heavy cost for carriage is added. The amount of cane to make a ton of sugar is so bulky that a distance is easily reached beyond which the plants cannot be carried without a cost which would make any profit impossible.
In spite of all these difficulties,—and they are very great,—the stranger cannot pass through the sugar districts of Natal without becoming conscious of Colonial success. I have heard it argued that sugar was doing no good to Natal because the profits reached England in the shape of dividends on bank shares which were owned and spent in the mother country. I can never admit the correctness of this argument, for it is based on the assumption that in large commercial enterprises the gain, or loss, realized by the capitalist is the one chief point of interest;—that if he makes money all is well, and that if he loses it all is ill. It may be so to him. But the real effect of his operations is to be found in the wages and salaries he pays and the amount of expenditure which his works occasion. I have heard of a firm which carried on a large business without any thought of profit, merely for political purposes. The motive I think was bad;—but not the less beneficial to the population was the money spent in wages. Even though all the profits from sugar grown in Natal were spent in England,—which is by no means the case,—the English shareholders cannot get at their dividends without paying workmen of all classes to earn them,—from the black man who hoes the canes up to the Superintendent who rides about on his horse and acts the part of master.
There is a side to the sugar question in Natal which to me
