Chapter XI: Sugar

Although the cultivation of wheat is developing very rapidly, sugar-growing is at present the only agricultural industry of any importance that Queensland possesses. Her climate and soil are no doubt favourable to others, and, in small quantities, tobacco, coffee, and cotton have been grown successfully. But, so far, sugar alone has been cultivated to any great extent, and undoubtedly it is an industry that has a great future before it. It is only of late years that it has commanded much attention, and it is extremely interesting to see the rapid progress that has been made. For a long time sugar-growing languished. As is always the case in a new country, the pioneers were not altogether successful, and the losses which many of the early planters sustained deterred capitalists from investing their money until it was proved whether sugar could be successfully grown or not.

To Mackay belongs the honour of being the parent of all sugar-growing in Queensland. In 1866 Mr. John Spiller first made the experiment of growing cane in this district, and the end of the year saw twelve acres growing, which was increased to 140 acres the following year.

In 1868 the first mill was erected by Mr. John Ewen Davidson, and the output for the first season was 230 tons of sugar. From this date the progress was steady until 1875, when a serious visitation of “rust” took place. This disease for a long time puzzled all the efforts of scientific men and planters either to discover its cause or to arrest its progress, and its effects were so serious that at one time the sugar industry seemed about to entirely collapse. Many of the planters were working on borrowed capital, and the ravages of the rust were so great as to completely ruin some of them. Even now the real origin of the disease remains a mystery. All that is certain is that some varieties of cane are more liable to it than others, and the epidemic has so far been of service that it has enabled the planters to determine what varieties can be most profitably grown, and turned their attention to the economical working of their plantations--a consideration that had been too much effaced by the enormous profits made before the appearance of the disease.

In two years the district had pretty well recovered itself, and in 1879 the crop amounted to 10,000 tons. The following season was a bad one, and the yield fell off to 7500 tons. In 1881 10,000 tons was again reached, and then a “rush” on sugar commenced among the southern capitalists. The success of sugar-growing was considered to be assured, and, after the manner of a new country, a perfect spasm of speculation set in. Many of the older planters of Mackay took advantage of the sugar mania that prevailed down south, and sold their plantations at high prices.

The profits made about this time were very great. One of the oldest planters in Mackay in one year cleared £40,000 on his crop, and the next year sold one of his plantations for £95,000 and the other one for £85,000. The run on land anywhere within twenty miles of Mackay was astounding, and every acre, good, bad, and indifferent, was taken up. Land that had been for years considered barely worth paying rent for as a pastoral selection, and that nothing but the most vivid imagination could suppose capable of growing sugar, was readily disposed of to southern speculators at £10 per acre.

In the course of two years (1882, 1883) eleven new mills were erected, with a crushing capacity of 12,000 tons per season, bringing the total of the whole district to more than 30,000 tons. Taking the average price at £25 per ton, the annual output of the district has risen in fifteen years from £3500 to £350,000, and the total value of the sugar grown during that time is fully two millions sterling. When we consider that this represents merely the probationary period of sugar-growing in the district, we may safely predict that its future is a great one; and the impetus that the industry has received from the tremendous accession of capital invested during the last few years, makes it certain that the progress that has already been made will be trifling compared to the advance that will take place during the next ten years.

There are now thirty mills at work in the district, and others in course of construction. The white population has more than doubled during the past two years, and now amounts to 7000.

As soon as it was proved that sugar could be grown successfully in Mackay, the rush for sugar-land extended to every other part of Queensland. To the north of Mackay, on the Burdekin, Johnson, and Herbert rivers, every acre of land was taken up, and a great deal of sugar is now being grown there. At present it seems doubtful whether the climate of any other part of Queensland is as favourable for growing sugar as that of Mackay. On the Burdekin the rainfall is too light; on the Johnson and northern rivers it is too heavy, amounting sometimes to 180 inches a year. In Mackay the average rainfall is 83 inches, which is distributed over a longer period than almost any other district, a circumstance which is extremely favourable to the growth of the young cane.

There is very little doubt that a great deal of money will be dropped in these northern sugar speculations. When the sugar mania set in, people who knew nothing about sugar, except the market price, rushed at it like a bull at a gate, quoting the enormous profits made in the Mackay district, and firmly believing that nothing but land and capital were necessary to grow sugar anywhere on the coast of Queensland. They quite forgot that not even the favourable climate of Mackay saved numbers of people from being ruined in the process of discovering what varieties of cane were best suited to that particular locality. It is probable that in the future the growing of sugar will develop into an enormous industry, and will include many other districts besides Mackay; but it is certain that numbers of people will be ruined in the process of developing it. The prices paid for land during the run on sugar-growing were far too high to allow of any profit, and in many cases, even supposing the climate to turn out favourable, the expense of clearing will be ruinous. By and by the reaction will set in. Most of the pioneers will collapse, and a fresh lot of capitalists will come and buy up their improvements for next to nothing, and make a real good thing out of it.

Sugar has also been grown for some time at Maryborough and Bundaberg, to the south of Mackay; but the frosts to which these districts are liable make it an exceedingly risky speculation. On the whole, Mackay, as it was the first, so it is also the finest, sugar district in Queensland, and is likely always to hold a leading position, whatever may be the progress of the more northern parts. The great rock ahead of sugar-growing in Queensland at present is the difficulty of obtaining coloured labour, and it is astonishing that the planters do not display more enthusiasm on the subject. They are at present waiting with apparent indifference until their masters--the working-men--have made up their minds how to legislate in the matter.

No class in the colony is so entirely at the mercy of legislation as the planters. No class has shown itself more apathetic to its own interests until it is too late to protect them. The planters are a small community; but the absolute identity of their interests, and the fact that numbers of them live close together, makes it very easy for them to co-operate. Their trade is one involving an enormous outlay of capital, and a heavy current expenditure, so that any interruption in the work on the plantations is a matter which entails very serious loss. They are absolutely dependent for their existence upon being able to obtain a sufficient supply of coloured labour to do their work in the cane. It has been conclusively proved, in the first place, that white men cannot and will not do the work done by niggers in the field; and, in the second place, that if white labour were available, it would only be at wages which the planter could never afford to pay. The sugar industry, therefore, is entirely dependent upon coloured labour.

Now in this matter the planter knows perfectly well that every man’s hand is against him, and yet he takes no pains to protect himself. The conditions under which the existing labour traffic with the South Sea Islands is conducted leave much to be desired. Though the frightful accounts which are constantly circulated by sensation-mongers and alarmists as to the cruelty practised towards the Islanders are very much exaggerated, still there is just enough truth in them to make it extremely dangerous for the planter that things should be allowed to continue as they are. The labour trade should not be in the hands of the planters and speculating captains of schooners. It should be conducted by the Government at the expense of the employers. I am taking the planter’s view, of course. As far as the kanakas themselves are concerned, the fact of the Government of Queensland superintending the trade by no means implies that all abuses connected with it would cease, but rather the reverse. But it would take away one great weapon of attack from the working-man, which is the accusation of cruelty and slave-driving that is now so constantly urged against the planters.

The legislation of Queensland is entirely in the hands of the working-men; and it is only in a new colony, where a six-months’ residence suffrage gives full scope to ignorance and prejudice, that we can realise the suicidal mistakes which they are occasionally capable of making. A more extraordinary instance of inability on the part of working-men to understand their own interests than is afforded by the agitation against coloured labour in Queensland cannot be imagined.

We will take the case of Mackay. Before sugar-growing was started there were not a hundred residents in the whole district, and there were never likely to be any more as long as it was merely used for pastoral purposes. It is now one of the most thriving and rapidly increasing places in Queensland, with a population, as has been above stated, of 7000 whites and 3500 kanakas. Last year’s sugar crop was worth over £300,000, and next year’s will be very much larger. The amount of money annually expended in wages in the district is startling. The monthly paysheet of one of the plantations alone is £5000. There is a very fair foundry in the town, and the demand for timber is so great as positively to have run the southern markets dry at times. Houses are being run up as fast as material can be procured, and are let before the piles to carry them are in the ground.

The whole of this progress is entirely due to the development of the sugar industry, which is, as has been said, dependent upon coloured labour. If this were withdrawn, the Mackay district would shut up like a match-box. And yet, so obstinate are the prejudices of the working-classes in the colony, that the very men in the district themselves--carpenters, sawyers, ploughmen, engineers, and all who get their living entirely from the plantations--are foremost in the insane outcry that has been raised against coloured labour. The planters are represented as slave-drivers, and as taking the bread out of the mouths of white men to put it into the mouths of niggers. The fact is that the niggers do work in the plantations that no white man could or would do in such a climate, and by doing it they develop an industry that supplies thousands of white workmen with a means of living in clover.

In return the working-men of Queensland are doing all they can to bring in a Bill for prohibiting the introduction of Black labour, which, if passed, would for a time paralyse the growing of sugar throughout the colony. That so important an industry as the sugar-growing of Queensland has now become could be permanently destroyed by any such false legislation I do not for a moment believe.

The result of any attempt on the part of the Brisbane Government to stop Black labour would inevitably be to make the north of Queensland, where the sugar is grown, insist upon separation from the south. But in the meantime, before this could be done, the trade would sustain a very serious shock, and the loss to the planters would be enormous. To many of them, who work upon borrowed capital, it would mean utter ruin. Seeing that the planters are perfectly well aware of the feeling of the working-classes in the colony against coloured labour, it is really surprising that they do not take more pains to prevent its finding expression in legislation. Were the planters to form a sort of trades union, and shut up their mills for a couple of months, the white men would get a practical lesson that would enable them to determine the exact source from which their livelihood is derived, with an accuracy they never would forget.

Up to the present time, the coloured labour market of Queensland has been supplied by kanakas, as the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands are called. The word “kanaka” is really a Maori word, signifying a man, but in Australia it has come to be applied exclusively to the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands. The trade is carried on by means of schooners which run between Queensland and the Islands. These vessels are usually the joint property of one or two planters and the captain, who share the risks and the profits of the venture between them. At first there was not much difficulty in inducing the kanakas to come to Queensland and enter into an engagement for a term of years’ work there. But as the demand increased, greater difficulty was experienced in obtaining a sufficient supply; and there is no doubt that in many cases the captains of these vessels resorted to unlawful means to induce the kanakas to leave their homes. Kidnapping became frequent, and as a matter of course this aroused the resentment of the natives, who in one or two instances have retaliated by massacring the crews of the schooners that visited their islands. The kanakas themselves, when well treated, are a cheerful, hard-working, and rather intelligent race.

The inhabitants of some of the islands are very much superior to those of the others, but all of them are admirably qualified for the work that is required of them in the canefields of Queensland. Their agreement with the planters is for a term of three years, during which time they are fed, housed, and supplied with blankets, and receive £6 a year wages. At the expiration of their agreement the planter is bound to ship them back to their own country at his own expense, if it be their wish to return. But they can, if they like, remain in Queensland and enter into other engagements for such wages as may be agreed upon. Many of them remain as indoor servants, in which capacity they are very useful, and some of them make excellent cooks.

There is not the slightest doubt that as a general rule they are well treated on the plantations, and perfectly contented and happy. There are, of course, instances where they have been treated with injustice and cruelty, but they are the exception and not the rule; and a convincing proof of this is to be found in the fact that many kanakas elect to remain in the country of their own free will, and many others return a second time after having paid a visit to their native country. They are strong, sturdy men, as a rule, capable of doing a good day’s work, but their constitutions seem to be perfectly incapable of standing against any sort of illness. Directly a kanaka gets ill he lies down, and apparently very often dies for no reason at all except pure funk and lack of the wish to get well. They are especially liable to consumption; and when an epidemic of measles breaks out, as it sometimes does, amongst them, its ravages are appalling. When they feel the fever upon them, nothing can keep them from going and plunging themselves into the water, and they die off like rotten sheep.

Not a shilling of their wages do they ever carry back to their own country, either in money or in money’s value. The whole of their wages passes into the hands of the storekeepers of the nearest town, whose right to plunder them there is none to dispute. It is illegal to supply liquor to kanakas, so the storekeeper has no rival to fear in spoiling them of their hard-earned gains. The storekeepers of Mackay have earned an unenviable notoriety by the alacrity with which they have turned the ignorance of the unsuspecting savage to account. They import a special class of fancy goods, of the most utterly worthless description, and realise fabulous profits by selling them to the kanakas for about four hundred times what they are worth. There is no one to interfere with them, and it is difficult to see how it could be done, for, of course, at the end of his agreement the kanaka is entirely his own master, and if he likes to pay an exorbitant price for a worthless article, there is no way of preventing him.

Indirectly the planters could do a great deal if they chose, by intimating that their custom would be withdrawn from any storekeeper who continued the practice of fleecing kanakas. The storekeepers are entirely supported by the planters, and they would have to give in. Undoubtedly the temptation is a very great one. A cheerful and perfectly ignorant savage, who has just been long enough in the land to know that money will procure certain articles, but without the slightest idea of their relative value, exhilarated by the prospect of an immediate return to his native country, and with £18 in his possession, is a bait which, perhaps, it is too much to expect any tradesman to resist.

Certainly in Queensland they improve the occasion. Knives and tomahawks made of that peculiarly vile iron which combines the brittleness of glass with the softness of lead, muskets and pistols of a class unknown to modern warfare, handkerchiefs, hats, tobacco-pipes, and fancy rubbish of every description, fit only to hang upon a Christmas-tree, are palmed off upon these unfortunate savages for enormous prices. Many a time have I seen one of them returning from investing his wages in Mackay, with nothing on but a tomahawk and a tall hat, and perhaps a miniature lady’s travelling bag on his arm, the delighted grin upon his countenance expressing perfect satisfaction and conscious pride in his recent purchases.

Of course the storekeepers justify their conduct by saying that as long as the kanaka is satisfied they fail to see what injury he sustains. That is all very well; but to my mind there is something intensely melancholy in the spectacle of an industrious savage returning to his native country, after three years’ toil in a foreign land, with nothing to show for it but a musket that would kill him if he tried to fire it off, and a cotton handkerchief that would fly to pieces if he blew his nose in it.

Intercourse with civilisation is producing its usual results among uneducated savages, and the kanakas in Mackay are beginning to get troublesome. The other day, at the Mackay races, a big mob of them attacked the whites, and a general scrimmage ensued. Had the kanakas only been armed with such weapons as the Mackay tradesman might have supplied them with, they would have been quite harmless. But they had provided themselves with a supply of glass bottles, which they slung with infinite precision at the whites.

A glass bottle is by no means a contemptible weapon in the hands of athletic savages, trained to throw clubs and stones ever since they could walk. A lot of the white men climbed on to their horses and charged the kanakas, armed with their stirrup-irons, with which they knocked them over like ninepins. The fight did not last long; but there were a good many broken heads even amongst the white men, and several of the kanakas were killed before they were finally driven off the racecourse into the canefields. This is the only instance I ever knew of kanakas joining together to show fight away from their own country; but now that they have begun, no doubt this will not be the last disturbance of the kind.

The evening after the fight on the racecourse a scare was got up that the kanakas were going to storm the town of Mackay. No one knows who started the report, and nobody cared; but it was quite sufficient to terrify the inhabitants. The peaceful town of Mackay presented a most ludicrous appearance; everyone having armed himself with some sort of weapon, a musket, a pistol, or a butcher’s knife, with which he paraded the streets, giving all the corners a wide berth as he turned them, for fear of falling a prey to some bloodthirsty kanaka. The Mackay Volunteers, never having had an opportunity before of displaying their valour, except by shooting at each other with blank cartridge, showed the greatest enthusiasm and firmness upon this trying occasion.

Just after dark the most piercing shrieks from a woman’s voice were heard, coming from the opposite side of the river from the town. No one lived over there except an old man and his wife, who kept a market garden; and the idea at once seized the citizens of Mackay that the man was away from home, and the kanakas were murdering his wife. A wild rush was made for the ferry, and four or five men, armed to the teeth, jumped into a boat and pulled like mad for the opposite bank. A volunteer who was with them assumed the brevet rank of captain for the occasion, and directed the movements of the attacking force. As they got near the other bank the shrieks for help became perfectly heartrending; and the captain, wild with excitement, exhorted his men to redouble their exertions.

“Pull, boys; pull like mad,” he exclaimed, “or, by Jove! we’ll be too late. These treacherous devils of niggers must have swum across here. Look out for their heads in the water, or we’ll be having some of them in the boat. They swim like fish, and it’s so dark you can’t see ten yards.”

The instant the boat touched the shore they all sprang out, and rushed up the track to the house. The cries by this time had ceased, and it was feared that all was over. When they got there a sad sight presented itself. The hut was quite quiet, and the lights all out; but just then the moon appeared from behind a cloud, and revealed the figure of an old woman, with nothing on but a nightgown, sitting on a log in front of the hut, crying and sobbing in the most pitiable manner. In answer to a hurried inquiry as to what was the matter, and where the niggers were, she replied that “she hadn’t seen any niggers about the place, and the matter was that her old devil of a husband had come home very drunk, and given her the almightiest hammering she ever had in her life.”

“Well, boys,” said the captain, “this is the infernalest, meanest swindle I ever was amongst in my life. Never mind, we’ll go back and have a drink. And I say, missus, hadn’t you better turn in again? That’s rather an unhealthy get-up for a winter’s night.”

But the woman absolutely refused to go near her husband again that night, and was rowed across to the town by the disappointed warriors, and taken to some of her friends. The whole town was assembled to see them return, and yells of laughter arose when it was discovered that the weird, white figure in the sternsheets was nothing but the ill-used wife of one of the oldest inhabitants of Mackay, and that never a nigger had been seen. A vast procession escorted the poor old woman to her friends’ house; after which all hands adjourned for a drink, and the scare of the kanaka invasion subsided.

In the meantime the present supply of labour from the South Sea Islands is rapidly becoming quite inadequate to meet the increasing demand. Not only has the cost of obtaining kanakas greatly increased, but much difficulty is experienced in inducing them to come to the country. In view of this state of affairs, the attention of the planters was naturally directed to India as a source of labour supply. Both from her enormous population and from her geographical position, this country seems to be most fitted to supply the requirements of Queensland in this respect. It is known that in India there are millions of coolies exactly suited for the class of employment that Queensland can supply, and to transfer some of them from the one country to the other would be to confer a benefit upon both. It would help, if ever so little, to relieve the great difficulty which is experienced in India in finding work for the enormous working population, and at the same time it would supply what is rapidly becoming a pressing want in Queensland.

The proposal to introduce coolies into the colony was met with a universal howl of rage. For electioneering purposes it was invaluable, and dismal pictures of the future of Queensland overrun by niggers, and her white population starving, formed the _pièce de résistance_ in every idiot candidate’s address.

About this time a change of Ministry took place. Sir Thomas M’Ilwraith retired after the collapse of the Transcontinental Railway Bill, and Mr. Griffith formed a new Ministry. Had Mr. Griffith and his party remained content with having defeated the iniquitous project of their predecessors, they would have been entitled to the undying gratitude of the colony. But they advanced under the anti-coolie flag, and must therefore be regarded either as enemies to the progress of Queensland or as strangers to common sense. An attempt was made to pass regulations for the purpose of restricting coolies solely to the work of sugar-growing; but the present Ministry have refused to legislate on the subject at all, and its leader declares that he is incapable of devising any regulations that would be respected in this connection.

The very serious position in which the planters now find themselves has induced them to try several experiments for the purpose of obtaining such low-class labour as they require to carry on their operations. So far, these experiments have all resulted in something worse than failure. A shipment of Cingalese was brought down. Anything less like agricultural labourers never was seen. They were arrayed in fine linen, with tortoise-shell combs stuck in their hair, and looked as if they had never done a harder day’s work than stealing their own dinner in their lives. Some of them were very well-educated, and spoke three or four languages; but evidently they had all been induced to come under false pretences, and had no notion of the sort of work that they were expected to perform. The majority of them absconded from service, taking with them as much of their employers’ property as they could conveniently remove, as a souvenir of their visit to Mackay. A few Malays have been introduced, and a shipment of Maltese were tried, but with very discouraging results.

The remedy for which the working-man clamoured was then tried in an increased supply of white immigrants. The result followed which everyone who knew anything at all about the matter predicted. There was an immediate fall in wages, and it was discovered that the white men were entirely unable to compete with kanakas in the low-class labour on the plantations, and consequently took the first opportunity that occurred to break their engagements.

In the face of all this, it is still maintained by the working-classes in the colony that the industry can be carried on by white men alone, and the problem seems as far off solution as ever. The capitalists who are engaged in the industry demand a large supply of coloured labour, and are perfectly willing that such labour should be so restricted as to make it impossible that it should ever come into competition with white men, and should be entirely confined to a class of labour that, from climatic reasons, white men have shown themselves quite unable to perform.

On the other hand, we have the insane outcry raised by the working-classes against every sort of coloured labour, backed up by the admission of the present Premier of his inability to frame any laws that would restrict the employment of coolies to sugar-growing. Unless some satisfactory solution of the difficulty can be found, there is undoubtedly a very bad time in store for the planters. But the importance of the sugar industry to Queensland is so manifest, and the amount of capital already invested in it so great, that there is no doubt that eventually common sense will triumph even over the prejudices of the working-classes in the colony, and coolie labour will be introduced. If this were done, the future success of sugar-growing would be assured, and there is no doubt that it is an industry which is capable of contributing largely towards placing Queensland in the position of the leading agricultural colony of Australia.