Foreign Slave, | | | | | | | or Compulsory | | | | | | | Labor | | | | | | | Countries. | | | | | | | Java C* | 15 0 | 88,000 | | 15 0 | | | French Colonies | 15 0 | 90,000 | | 15 0 | Slave | | Cuba (Muscovado)| 8 0 | 220,000 | | 8 0 |or com-| | Porto Rico | 8 6 | 40,000 | | 8 6 |pulsory| | Louisiana | 12 6 | 100,000 | | 12 6 | labor | | Brazils D* | 11 11 | 90,000 | | 11 11 | | | -----------------+-------+---------+---------+-------+------
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[A* This cost, as taken from the averages given in Lord Harris’s despatches, is lower than the averages given by the witnesses before the Committee.]

[B* This beet-root sugar sells, in the continental markets, on account of its inferior quality, at about 4s. to 6s. per cwt. below Colonial Muscovado, so that Colonial Muscovado must be about 33s. per cwt. to enable beet sugar to sell in this market for cost and charges, and allowing no profit to the beet sugar maker.]

[C* The cost of producing sugar in Java is taken at the average between the Government contract sugar, and the free sugar, as given by Mr. San Martin.]

[D* The cost of producing sugar in Brazil is taken from the Consular return:  this return has given no credit for rum or molasses, and has charged 6s. 5d. for manufacturing, fully 3s. 5d. more than the cost in Cuba,—­allowance for these two items would give 7s. 6d. as the nett cost per cwt.]

BEET ROOT SUGAR.

The rapid progress of the production of beet root sugar on the continent, especially in France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, and Russia, and its recent introduction and cultivation as an article of commerce in Ireland, renders the detail of its culture and manufacture on the continent interesting.  I have, therefore, been induced to bestow some pains on an investigation of the rise and progress of its production and consumption in those countries.

During the past three years, the smallest estimate which can be formed of the quantity of cane sugar that has been replaced by beet root sugar in the chief European countries, is about 80,000 tons annually, with the certainty that, year after year, the consumption will become exclusively confined to the former, to the greater exclusion of the latter; unless some great change shall take place in the relative perfection and manufacture of the two different descriptions of produce.

Although, observes the Economist, the beet root sugar produced in France, Belgium, Germany, and other parts of the continent is not brought into competition in our own markets with the produce of the British colonies, yet it must be plain that the exclusion of so much foreign cane sugar from the continent, which was formerly consumed there, must throw a much larger quantity of Cuba and Brazilian sugar upon this market; and by this means the increased production of beet root sugar, even in those countries where it is highly protected, does indirectly increase the competition among the producers of cane sugar in our market.