The white sugar of Martinique, which is reckoned the best produced by the foreign colonies, bearing in France a price of forty-two livres per quintal, that is, of ninety-four reals, affords, after all the expences have been deducted, a profit of five reals in that quantity. In this instance, therefore, as well as in the preceding one, a profitable branch of commerce is established.
But, in Peru, the quintal of sugar is of the value of a hundred reals. If we add a freightage of thirty-two reals, the lowest estimate that can be made, in consequence of the more remote distance respectively to the Havannah, which pays twenty-three reals, the cost will become such as to necessitate a loss of forty per cent.
In the article of cotton, a similar loss would be sustained. The common price of the arroba, of twenty-five pounds weight, of Surinam cotton, is, in Holland, forty-nine reals. The prime cost, in the viceroyalty of Lima, is five piastres; and if to this sum a freightage of three piastres be added, its value will be found to be augmented so considerably, as totally to prevent a competition with the foreign markets.
It appears, therefore, to be demonstrable, that Peru, for want either of an internal or extraneous consumption, as well as on account of its local position, and of the different invincible obstacles which have been deduced, cannot aspire to an extensive commerce of productions. It ought consequently to confine itself to a greater extraction of gold and silver; and should so proportion the importations from the mother country, as that the introduction of merchandizes should not exceed the annual produce of these metals, that being the sole rule of a just and salutary equipoise. The Peruvian mines are well
