Just at the time that the Southern States of America were fighting desperately in defence of the slave system, the foundations of the Queensland sugar industry were being laid. Despite the high prices then ruling for sugar, the profits were not large, owing to the primitive methods of cultivation and manufacture adopted on the plantations. In time, even in this remote quarter of the globe the growth of the beet industry compelled the planters to make radical changes. Antiquated husbandry, crude processes, and wasteful management were superseded by modern scientific methods. The subdivision of large estates, the substitution of small white growers for gangs of unskilled coloured labourers, and the establishment of co-operative central factories were Queensland's contribution to the solution of the problem of Beet _versus_ Cane.
As Napoleon in his wildest dreams had no conception that his anti-British policy would ultimately lead to the expansion and evolution of the sugar industry of the tropics, so the Queenslander who first planted a few sticks of sugar-cane on the shores of Moreton Bay half a century ago little foresaw that from that humble beginning would develop the greatest agricultural industry of this State--an industry which, if treated with continued consideration and sympathy by the Commonwealth, bids fair to revolutionise the hitherto accepted view of the relations of the white races to the tropics. Yet, if we read aright the brief history of the Queensland sugar industry, and appreciate its present position, that first planter commenced a work which is likely to lead to permanent settlement in the tropics by men of European descent.
There was little to distinguish the establishment of our sugar industry from similar ventures in other parts of the tropics where the supply of cheap coloured native labour was insufficient for the requirements of the planters. The men who opened up the first plantations in Queensland were not Australians, except by adoption. Their experience had been gained in Java, Mauritius, the West Indies, and elsewhere. They came to this country imbued with the old notion that the best and most economical means of carrying on tropical agriculture was to cultivate large estates by the aid of gangs of coloured labourers; and it is a moot point whether, fifty years ago, any other method of establishing tropical industries in Queensland was possible. Certain land concessions were given to encourage the newcomers, and they were permitted to import Pacific Islanders, under Government supervision, as contract labourers for work in the fields.