Los Angeles herald., 1891-09-10
CALIFORNIA; OBLIGATION TO THK
REPUBLICAN PARTY-A QUEER
SUGAR PROBLEM.

Unfortunately for it the Farmers Alli-
ance has been organized for some time;
and, as it is composed of men who earn
their bread in the sweat of their faces,
that organization may we'll claim that
it originated this benefcent movement
of nature. The members of the Farm
ers' Alliance are certainly not going to
concede the Republican claim that grass
and grain grew luxuriantly this year be-
cause Billy Mckinley got his bill
through congress.
Farmers and others who have been
Republicans understand very well that
the Republican party is very selfish
organization, and that all its legisla-
tioD is aimed at making the rich richer
and the poor poorer. There was great
hullabaloo, for awhile. at the great i'm
petus given to the production of block
tin by the Mckinley bill, and this did
very good service until it was shown
that that great measure of protection
absolutely gave no encouragement what
soever to the producer of tin--that it,
in effect, shut tin out of any possibility
of protection for years if the Mckinley
bill is not repealed. The HERALD has
repeatedly shown that the real animus
OF the Republican tin plate legislation
was to give Republican ring of already
enriched Iron Barons and spectators
$40, 100000, eight million dollars of
which they have already pocketed.
The Farmers Alliance, and pretty
much everybody else, are getting on to
the real undertones of these glib and
oleaginous pretences, which have now
about exhausted their ability to fool
people.
Perhaps the most energetic of the
howls of the Republican politicians have
been over their sugar bounties. The
HERALD has been honestly cordial in
welcoming this new industry to Southern
California. We think that, no matter
what abuses may exist, it is a
great good to this section. But
there is no use of lying about the mat
ter. The Chicago Tribune, an honest
Republican paper, said some time ago
that it was time to quit lying about the
tin plate industry. We may add that it
is time to say that neither the producer
nor the consumer gets any commensur-
ate benefit from the establishment OF
this new industry in our midst. 1t is
the flower of the Mckinley bill-its cap
sheaf, so to speak-and how does it op-
crate in Southern California?
In the east, through the free entrance
given to Cuban and other sugars, a man
can get twenty-five pounds OF the staple
for dollar. Here the retail price OF
sugar is 63s cents pound. The proba-
bility is that the Messrs. Oxnard place
this sugar at retail at cents a pound,
with a small discount for cash. Adding
to this figure the two per cent. bounty
of the government, and these enterpris-
ing gentlemen receive eight cents a
pound for their sugar.
How is it with the producer? On the
supposition that his beets yield 12 per
cent. in saccharine matter he receives,
at the price of $3.50 per ton, at the rate
of SLAP per hundred pounds for the
sugar in his beets, or $2S.40 ton. II,
however, his beets are rich in saccharine
constituents he receives twenty-five
cents ton for each additional percent
age OF sugar. That is to say, for each
additional per cent. of sugar he will get
atthe rate OF $1.25 per hundred pounds.
1t will be noticed that this is less tn an
for the first twelve per cent, although
it is as easy to take the higher percent
age from the beets as the lower.
1t is said that it costs about one-h half a
cent pound to make sugar in the east.
With the superb plant of the Oxnards
at the Chino ranch it must certainly be
easy to make sugar as cheaply as else
where. At this figure of $3.50 a ton,
which means SLAP per hundred pounds
for the sugar product, the government
bounty of two cents pound pays for
the beets and for the cost of manufac-
turing them, leaving clear profit OF six
cents pound for the manufacturer.
AAO NOl edlliy OuShI W nave d large
profit, but ought he to have SO much +?
Ought not the producer and the con-
sumner to be heard of somewhere in the
proposition?
Whenever the glowing Republican
political programmes are looked into
with any close scrutiny, some such de-
velopment as that we have outlined is
discovered. All the legislation of that
party is conceived in a spirit of glitter
ing generalities, whose true inwardness
will be disclosed with the capitalist in
possession of the game, and the con-
sumer and producer holding the bag.
The Chino farmer certainly ought to
get more than from SLAP to $1.5O per
hundred pounds of that beet sugar
which, with the United States bounty,
brings into the manufacturer So hun
dred pounds. 1t is the old, old PROPOSE
ton OF the Republican party, which was
exemplified in the distribution of the
game shot by the Indian and the white
hunter. Said the latter to the aborigine,
'You take the buzzard and I'll take the
turkey, or I'll take the turkey and you
take the buzzard."
In this parable consumer and pro-
ducer are in the same box as the un-
fr1fr ~. r I