ABSTRACT
This chapter traces how the problems of quality were overcome in the late 1880s and early 1890s, resulting in further impetus for the clearing and sustained farming of the rainforests. While good yields could be achieved in most years, periodic frosts damaged the crops and made sugar-growing a marginal pursuit in the areas. The cost of recruiting Pacific Islander labour was dramatically rising and a general economic downturn led to a credit squeeze and fall in the price of sugar. Faced with the problems in a major agricultural industry, the Queensland Government instituted a Royal Commission into the Sugar Industry in 1889. Along the coastal plains of Central and Northern Queensland, sugar was now the long sought-after staple, while everywhere else in the Wet Frontier, butter was paramount. The Queensland Royal Commission’s solution was to encourage centralised co-operative sugar mills rather than smaller ones on individual plantations.
