The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-03-09
A SACCHARINE PROBLEM.
BRADSTREETS' EDITOR GIVES a
TALK ON FREE SUGAR.

n ] the
Raw Article Was Untaxed-gow it
Could be Done Without Injury to
the sugar Planters and Manufact-
urers-A Bounty System Proposed.
CCopuightl
New YORK, March 5 The duty on sugar
promises TO be a topic of more than pas ing
interest in tie House this season. First.
there is the principle of protection to be
keeps in view; then the reduction of the al
legged surplus; next the louisiana cane
planters must not be lost sight of, and after
them the sorghum interests of Kansas: not
to forget the future great beet-sugar indus
try of California, concerning which so
much is promised.
Nothing else has gone SO far to bring this
subject prominently before the public as
the organization of the sugar trust and the
competition between it and Claus Spreckels
at Philadelphia and San Francisco. The
public have learned much more of the
profits of sugar refining within year than
the mere onlooker could have gathered in a
decade prior to the formation of the trust.
This suggests the amusing notion that the
very organization, or combination, which
vent more than ever the encrOachments of
inquiring minds, appears to have so conferred
the public gaze upon it as to have prac-
tically defeated that purpose.
The Importance Of the subject may be ap-
preciated when il is realized that the total
consumption of sugar in the United States,
refined and unFefined. amounts 10 about
forty-six pound per annum per capita. In
1889 the sugar trust is alleged to have made
$12, OS6, 600 profits, as compared with Sl3,-
S25, 900 in 1888. The antitrust refineries
are said to have shown S6.305, 600 profits
last year, against So, 100000 the year
before. The home production of
sugar is perhaps $4,000, 900 pounds per
annum, about one-twelfth of the home con
sumption. This refers of course to tie
Louisiana crop of cane. But in Kansas, as
reported by Inspector Kellogg, sin the dry
and undeveloped portions of the state,
where corn and other cereals are a partial
or total failure, sorghum viii always
flourish" II is added that the southern tier
of counties In that state as far west as Bar
bour is at present ''the cream of the sugar
district"
Next comes California, with its supplies of
duty-free Hawaiian cane sugar, and what
is something more than an lncipient beet
sugar industry, stimulated by Claus
Spleckels in part, and in part by the re-
ported advantages accruing TO various con-
tirental countries which have INDUCED in
beet-sugar growing to a large extent.
Any proposition to remove the duty on
raw sugar, it will thus be seen, is sure to
raise something more than a passing COM
ment by those directly affected. TIE ag-
gregate sugar duty collected during the past
five years has averaged about $50,000,000
per snnum. The opponents of the plan to
throw off this duty cl i'm the loss to Louis
lana planters and to Kansas sugar interests
(pres Mt and prospective would be very
heavy; that the teet sugar industry
would be retarded indefinitely, and
that the existence of the duty on
sugar is in no Use a burden on the con-
sumer. The same people, or some of them,
propose, if 1t IS necessary in order to vio-
lently renOunce the national receipts, to cut
of the internal revenue tax on whisky and
tobacco. The advocates Of free sugar have
claimed that the country is paying-indi-
Iectly, of course, but paying, nevertheless
about SIS, 0OO, 600 per annum to support a
home sugar industry which can never rival
foreign producers, owing to lack of favor
ing natural conditions, that we could much
better afford to pension off the domestic
sugar-growers and permit the public to
buy its refined sugar 1@l19 cents lower per
pound.
Here one may see just what knotty
problem our legislators at Washington are
to grapple with when they take up the
question of free sugar With a view to
learning the views of those best posted on
this subject, | asked w. p. Willett of New
York what he C nd suggest as a way out
of the difficulty. he has given much at
tention TO the subject, and is regarded as an
authority of the FIRST rank The task is not
an easy one, being of the nature of those
which demand a Henry Clay; some one
who can suggest a middle course over
which parties on both sides may travel
asked whether he thought Stree SUGAR.
probable at an early day.
''. he drift of public sentiment for sew
eral years has been III the direction of free
sugar, and free sugar for the consumers of
the United States seems certainty in the
not distant future"
''But now can this be brought about with
the least injury to INV interests"
SIT is important, of course, that in plac-
ing all raw sugar on the free list that the
home producers should not be cut off alb.
ruptly or even checked in their efforts to
stimulate home production. This can be
accomplished IN a c0mmon-sense business
way by paying bounty on home produc-
ton, such bounty to run for definite
period of twenty years, beginning with 2
cents PER pound-the full equivalent of the
duty taken off-and being reduced at the
rate of per cent. per annum, or LILO cent
per pound"
Continuing, Mr.. Willett said that ''in the
meantii the country will save the differ
ence between DUTY and iounty say about
$4S, 100000 per year, and twenty years pro-
lection by bounty will be quite long enough
to put sugar-raising here on a firm and in
dependent b sis. In fact such a change
will be much safer basis of action for some
producers than a tariff subject to constant
cutting down by reason Of the growing
public sentiment for free sugar eventuaIlv.n
but do you not think bounty could be
tinkered quite as much as duty?"
''Such a Law on the statute books would
be in the nature of a contract by means of
which sugar is to be obtained, and public
sentiment would be against any violation of
it, by repeal or modification. Provision
should, of course, be made, in the event of a
change. such as l have outlined, for pre-
venting free importations of raw sugar
from any country which adds to its present
export duties"
"How about refined sugarg'
"a duty should be left on refined sugar
of one-quarter Of a cent per pound, which
with the cost of importa ion, say one
quarter Of a cent per pound, would give the
reiners about half cent per pound protec-
ton for their plants, and at the same time
protect consumers against being charged
any part of the duty taken off. -
Aud IS to the general effect of such
actiOnT'