THE SUGAR QUESTION
STOURM, Auguste-African, dit Eugène.
Opinion sur la question des sucres.
[Paris, Bourgogne & Martinet, n. d., but 1840.]
8vo, pp. 62, [2 (blank)]; title from half-title; a little creasing to corners; disbound; inscribed ‘De la part de l’auteur’ to the half-title.
First and only edition of this work on the sugar beet trade; the French had begun cultivating sugar beet during the Napoleonic wars, when the British blocked shipments of cane sugar from colonies such as Martinique and Guadeloupe.
When the wars ended, and cane sugar reappeared on the market, most European countries stopped beet production, except for France, which continued to develop sweeter varieties of beet. By 1837, sugar beet accounted for half of all French sugar production. Stourm, a deputy in the Aube, a département which at the time had no means of refining beet sugar itself, here argues for the preservation of sugar beet production in France, and to allow the colonies to trade with other nations, as imports represent a menace to indigenous industry. ‘Stourm’s poor health did not allow him to deliver his long-considered opinions on the sugar question, so he decided to print what he could not say’ (p. 2, trans.).
No copies traced in the UK or US.
