The Forrest City times., 1897-07-16
] SUGAR TRUST PROFITS.
John De witt Warner Makes Some Estimates nnd Scores the Ttasi.

John De witt Warner Makes Some
 Estimates md Scores the Tfusi.
 Ex-Congress1uan John De Witt War neris one of the best posted men in this country on sugar tariffs. When in con gress he carried the house fos free sugar. In a recently published state mcut he estimates the net protection 10 the trust given by the Aidrich sehcd- ale at from J5 cents to $l.14 on every 1o0 pounds of refined sugar.
 Without attempting to give his argu- ment as to each of the ways in which the trust would be protected we give hisvummary of trust profits as follows: Specific Gifferential OIus) )........S0 1S0S) % Thir .y-flEe Der cent. ad ' G!ofaIa -. , m,
 lI-erelllal. ............ '.-.'' Ie q Additional by substitution of Q
 par cent. ad valOrcm for specific
 duties in low grades............. 0 oeQ lS
 Total. ............................ S5as1 II
 In the vast majority of eases, however, the actual result is between 45 and co cents per 100 pounds net protection to the trust. and it is impractiCable so to combine cir- cumstances as to bring this below 40 cents or above 60 cents for any considerable amount.
 As an item of tariff taxation the sugar schedule is ideal from the pro- tectionist standpoint. Sugar is the one article used by poor and rich 10 an equal extent, and tax on which there fore falls most heavily on the poor in proportion to their ability to pay it. Its production and distribution are con trolled by Q concern which is at once the greatest of our mean trusts and the meanest of our great ones.
 It is consistent therefore that on this one article there should be levied more than one-third of our total tariff taxa tion, and that our people should be bur dened by tax of more than $90,000, GOO that realizes less than $70,000.O00 for the treasury and more than $20, 0,000,000 for the sugar refining combine, while the same combine is enabled to net an additional S10,o00,000 by the oppor- tunity given to it to import at present duty rates raw sugars from which it can make refined to be sold by it under the enhanced price assured it by the proposed. Aldrich schedule. The net protection" of from 45 to 50 cents per 100 pounds given the trust on it's retin- ing process alone should be considered as sufficient when we remember that the labor cost of this process is slightly less than 6H cents per 100 pounds--that IS to say, Senator Aldrich, in behalf of American labor, proposes unduly to tax wagc-earners in order to give the trust froln five to seven times as much pro tection" as it pays for all the labor in- volved.
 Next to the wage-earner the farmer IS dear to the protectionist heart, and he IS therefore equally favored by the sugar schedule. Of late years through out the eastern and middle and many of the central states the competition of the far west has driven our farmers from grain raising into fruit culture. This has now so developed that except for exports of canned goods-iams, pre- serves, etc.-in which we ought to sup ply the world, the business of fruit rais- Ing has, in it's turn, become almost proftless. And poverty is now assured 10 those who are dependent upon fruit culture by the proposed tax of two cents pound on sugar. TlEs increases by from 50 to 75 per cent. the article which would make up from 40 to 75 per cent. of the total weight of the jams, etc, the export of which might insure living prices for the surplus fruits, but which IS now practically prohibited.
 And this is "a government of the people, by the people and for the peo- ple." Who are the ''people?''