Sugar Finances and Other Matters

Mauritius Times – A Glimpse into 1961

By Peter Ibbotson

Many people besides myself have deplored the absence of any factual information readily available about the finances of the Mauritius sugar industry. I had hoped that the Meade Mission would uncover and publish some of the details of the estates’ finances; but no. However, there are figures available, and these figures appear in a Mauritius Government report, which was for some reason not published. The report in question is the Report of the Mauritius Economic Commission (1949), part 2. The report appeared in two parts; of which part I was published. But part 2 was never published. The part which was never published contains a mass of information about the costs of the sugar industry, with data on the regional and climatic differentials. This information is utterly unobtainable elsewhere. It is, however, information which ought to be readily obtainable and easily accessible. Why isn’t it?

I would suggest that the date of the report is significant: 1949. At that time there was a capitalist majority in the Legislative Council. Publication of the financial data of the sugar industry was not desired by the capitalists who used their influence in the Legislative Council to prevent publication of costs which might be used, as the police say, as evidence against them. That is my theory. It is a theory which is plausible and which would occur to anyone au courant with the methods adopted by the capitalists to prevent the truth about their financial operations becoming known to the general public.

The report refers to financial details from before 1949. Publication of the report now would not help in assessing the financial details of the sugar industry in 1960 and 1961, but it would be helpful in exposing the profiteering of the industry in the past. I suggest that as a matter of public interest, the Government ought now to publish the hitherto unpublished facts contained in the Economic Commission’s report, part 2. What sort of facts would come to light? Facts such as these.

In the sub-humid climatic zones with less than 50 inches of rain a year, the estates in 1946 produced 26.5 tons of cane per arpent at a cost of Rs 13.70 per ton, whereas the small planters produced an average of 16.8 tons par arpent at a cost of Rs 11.30 per ton, and the very small planters produced only 15.1 tons per arpent at a cost of Rs 8.60 per ton. If the price received by the growers was Rs 20 per ton, the estates would make a profit of Rs 167 per arpent, the very small planters a profit of Rs 172 per arpent. If the price received by growers rose to Rs 40 per ton, the estates’ profit per arpent would reach Rs 696, whereas that of the svery small growers would rise to only Rs 474. I am fully aware that both costs and production have increased since 1946; however, cane prices have also climbed, meaning the comparative relationships illustrated above remain substantially unchanged.

As Dr Brookfield has pointed out: “The small grower’s low-cost operation was well suited to the low returns of the period between the wars; high prices, however, have rewarded the increased capitalisation that only the estates and a few large planters can afford.” As an illustration of capitalisation and investment in the sugar industry by the estates, Dr Brookfield says that since 1946 (he was writing in 1958) over Rs 200 million has been invested in the factories alone — and this colossal sum has come almost entirely from the industry’s own profits!

Other data illustrating in detail the discrepancies between the estates’ costs, production, and profits, and those of the small planters, would become public if the Government decided to publish the Economic Commission’s report, part 2. There seems no valid reason why it should not; nor is there any valid reason why it should not also publish (after assembling them) similar facts about the finances of the sugar industry for the latest possible year of operation.

*   *   *

A Challenging Book

Published in London by Farm Intelligence Limited, the book ‘The Crisis of Small States in the Present Economic World’, by Dr Marcio A. Mejia Ricart, develops the argument that industrialisation is necessary if the agricultural economies of the world’s small under-developed countries are ever going to rear themselves from the slough of permanent stagnation. He advocates, as one of the factors necessary for rapid industrialisation, regional co-operation of resources so that the various assets of a number of neighbouring countries may be developed as a co-operative venture. This type of regional co-operation may yet prove a necessity for Madagascar, Réunion and Mauritius; making a start, perhaps, with planned emigration from Mauritius to Madagascar. The former has the men; the latter has the land crying out for development. Only the will to do something seems to be lacking.

*   *   *

Food For Thought

The British Council of Churches has issued a statement on Christian Aid Week from which I quote this paragraph:

“It has been estimated that two-thirds of the world has 17% less food than it needs. The underprivileged two thirds has one-quarter of the world’s doctors to care for them while the privileged one third has three-quarters of the doctors. And while this same privileged one-third has an average of nearly I ½ rooms per person to live in, the two thirds majority of the world’s population is inadequately housed, living 4-5 people to a room. That room is often a shack.

To the world’s population of 2,900 million are added 48 million every year. Of these newborn babies a quarter will die before they are weaned, and two-thirds of the remainder will never reach adolescence. And the vast majority of these casualties are among the under-privileged two-thirds… It Is no accident that the prosperous one-third of the world is highly industrialised and highly mechanised and the impoverished two-thirds is not. Constructive help to the hungry people of the world must therefore, if it is to be of lasting benefit, include measures which will raise their economies, starting perhaps on a limited scale with a few families or a small community in order to demonstrate what could be done on a regional or even a national basis…”

The churches’ statement is in general terms and refers to world needs. Implied however, is support for the proposals of the Meade Report on the industrialisation of Mauritius; and although the statement makes no reference to family planning, it is clear to anyone who gives the problem a moment’s intelligent thought that birth control can help to reduce the population pressure caused by those 48 million extra mouths to feed every year.

*   *   *

Grants For Education

During February and March, 177 grants and loans were approved under the CD & W Act; many of these were for educational purposes. The table below shows the benefiting territories. Isn’t it about time we saw Mauritius figuring more frequently in the details of CD & W grants and loans made by Britain? As this month’s Venture points out, the British Government is treating the Cunard company more tenderly than it treats the colonies.

*   *   *

Five Year Plan in Malaya

Like Mauritius, Malaya has a population problem; it intends to tackle this problem through the second five-year plan recently inaugurated by the Prime Minister, Tun Abdul Razak, who said:

‘Our rate of population growth at about 3.3 percent a year is one of the highest in the world, and in the next five years jobs have to be found for about 340,000 workers entering the labour market, while the number of children of primary school age will increase by about 200,000.” The purpose of the second five-year plan is to promote industrial growth, to step up rubber replanting, and to expand social services. Irrigation will be developed, as will the production of foodcrops and export crops; of a planned investment of $5,050 million, two fifths will be in Government and public enterprises, and the rest in private enterprise. The total investment is planned to increase the national output by over four per cent a year, or by between 20 and 25 per cent during the currency of the plan.

It is this sort of sense of urgency in dealing with planned economic development in Mauritius which appears to be lacking in so many quarters. Too many demagogic arrivistes are content to let things slide, to drift on and on in the same old way till all at once disaster overtakes them. Many Mauritian leaders still have a lot to learn from other territories.

8th Year – No 350
Friday 19th May, 1961

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 6 November 2026