The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-02-25
WORLDS SUGAR
Review Of Last Year Given by
Glasgow Herald.
EFFECT OF CUBAN SHORTAGE
Speculative Ventures
Were Not Fruitful.
Comparative Tables of Production
and ConSumption-Bee Root
Sugar Crop.

The Glasgow Herald says OF tne SuS-
ar trade of 1896: During the greater
part of this year the course OF prices
was largely guided and controlled by
anticipations concerning the means of
supply for the American markets.
There had long been an all but general
expectation that, from the condition
of affairs in Cuba, American importers
would be under the necessity of max
ing such drafts on European stocks as
could hardly fail to produce import
ant changes as regards the displace-
ment and absorption of supplies and
the tendency of values. This eXpecta-
ton, however, although periodically
giving signs of being fulfilled, was new
er actually realized to any extent at
all commensurate with it's wide accept
ance; in fact, by forced shipments OF
fresh cane sugars from Java and other
centers of production, a turn in events
altogether undreamt of as possible
speedily created a position which made
American buyers comparatively indie
pendent of beetroot There was a the
of this new position was assisted by
something like a general outpouring of
invisible accumulations of old and
long-neglected stocks, but to what ex-
tent this may have been accountable
for the change, or if it had any practi
cal effect at all, it is impossible to say;
one thing is certain, and that is that
the EUROPEAN markets, continuing bur
dened with more than ample supplies,
were not only disappointed of pros
perity which was regarded as inevita-
BILE. but were, besides, called upon to
encounter difficulties of no ordinary
kind Perhaps in no single year, not
withstanding that the depreciation had
often previously been much more Sc
we're, were so many disasters ever be-
fore recorded The constantly recur-
ring rumors concerning the situation
and the dangerously sanguine views
expressed, especially by those most ig-
norant of the subject, in relation to
the golden harvest which it was to
yield, gave rise to outside speculative
few, if any of them, within their brief
existence proved otherwise than un-
successful, the aspect of affairs was
soon changed into one of far-reaching
trouble The misadventure, taken as a
whole, has been productive of deplora-
BILE consequences, not the least being
that regulations of contracts, quib
blings in support of false issues, and
legal strategems, and so-called legal
decisions, have all been sought to oc-
cupy the place of fact, and as means
for shirking the responsibility attach
| ing to common honesty in statement
| and intention. Under such circum
stances the legitimate interests of bo-
na-ffde dealers could not remain un-
| affected but. fortunately the strain
! bas not been too severe in most such
! cases, and it is still not improbable,
! their speculative coadiutOrs being out
Of the way the realization OF their
more skillful and intelligent estimates
| IS only postponed. At the opening Of
the yeqr the price of prompt IS per
cent beetroot f. o. b. Hamburg stood
/ at lis; it then with moderate fuctu-
ations. reached 12s esd at the end OF
| April and from this figure which was
he highest the price gradually reced-
/ Cd till in October il reached IS 718d
! which again was the minimum point
II may thus be said that the values OF
the year were almost equally divided
into two distinctly opposite courses
ard that those courses were directed by
what NAV he described as the waxing
md wanine processes relating to that
ill-starred expectation as TO the action
of America. There were few other
distracting events. such. for instance
IS an increase of certain foreign boun-
ties irrroved crop returns, etc, but
as 5enreesing element the American
business wae certainly paramount. and
Of course the others only accentuated
the weakness rroduced by the failure
of the main support.
"The serious decline in the yearly