slave-grown sugar was admitted on the same terms as free-grown sugar and many of the English planters went into bankruptcy.

The abolition of slavery in Cuba did not bring about the immediate improvement that had been there anticipated. The beet-root-sugar industry, stimulated by a system of bounties which the West Indian planter found most pernicious, had developed with such rapid strides that the continental beet-root could be placed on the British market cheaper than the West Indian product. At the end of the nineteenth century, about 1898, these bounties, which the continental powers were paying to the growers of beet-root and which amounted to from $5 to $20 a ton, were supplemented by the formation of cartels or holding syndicates, which drove the price of sugar in Great Britian far below the cost of production. Entrenched behind tariff walls, these cartels or trusts, which consisted of sugar producers and manufacturers, working in harmony to the detriment of the consumer, were able to charge the consumer in their home market such a high price for his sugar as permitted them to dump the balance of their output anywhere else in the world at a considerable loss and yet realise a substantial profit upon their business as a whole. Of course, an active campaign was carried on by the sugar-growing interests in the West Indies against the bounty system and, as a result of prolonged agitation, several conferences of an international character were held. On March 5, 1902, an arrangement was finally reached, and at the conference in Brussels a convention was signed by the principal sugar-producing powers, agree

ing to abolish bounties and to render more difficult the formation of trusts and cartels.

Having secured equality of opportunity, at least in the British market, the West Indian sugar industry has shown considerable development and improvement.* There are two principal methods of sugarmaking in the West Indies. The ancient Muscovado process, still in vogue on the small estates, often with power supplied by windmills, as I have seen it in Barbados and other islands, produces the old-fashioned brown sugars, dear to the memory of childhood's days. The other and more modern method is the vacuumpan process, which produces the "Demerara crystals."

There is a very great sameness in sugar-cane cultivation, and the very material difference in the value of the crops in the different islands seems to depend almost entirely upon the inherent richness and suitability of the soil. The sugar-canes are grown from cuttings of the mature canes, and they take from twelve to eighteen months to reach maturity. They are then cut down with cutlasses, trimmed and conveyed to the mill, which consists in the case of the small Muscovado factories of but three rollers, the power being supplied by horizontal steam engines, an old-fashioned beam engine, or by windmill as I have mentioned above. The dirty, greenish-looking juice which is pressed out by the rollers is heated up to the desired temperature and flows into a tank called a clarifier, where it is mixed with a certain amount of lime to cleanse it of impurities. The clear juice then

*In June, 1912, despite vigorous protests from the insular governments and commercial bodies, the British Government withdrew from the Brussels Sugar Convention.

flows down into a series of three or four large open copper tanks, in which the process of evaporation takes place over fires, which are fed by the crushed cane, which, dried in the sun, proves useful as fuel. By the time the juice has reached the third pan, the process of evaporation is generally completed. It is then ladled out and poured into large, square boxes, called coolers, and allowed to crystallise. As soon as it becomes solid, the juice, which is now sugar, is dug out and placed in large, wooden hogsheads, with perforated bottoms, and these are then rolled to what is known as the stanchion room. Here the hogsheads are left for two or three weeks, during which time the uncrystallised sugar, or molasses, runs out into the tank below. The cask is then headed up and the sugar ready for shipment.

The vacuum-pan process, which produces the "Demerara "crystals, is much more intricate. Here the canes are placed on the cane carrier, an endless belt which conveys them direct to the mill. Once there they are crushed under a succession of rollers, often as many as three sets, which thus form a nine-roller mill. The crushed cane is then removed on another carrier direct to the furnaces, which have been especially contrived to burn the green stuff or refuse, thus obviating the necessity of drying it in the sun. Of course, by this intense pressing process which the nine-roller mill permits, a very much higher percentage of saccharine matter is secured from the cane. I believe this increase often amounts to as much as fifty per cent. However, the construction of a mill on this system implies the expenditure of at least $300,000 and more often the expenses run to a million. Owing to this heavy de

mand upon capital, and other uncertainties inherent to the sugar industry, the old Muscovado mills still survive and refuse to cease grinding. Indeed, it is only in Cuba, Porto Rico, and British Guiana that the modern mills predominate. In the modern mills the juice is pumped into clarifying tanks and then treated very much as in the old process. The pure juice, once secured, is drawn through pipes into an apparatus for economical evaporation, which is difficult to describe and of which there are many variations. After coming out of the evaporation vessels, the syrup, as the juice is now called, is transferred to the vacuum-pan, in which it is boiled at a low temperature until granulation sets in, this important process being watched through a small glass window, the progress being tested every now and then by a proofstick inserted into the pan and withdrawn with a sample of the liquor. The contents of the pan are now transferred to large drums with perforated sides, which are made to revolve very rapidly, it is said a thousand times to the minute. The result is that the molasses is driven out of the drums by centrifugal force, leaving the sugar behind, which is mixed to secure uniformity of grade and colour, packed in bags, and is then ready for shipment.

Pending the development of the fruit trade, another panacea has been proposed for the deplorable West Indian conditions, at least as far as the British islands are concerned. It is some, almost any, form of reciprocity with the Dominion of Canada. So far, however, the discussion has not resulted in permanent legislation. This whole question of reciprocity and preferential tariff is probably dependent upon the out

come of the political struggle in England. Should the Unionist party, which favours, though not in the most outspoken way, preferential tariff schedules between the home country and the colonies, and between the great autonomous colonies themselves, come into power, a new and a very important factor will enter into the solution of the West Indian problem, at least as far as the British possessions are concerned. In any event, the wide-spread interest taken in the proposed tariff changes was clearly indicated by the appointment, by the King, of a Royal Commission to investigate the whole question and report upon its possibilities. The Commission is even now visiting the islands. From speeches made by its members it is thought that the Commission will recommend some scheme of preferential tariff within the Empire.

Whatever may be the results of the political struggle in England, involving as it does the question of tariffs, or the recommendations of the Royal Commission after it has concluded its investigations, it is high time to recognise that Canadian enterprise and Canadian capital have become important factors in the development of these islands so long neglected. It is perhaps natural that Canadian banks and Canadian commercial houses, after having developed so vigorously at home, should extend to the adjacent British islands, but this explanation of natural growth and affinity cannot be given for the undoubted preponderance of Canadian influence in the backing of new enterprises in Cuba and perhaps also in Porto Rico, though here the figures are not nearly so decisive as they are in the larger island.

The great obstacle to the reciprocal tariff arrange