours faithfully, ARCHD. SPOONER. Memorandum of conditions accepted by the proprietor of Belvidere estate in consideration of imperial assistance being afforded toward the remodeling of the present sugar factory. I. In order to guarantee the due performance of the public object contemplated, the owner of Bendals and the estates associated with it will be required to give a first mortgage of £3,500 ($17,032) over Bendals and the estates associated with it. 2. The Government will not demand interest on the £3,500 so long as not less than 1,500 tons a year of bona fide peasants' canes are, if tendered at the factory, paid for at not less than 7s. 6d. per ton under any circumstances and rising from that minimum on a sliding scale calculated on the basis of 42 per cent of the value of 96° gray crystals, f. o. b. Antigua. 3. The Government will claim interest at 8 per cent-viz, £1 a year for every 10 tons of cane below 1,500 tons with respect to peasants' cane tendered at the factory and not paid for at 7s. 6d. per ton. 4. The owner will cease to be liable to repay the loan of £3,500 and will be free from all obligations with regard thereof after 22,500 tons of peasants' cane have been paid for at 7s. 6d. ($1.825) a ton, or at the expiration of twenty years. 5. The Government shall have power to appoint a board to determine the order and amount of peasants' cane to be ground daily throughout the reaping season. 6. The owner will, when required by the Government, let any uncultivated land suitable for sugar growing to peasants, who will grow cane for the factory at a rent not exceeding £1 ($4.86) per annum per acre. 7. The Government advance of £3,500 ($17,032), and such sum not being less than £3,500 in cash, or securities to bearer as the owner is prepared to invest in the factory, shall be paid over within a fortnight to a joint account in the name of the Crown agents for the colonies and the owner. Payments shall be made from this account against certificates of work or machinery duly delivered and shipped, and such funds as are not immediately required shall be placed on deposit with a bank approved by both parties and deposit interest shall be credited to the joint account. 8. The owner shall select the type of machinery and the maker. The Crown agents shall ascertain through their consulting engineer that the prices quoted are fair and reasonable. The Crown agents will effect insurances on the machinery in transit. 9. The factory shall be provided with triple-effect machinery and appliances for making refiners' gray crystals and shall be at least capable of making 900 tons of refiners' crystals in one hundred days of fourteen hours each, or 1,400 tons in one hundred days of twenty-one hours each. 10. The books of the factory shall be accessible to the Government for inspection and audit so long as the mortgage of £3,500 ($17,032) is outstanding. 11. Subject to revision by the Secretary of State, the governor shall have power to impose fines not exceeding in the aggregate £1,000 ($4,866) in place of liquidated damages for any breach of the agreements finally sanctioned by the Imperial Government. 12. If a question arises as to the construction of the final agreement, it shall be settled by the governor, from whose decision there shall be an appeal to arbitration on the deposit of £300 ($1,460) in the local treasury for the expenses thereof. The board of arbitration shall sit in Antigua; the governor and owner shall each appoint an arbitrator and an umpire shall be named by the Secretary of State. SUGAR AND FRUIT PRESERVING IN GERMANY. I transmit herewith a report, translated from a communication of the Chamber of Commerce at Halberstadt, on the new preserving factory at Tangermuende, in this consular district. As various aspects of the sugar question in general are discussed in this report, I thought it might not be amiss to call the attention of our sugar producers and refiners and fruit preservers to this new enterprise. WILLIAM A. MCKELLIP, MAGDEBURG, GERMANY, July 14, 1903. Consul. NEW PRESERVING FACTORY IN TANGERMUENDE. Sugar outlook.-The firm of Fr. Meyers Sohn, in Tangermuende, has erected a preserving factory opposite their sugar refinery. The principal reason which led the firm to engage in this enterprise is the abolition of the export bounty by the Brussels convention, on account of which the German export of sugar is likely to fall off considerably. This retrogression, writes the firm, will be to a great extent hastened by the fact that the Americans in Cuba and also in the United States have interested themselves in the development of the sugar industry with their accustomed energy; by the fact that Russia, with its bounties on sugar, will in time supply many of the countries outside of the Brussels convention; and by the further fact that many countries which up to the present time have imported their sugar are building up or have built up, under high protective tariffs, a sugar industry of their own. By this decrease of the sugar exportation the makers of ordinary sugar, the products of the refineries, and the so-called white-sugar factories will be principally affected. England, too, which up to the present time has been a good market, has adopted the protective policy in reference to the importation of sugar. Thus the first step has been taken for the protection of the English refining industry. The efforts of the English Government toward closer intercourse with its colonies, particularly in industrial relations, the discriminations recently introduced between the non-English sugars in the South African colonies of England as opposed to the products of the English refineries, show clearly the purposes of England, and it would not be difficult for the English to build up the refining industry to such an extent that they may in time supply the inland demand with English products. England will still be unable to do without the German raw sugar for a considerable time; it is, in fact, not improbable that the exportation of raw sugar to England will increase in the coming years with the progress of the English refining industry in the same measure as the export of refined sugar decreases. The German refining industry must, therefore, strive to develop the consumption of sugar in Germany by every means in its power. Sugar consumption in preserves.—In England an extraordinary quantity of sugar is consumed in the form of jams, marmalades, etc.; it was therefore in the interest of the firm, which has close business connections with England, to make the attempt to secure a similar market in Germany. The new enterprise is based upon the principle of supplying only the best goods, in order that their conserved fruits may compete with the best put up in England and France. In addition to the creation of a large demand for their goods in Germany, the firm will also give full attention to the export business. The preserve factory at Tangermuende.-The building of the fruit-preserving factory was begun in September of the past year, and in March of the present year it was set in operation for trial. While the factory was being built, orchards of 75 morgens (47.25 acres) in extent were started, in which various kinds of plums are grown. Planted under these are currants, raspberries, and strawberries. Most of the fruit is, however, brought from a distance. The factory buildings are connected with the railroad and cover a space of 2,500 square meters (26,900 square feet). For producing steam for cooking and heating, boilers with a heating surface of 50 square meters (539 square feet) are used. Power and light are supplied by the power house of the sugar refinery belonging to the firm. About two-thirds of the space built upon has cellars. The present equipment is sufficient to produce enough fruit daily to fill a freight car. The production can easily be increased threefold in the buildings already erected. These are so arranged that, without destroying the unity of the plan, they can be increased two and one-half times. In the so-called "hall for preparation" is a large number of hand machines for paring and coring the fruit, as well as two large presses for extracting the juice from the same. The greatest space is occupied by the kitchen, in which the steaming of the fruit in large boilers furnished with jackets takes place. Adjoining this kitchen is a room in which the confections and candied fruits are prepared. In a room farther on the conserves are stored. The fine equipment of the dining, toilet, and bath rooms deserves mention. GERMAN MERCHANT MARINE. Statistics covering the German merchant marine up to January 1, 1902, show a total of 3,958 vessels of 3,080,548 tons gross register and 2,093,033 tons net register, an increase of 76 vessels, or 254,148 tons gross and 151,388 tons net register, as compared with the preceding year. The classes of shipping are 2,236 sailing vessels, 260 sea lighters, and 1,463 steam vessels. The steam vessels (46 paddle and 1,417 screw) show a register of 2,446,244 tons gross and 1,506,059 tons net. During the year 1901, 179, 129 vessels of 38, 302,173 net registered tons entered German ports, an increase of 4,052 vessels as compared with 1900. Of this total, 136,965 vessels (76 per cent), with 60 per cent of the total tonnage, were German bottoms. In this connection it may be interesting to give a few figures as to capitalization and number of vessels operated by the leading German companies at the close of 1902: Company. Capital stock. Bonded indebted ness. Vessels. Value of vessels, North German Lloyd...... German Australia Steamship Hamburg-South American German East Africa Line... Marks. Dollars. Marks. Dollars. Marks. Dollars. 100,000,000 23,800,000 58,250,000 13,863,500 107 141,800,000 33,748,400 100,000,000 23,800,000 39,100,000 9,305,800 119 143,500,000 34,153,000 The International Mercantile Marine Company, through the consolidation of six different steamship lines, has the largest company tonnage in the world, viz, 1,035,000 registered tons, the HamburgAmerican Line coming second with 651,000 registered tons, followed by the North German Lloyd with 583,000 registered tons and the British India Steam Navigation Company with 449,000 registered. tons. In the matter of speed, the German vessels-the Deutschland, of the Hamburg-American Line, and the Kronprinz Wilhelm, of the North German Lloyd-hold the world's record, with an average speed of more than 23 knots per hour. STETTIN, GERMANY, July 10, 1903. JOHN E. KEHL, Consul. BRITISH VS. GERMAN SHIPPING IN THE ORIENT. The marked increase in the number and tonnage of German ships trading here and at other British oriental ports will perhaps justify this report and its inclosure, although the clipping refers to conditions outside my official jurisdiction. The rapid advance of German business in Japan, Siam, the Philippines, the Straits Settlements, and Ceylon have before prompted remark. British shipping and business interests enter complaints, and these are especially loud as to German entry and cut competitions in ports made free to commerce, like those of British colonies in this part of the world. The inclosure refers to one port, but a similar showing might be made as to all, or nearly all, the ports of the Orient. O. F. WILLIAMS, Consul-General. SINGAPORE, STRAITS SETTLEMENTS, June 16, 1903. GERMAN VS. BRITISH SHIPPING IN COLOMBO. [From the Straits Times of June 13, 1903.] A study of the shipping statistics of Ceylon for the past two decades furnishes much interesting matter for thought, says the Times of Ceylon. There has been progress in every direction, and the shipping of all nations has from year to year made greater use of the island ports. The most remarkable feature, however, of the shipping statistics, viewed comparatively, is, of course, the extraordinary progress recorded by Germany. It is far ahead of that of any other country, and is a wonderful testimony to the enterprise and energy which have been characteristic of German commercial men since the war of the early seventies. For the purposes of comparison we propose briefly quoting figures from the shipping returns of 1879, 1884, 1891, and the present year. These commence with the shipping before Germany had made her appearance at all as a competitor to Great Britain, France, and the other great nations in the eastern shipping trade, so far as Ceylon was concerned, at any rate. Not a single craft of any kind is entered in the shipping returns of 1879 as coming from Germany. The following will show how the Ceylon shipping of twenty-three years ago was divided; and the reason we take 1879 is because the article was suggested by a merchant who is interested in that year as the date of his arrival in the colony: |