TRANSPORTATION AND DELIVERY OF RAW SUGAR

It has been explained that in Hawaii sugar is packed in one-hundred-and-twenty-five-pound sacks. Methods and customs vary in different countries. For instance, in Cuba it is put up in large gunny bags, each holding an average of three hundred and twenty-five pounds. The same custom prevails in Porto Rico. In Peru, and to a limited extent in Java, sacks containing two hundred and twenty-four pounds are used. A large part of the sugar in Java, however, is put up in bamboo baskets of native make, containing from five hundred to eight hundred pounds. They are about thirty inches in diameter, from thirty-six to forty-eight inches high, and are lined with coarse leaves to prevent the sugar from sifting out between the weavings of the bamboo. Philippine sugar is packed in leaf-lined mats of tough vegetable fiber, each holding about seventy pounds.

These various styles of containers necessitate different methods of handling to and from the ships and by the buyers, but Hawaii will again serve as an example of efficient, modern practice. Outside of what is consumed locally, all Hawaiian sugars are shipped to the mainland of the United States by steamers or sailing vessels to San Francisco, or by steamers to New York or Philadelphia, via the Panama canal.

As sailing vessels are rapidly disappearing from the seas so far as the sugar trade is concerned, reference will be made to steamer traffic only. The steamers are specially built for carrying sugar, having a cargo capacity of from five thousand to thirteen thousand tons, and the best loading and discharging facilities.

When loading in Honolulu, the steamers usually lie alongside wharves covered with immense warehouses, where rapid-speed conveyors carry the sacks of sugar to a point above the ship’s hatches and drop them into chutes which guide them down into the hold of the ship, where they are compactly stowed. On the off-shore side of the vessel small steamers from other island ports lie alongside and hoist the sacks by means of steam winches to a point over the hatch and deposit them in similar chutes. When steamers are loaded from both sides in this manner, as much as three thousand tons, or forty-eight thousand sacks, can be loaded in nine hours.

After a vessel is completely loaded and gets her clearance from the custom house, she departs for San Francisco, twenty-one hundred miles away, or for the Atlantic seaboard, via Panama, as the planter may direct.

The voyage ended, and the quarantine and health regulations complied with, she proceeds to the dock of the buyer, usually a sugar refiner. The Hawaiian planter invariably sells his sugar under contract prior to arrival of the vessel at destination.

Planters in other countries operate differently. Occasionally sugar is sold on the plantation at an agreed price, and the buyer arranges his own transportation. The planter sometimes ships his sugar unsold and negotiates its sale while it is en route. If so sold, it is delivered directly to the buyer on arrival; if not, it must be stored in a warehouse at the planter’s expense pending sale.

The practice of the Hawaiian planter is to sell his sugar to refineries in San Francisco, New York or Philadelphia, under contracts extending over a term of years. It is agreed that the sugar shall be shipped as soon as made and that the refiner will receive it immediately on arrival, the price for each cargo being that quoted in the open New York market for ninety-six-degree centrifugal sugar on the day preceding its arrival.

STEAMER LOADING SUGAR ALONGSIDE DOCK

LOADING SUGAR AT AN OUTPORT IN HAWAII

The value of raw sugar, like that of other staples, is based on supply and demand, and the price fluctuates from day to day according to the requirements of the refiners or the necessities of the sellers.

There are certain rules or trade conditions governing all sales, so that when one man buys and another sells at an agreed price, each knows what he is bargaining for. For instance, raw sugar is bought on the ninety-six-degree centrifugal basis, that is, the price agreed to be paid is for centrifugal sugar containing ninety-six per cent of sucrose. If it contains more sucrose, a higher price is paid; if it contains less, a lower price is paid; all according to an established scale of additions and deductions. Then again, the time of payment for the sugar is well understood. It is usually ten days after the sugar has been finally discharged from the ship, as this allows a sufficient period in which to determine the exact weight of the sugar and the percentage of sucrose it contains. An instrument called a polariscope is invariably employed to determine the amount of sucrose present and the results obtained from its use are absolutely accurate. A description of the operation will undoubtedly prove interesting.

The practical working of the polariscope is based upon the property of sucrose to rotate a ray of polarized light to the right.

Ordinary light is the effect on the eye of vibrations of the ether. These vibrations occur in all directions, but by certain optical devices they may be confined to a single plane, and light thus confined is called polarized. If rays of polarized light pass through a layer of certain bodies,e. g., quartz, sugar and many others, the plane in which the vibrations occur is rotated, and the polariscope has been devised for the purpose of measuring the rotation of the plane of polarization.

Polarized light, as used in the polariscope, is obtained from the Nicol prism or some development of it. Ordinary light passing through crystals of certain bodies, of which Iceland spar is an example, is split into two rays, one of which is known as the ordinary and the other as the extraordinary ray. A Nicol prism is made of two wedge-shaped pieces of Iceland spar, cemented together with a film of Canada balsam.

The accompanying sketch gives a good idea of the arrangement of an ordinary polariscope.

POLARISCOPE

A strong white light,e, enters the instrument through a lens atf, to the Nicol prismb, by which it is polarized. The ordinary ray is dispersed, while the extraordinary or polarized ray passesstraight through and enters the sugar solution contained in the tubec, which has glass ends. In passing through this solution it is given a rotary motion to the right or to the left, according as the sugar in the solution is sucrose or levulose. When it emerges from the tube containing the sugar solution, the now rotated polarized ray encounters a second Nicol prism, of which one of the wedges is fixed and the other movable. This prism is called the analyzer. A pointer, controlled by a thumb screw, is attached to it, and when the correction of the polarized ray’s rotation has been made with precision by adjustment of the wedges, the pointer will indicate directly and accurately on a scale the amount of sucrose in the solution under test, because the polarized ray was rotated in exact proportion to the amount of sucrose contained in the solution through which it passed.

The polariscope is made and set so that a standard weight of pure sugar (C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁), dissolved in a standard quantity of pure water, and placed in a tube of given length, will rotate the ray of polarized light in passing through, to a point on the scale marked one hundred degrees, the equivalent of per cent. Also, that by using the same quantity of water, but twenty-five per cent, fifty per cent, or seventy-five per cent less weight of sugar, the rotation will show seventy-five degrees, fifty degrees or twenty-five degrees of pure sugar, as the case may be.

A sample is drawn from each bag of sugar and all of these go to make up a general average sample. The standard quantity is carefully weighed, dissolved with the standard amount of water, clarified, filtered and poured into a tube with glass ends, which is then inserted in the polariscope between the eye of the operator and a strong artificial light. When the operator making the test applies his eye to the instrument, he sees a distinct shadow on a lens in the line of vision, one side being light and the other dark. He then turns the thumb screw which adjusts the analyzer until the whole field of vision is neutral, which indicatesthat the rotation of the polarized ray has been corrected. The pointer on the scale now shows the exact percentage of sucrose present in the raw sugar, ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six degrees, or whatever it may be. This test determines the real value of the sugar, based on the market quotation for ninety-six-degree sugar. If the polarization should show exactly ninety-six degrees, the price to be paid for the sugar and the market quotation will be identical.

In most sugar-producing countries the government imposes an import tax on all foreign sugars, in order to obtain revenue to defray governmental expenses and to protect the domestic industry, if any, against competition with other countries in which cost of materials and labor may be lower. Commodities produced in a country naturally add to its development and wealth, and this explains the fostering of the sugar industry by various governments.

The United States duty on foreign sugar is at present $1.256 per one hundred pounds of ninety-six-degree raw sugar. On account of our treaties with Cuba, the Cuban planter is allowed a deduction of twenty per cent, and, therefore, pays a duty of $1.0048 per hundred pounds, which, owing to trade conditions, is the duty effective today in the United States.

Sugars produced in the insular possessions, Porto Rico and the Philippine islands, are admitted free of duty.

In 1898, the Hawaiian islands, through annexation, became a part of the United States, consequently no duty is assessed on sugar or any other Hawaiian product.

Every vessel coming into a port of the United States must be entered at the custom house, where a record is kept of the port whence she came and of what her cargo consists. If from a domestic port, she is permitted to discharge her cargo without delay; if from a foreign one, customs officials are immediately sent on board to watch the cargo as it is discharged and supervisethe tallying, checking or weighing, according to the class of merchandise. Besides being weighed, sugar is carefully sampled and the percentage of sucrose ascertained by the polariscope, for the customs duty is based upon the purity of the sugar, all raws testing not above seventy-five degrees polarization paying .71 cent per pound and .026 cent per pound for each additional degree. This is equivalent to 1.256 cents per pound for ninety-six-degree sugar.

The people of the United States used 4,257,714 short tons of sugar in the year 1915. It was nearly all produced within the United States or in countries enjoying tariff concessions, as follows:

Aside from the small amount of full-duty-paying foreign sugar imported, the only sugar in the above list that paid duty came from Cuba. It is evident, therefore, that under ordinary conditions an increase in the crops of any of the places mentioned would result in a surplus of sugar in the American market. In 1916, with the beet production of Continental Europe locked up by the war, Cuba’s increased output has been absorbed by Great Britain, France, Italy and Greece.

Steamers from Hawaiian ports, after arriving and entering at the custom house and passing quarantine and health officers, proceed immediately to refinery docks to discharge cargo.

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