The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1884-01-12
The Sugar Duties in the United States.

Since Congress reduced the duties n SUI
gar by its Tariff Act of last session it has
often been remarked that we stand in quite
as much danger of having the Reciprocity
Treaty made worthless by the entire re-
mission of these duties as by the direct alb
rogation OF the Treaty. The s. +. Chronicle
recently took up the cudgels for the sugar
I producers, not with any intention of assist
ing our cause we may be sure. In fact the
article contains several untrue statements
and spiteful remarks about Hawaii, most
of which we omit in the following extract:
"A Washington paper urges on Congress a
! reduction ofItiE duty on sugar TO the extent Of
S50,000,000. That means the placing of sugar,
with tea and coffee, on the free list for S5O,-
900, 600 is about the whole amount of duty col
'ected for the last fiscal year sugar imports.
few years ago tea and coffee were dutiable i'm
perts Some short-haired women and long
haired men in New England, New York and
Ohio, raised long outcry against this indirect
taxation of the tea table and breakfast table,
as they called it; aud Congress in too generous
moment, placed tea and coffee the free list,
IN the foolish expectation, that to the extent Of
the revenue derived from these articles, they
would be cheapened in price to the consumers
| here. 1t is not necessary to say that this eX-
pectation was never re ealised. Everybody knows
that no reduction took place III the price of tea
and coffee, to the American consumers, because
of the abrogation of some $17, 100000 to S19,-
100000 customs duties thereon. The foreign
exporters got the whole benefit of it by simply
raising the foreign prices of tea and coffee If
any one thinks the same thing would not be re-
peated with Difference to sugar, should that ar
tices also be placed on the free list be is mis-
taken.
''If, then il is clear from experience that the
consumers OF sugar would not gain anything
and probably lose by the placement of this
tcle the free list, and that the Government
would certainly throw away $4,000, 600 of its
yearly revenue, the argument is conclusive
against the policy proposed by the Washington
paper. But this is not the whole of
the argument against it. The home
producers of sugar, whether from cane
| in Louisiana and Texas, sorghum in
the Western States and some of the Eastern,
beets i'll California, much entitled to the
| benefit of protection the makers of iron and
steel machinery III Pennsylvania, of cotton and
WOODEN goods III New England and Georgia and
of other wares, as boots and shoes, hats, carpets,
silks, etc, III most of the manufacturing towns
of the Middle, Western, Southern and Pacific
States. 1t will not do to reply 10 this that sugar
production in the United States does not and
cannot BE maGe to supply a fourth OF our de-
mand for that article This is what some of
the Republican, and protection papers of Penn
sylvana are now saying. We remind them that
the policy OF protection inaugurated half
century ago. when all our manufactures were
feeble and the foreign imports of manufactured
article at a higher ratio by comparison with the
home production than imported sugar now is 10
the home production of that article. The pro-
tective policy stepped i'll and said to the New
England cotton fabricators and to the Pennsyl
vania iron and carpet producers, you shall
have protection against the cheap labor and
enormous capital of Europe And they got it
and it built them up to the wealthy and power
full position they row hold. We remind these
papers also that fifty years ago France and Ger
many made even less sugar than America does
now and that now they not only make enough
for home consumption, but they have suffi-
cient surplus to send England last year two
fifths of all she had to buy, and that sugar
from sorghum, with the present degree of
American protection, is Il more profitable
industry to the farmers of New Jersey, Illinois,
Kansas and other States than the raising of
wheat, corn, any other staple crops. But
if sugar is to be put the free list this rising
and hopeful industry must inevitably perish,
and with it all sugar production in louisiana
and Texas from well, for it is not posi-
bic that American labor can compete on equal
terms with the slave labor of Hawaii, Cuba,
Brazil and the still cheaper coolie labor of India
and the Philippine Islands. The stake at Issue
IN the ultimate production from our own soil of
all the sugar we consume, and this
yearly value at the average for refined and
refined Of $500, 100000 and double that
amount twenty years from this date \ nation
"a Congress-that W. ould fling away such
stake without corresponding benefits to the
consumer and at cost of S50,000,000 year
to the revenue, is on the highway to ruin, ard
hopeless OF the popular support when the peo-
pie once come to an understanding of the sub
ject.