Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1882-01-12
Here's Richness Again.

The San Francisco Chronicle contains
an expose of the sugar monopoly on
the Pacific coast, in which the railroad
men openly play conspicuous part,
and which will be startling to vast
majority of readers. In few words
the case may be stated thus. One man
named Spreckles has got the control Of
the sugar business there, and by an ar
rangement with the Union Pacific is
enabled to keep eastern sugars out of
the California market. The freights on
eastern sugars are absolutely prohibi-
tory, and have been made so in the in.
terests of this one man. The steam
ship company is under the control of
the railroad, and maintains a practical
embargo on sugar. Spreckles keeps a
black list, and Furnishes any merchant
who brings sugar in sailing vessel.
His system is this He charges each
grocer full price for sugar, and every
three months allows rebate of a quar-
ter of a cent per pound. Any merchan:
who has violated the rules gets no
rebate. They are vassels of this man,
for when he sells one of them hun
dred barrels of sugar that sugar must
be paid for in five days without fail.
The moment the duty on Sandwich
Island raw sugar was abolished at that
port, the islanders raised the price Of
sugar enough to cover the previous diff
ference. The price of raw sugar is just
the same at San Francisco now as it
was before the duty was abolished.
Spreckles' profits under the reciproci-
ty system are enormous. He makes
the year round six hundred barrels of
sugar per day, each barrel containing
275 pounds, worth on an average $50
per barrel This makes business of
$4,000 a day or So, $40 600 year. The
whole sugar trade of the coast amounts
to $4,000, 900 annually and is control
led absolutely by Spreckles. On the SUI
gar which ne manufactures himself he
makes a clear profit of $40 barrel, or
1000 day, which would amount to
81, 100, 900 a year AS he produces large
part of this raw sugar on labor contract
plantations, it is fair to assume that
one-third of the price Of every barrel of
sugar he sells is clear profit to him.
Spreckles takes advantage of any occa-
sional scarcity Of sugar in the market
and raises prices on his customers.
Nobody knows how rich he is. He
thinks nothing of setting out hundreds
of dollars worth of champagne in an
evening for the benefit of his friends.
At his club house he is credited with
having boosted that he will be the boss
millionaire OF the Pacific coast when
Stanford can no longer make his rail
road paw, and when Flood can't squeeze
dollar out of the Comstock. He is
building new sugar refinery which
will cost several millions, and is report
ed to be negotiating for the Stamford
resid ence, on Mob Hill, which the rail
road magnate has grown tired Of.
Another peculiarly of the reciproci-
ty treaty Is shown in the importation
of rice from the Sandwich Islands. All
the rice produced on the island is pro-
duced by Chinese and those having re-
lations with the islands know that
every pound OF rice consumed by the
5000 Chinese on the island, is import
ed from China. These frugal people
export all the rice they grow on the
Hawaiin Islands, because 1t enters here
duty free, and they import from China
all the rice they eat, because the duty
is very small How much of Chinese
rice gets mixed up with Sandwich Is.
land rice, and is shipped here duty
free, there is no means Of knowing, but
the temptation to this fraud is great