The following note of the Ministry of Finances accompanies the preceding tables:

The comparison of the various figures is based on the whole of the year (1st and 2nd parts), and on the whole of the taxes collected either by customs or excise officials. This comparison gives us two results which apparently are contradictory to each other. For while the yield of dutiable quantities increased from 439,029,996 kilog. to 455,320,823 kilog., an increase of 16,290,827 kilog., the amount of revenue derived therefrom decreases from 200,626,831 to 183,682,345 francs, a loss of 16,944,486 francs.

Abnormal as this may seem, this state of things is very easily explained. For owing to the regulations of the law of July 20th, 1884, it is the natural consequence of the improvement in cultivation and manufacture.

Following upon the assistance accorded by law to the sugar industry, the beetroot cultivation has been largely extended. In 1900, 302,366 hectares were under cultivation, as against 265,684 in 1899 and 237,169 in 1898. The quantity of roots taken to the mills which, from 6,105,614,762 kilog. in 1898-1899 had risen to 7,394,475,905 kilog. in 1899-1900, has actually reached 8,717,963,481 kilog. during the year under review. The yield in (refined) sugar, which was 737,902,149 kilog. in 1898-99, reached 869,200,578 kilog. in 1899-1900, and it is expected to surpass largely a thousand million kilog. for the year 1900-1901.

The consequence of this progress is that the consumption of sugar is more and more supplied by those sugars which pay the reduced tariff of 30 fr. per 100 kilog., and thus take the place of those sugars which pay the ordinary tariff of 60 fr.

For instance, in considering only the native product, we find that in 1900 there was an increase of 112,086,816 kilog. for sugars paying the 30 fr. duty, while those subject to the 60 fr. tax showed a decrease of 58,099,680 kilog. In 1899, therefore, the average duty paid into the Treasury for the total consumption is 45 fr. 69 per 100 kilóg.; whereas, in 1900, it only amounts to 40 fr. 33. It is easy to understand that the increase of consumption cannot counteract so marked a decrease, and it may safely be predicted that the aforesaid causes will continue to act in the same unfavourable manner on the revenue of 1901.

III

RELATIVE VALUE OF THE SUGAR

INDUSTRY.

I.

The Agricultural Estimates of the Law of 1884.

SUGAR manufacturers maintain that the greater part of the bounties they have received have been returned to the agriculturists.

In an essay presented to the Congress of sugar manufacturers, held on the 7th March, 1894, M. J. B. Mariage has endeavoured to prove this.

The following figures, taken from the Bulletin de Statistique, of the Ministry of Finances (January, 1901), supplement the calculations made by M. Mariage, and show the advantages obtained by agriculture.

In 1884, beetroot was sold at 18 to 20 fr. per ton, yielding 6 per cent. lower than it does to-day.

Tons.

The following are the prices paid since that time :

Therefore, from a sum total of 764,237,915 fr. of net bounties granted to sugar manufacturers, not less than 664,024,857 fr. have been obtained by the agriculturists as an increase in the price of roots.

Roots have been bought at a higher price because their richness increased. The value of the sugar unit bought from the farmer has remained the same, or has even somewhat risen, while the value of the sugar extracted from those roots suffered a considerable decline, i.e., from 60 to 30 fr. per 100 kilog.

Premiums on manufacture, given by the State, have therefore helped to maintain the price of the sugar unit for the benefit of the farmer during a period of 16 years, and they also served to perfect manufacturers' plants in order to diminish the cost price, so as to allow the manufactured product to be sold at the rate to which it has fallen on the world's market.

Such is the thesis.

But we have before us a book just published called La Betterave à sucre, edited by someone very competent : M. Malpeaux.*

* Encyclopédie des Aide-mémoire. Masson and Co.-Gauthier Villars and Co.