Los Angeles daily herald., 1890-02-17
MONDAY. FEBROARY IT, 1890.
CripPling our Fruit Inaustry.

Gripping our Fruit Industry.
We have said heretofore that the whole
system of the protective tariff is 80 ar
ranged as to afford the greatest possible
benefits to the manufacturers and the
least to the farmers of the country. In
view Of pending legislation in Congress
looking to the removal of the present
duties on sugar and fruits, we have ad.
verted to the effects of such step on the
industries of this State. Great Britain
is at present the greatest manufacturer
of jams, jellies and preserved fruits in the
world. There is no dietetic problem
more important to the health and gen.
eral well-being of the people than this of
providing cheap fruits in all the forms
they are used in. In Great Britain
jams, jellies and conserves are not lux
uries in any sense of the word.
They are as common as bread and meat
on the tables of even the poor.
We do not realize, here in Cali
fornia, what expensive luxuries fruits
are in the East. They are too
expensive to permit of their gen.
eral use and are costly delicacies
known only to the we'll to do. If given a
fair opportunity, California can produce
fruit enough to supply the entire coun-
try with fruits and fruit preparations
much cheaper than the people of Eng
land now buy them. But this infant in
dustry, as it truly is, is strangled in its
cradle like the young Alcides was like to
be by the serpents sent by jealous Juno,
by the iniquitous system of the tariff
that discriminates 80 heavily against all
farming interests. This is not a politica
TRADE. 1t is not free trade distribe, as
many may be inclined to look upon it.
This is plea to the party in power to
treat this State more Justly.
Let US look at few facts and figures.
Canned fruits contain but little sugar,
and the only effect the tariff has on
the tin that coats the cans. Jams,
jellies and conserves of fruit con-
:. tain from 80 to rs per cent. of sugar, and
the vessels that hold them are quite costly
England makes all her own glass and
pottery. She admits sugar free Of duty.
In America there is an import tax of
about so per cent. on both the sugar and
the vessels used in putting up fruits.
The difference of the price of sugar in
England and America is on an average
So per hundred, or cents pound. A
dozen pots, each holding pound of jam,
cost in England 3711a cents, and in Amer
ica 6215 cents. Here is difference of
cost in favor of the English manufacturer
of 25 cents dozen, or 6625 per cent.
Our sugar costs so per cent. more than
that used by the English fruit-packers.
Taking average prices in the two countries
and this result is reached: To make
twelve pounds of strawberry jam S.4
pounds of sugar are used. This quantity
of sugar costs in England 1881 cents
in the United States the cost is 65. 10
cents-a difference of 1929 cents.
Adding to this the 25 cents difference on
jars, the total difference on twelve Jars of
strawberry jam is found to be exactly
1929 cents. This difference is already
about 40 per cent. of the English whole
sale price of the jam. Now turn
to the schedule on the manufactured
jam or jelly, and the discrimination
against the farmer becomes patent. The
duty on the fruit conserve is thirty five
per cent. sd valorem, and twenty
five to thirty per cent. on the jars
that contain it. This gives the imported
English stuff net advantage of to pei
cent. over the home production. That
of course would be an enormous prof
for the manufacturer to make, and en-
ables the English article to keep the
American out of the markets of the world
including those of our own country
There is the further difference of cost o
the labor and the capital employed il
the two countries. Republicans make
great outcry about our party, and its pol
icy of delivering the American market
over to England, but it is just such quee
tariff vagares as the above that fettel
American enterprise and give up oul
markets to England.
Now look at the result. In England
the poor use jam as common article O
diet. 1t is cheaper by to 10 cent
per pound than butter, for which
it is largely substituted. England
produces about $20,000,0O0 worth
of small fruits, much more thar
SO per cent. of which is converted into
conserves of some sort. We convert
about 81, 600 900 of our fruit into jams anC
jellies. Nearly every town of import
ance in Great Britain has fruit pre-.
serving establishment, and all the frui,
in the vicinity finds good market. In
Dundee. Scotland, one firm employs
1000 hands in this business. A firm in
Glasgow uses thirty tons of Strawberries
day. In Great Britain, in 1887, there
were more than As, 900 acres devoted to
small fruits. In the county of Kent
there are many growers who plant 100
acres In strawberries alone, and some
who plant several hundred. About 50,-
200 persons in this single county are
engaged in the production of small
fruits.
The above results are the direct effects
OF cheap sugar and cheap glass and pot