St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-04-10

mend the measure for passage. The
state is not going directly into it,
OF course, but it is going to be a sort
of insurer for those who engage in
making it.. 1t is going to be their si-
lent partner, with a limited liability.
1t is to assume the role of the
wealthy. indulgent and patronizing
parent, encouraging some of it's Off
spring to go into a line of business
for which the lad has developed
neither taste nor capacity. 1t is go
ing to give a bounty Of one cent
a pound on all sugar made from
beets grown in the state.
This is neither surprising nor I'M
expected. With legislature so sol
idly Republican, its members trained
in that school which teaches the pa
ternalism Of the state and it's duty to
encourage and foster and regulate
and generally look after its children,
it is surprising that the fostering
business is not engaged in much
more extensively. 1t is not that
there are not ample opportunities
for the exercise of this socialistic
policy. Turn where you will, one
finds channels for enterprise in
which the state should not be a dead
head. Industries long established
are languiShing, the streets are
thronged with men out of work and
seeking employment. Agriculture
iS. in he n 50.
as worthy of being nursed as is
Sugar.
Of course the venture will be only
an iridescent dream. Some money
will be wasted; some crafty specu-
lators will make it, and there will
remain, after a few years, some dis
mantled refineries as the monuments
Of legislatures folly. But what
of that? What are few thousand
paltry dollars compared with the
value of the chance for statesmen
to pose as the patrons of husbandry;
the promoters of industry, the friends
of the farmer and the wise and in
dulgent guardians of the welfare of
the wards of the state?
And what is it all for? Ostensibly
to provide another field for industry;
practically to increase the supply of
sugar. Ostensibly to initiate France
and Germany and promote the well
fare of agriculture; practically to
initiate those nations in making
sugar more plentiful and cheap for
all consumers except their own. Our
paternalists stop short Of their orig
mails. They should scale and grade
their bountieS, paying something to
the beet grower, something to the
refiner and something to the sugar
thus made that is sold outside the
state. Then the result would be the
same as in France and Germany,
whose people pay twice for their
sugar what the consumers of it else
where do.
entered on and bounty paid on the
beets and another on the sugar,
what may we expect to follow? The
bill contains no repeal of the law
of demand and supply, very neces-
sary provision if it's expected bene-
fits are to be realized. For already,
under the policy of France and Ger
many, the price of sugar is ham,
mered down to lower point than it
ever attained. They have given all
the world, except their own people,
TIE cheapest sugar ever known. Now
let Nebraska, already launched in
it, and Minnesota follow and add to
the supply. First will come the
speculative effect. Refineries will be
built to earn the bounty. Farmers
will go into beet raising to get the
profits promised. Land prices will
boom. With this will come the in
evitable extravaganza and waste Of
fostered enterprises. There will be
a large increase in the supply Of
sugar. The demand will not respond
There will be an over
production or an under-consump
ton resulting in falling prices
of sugar, reacting on beets, and, as
in Germany, a clamor of the agrari-
ans for more fostering, and of the
refiners for more bounty. In the
end the crash, ruin, discomfort,
and another lesson in statecraft
hardly learned.