The River Falls times. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1894-1933, 1897-06-29
SUGAR TRUST PROFITS.
John De Witt Warner Makes Some
Estimates and Scores the Trust.

Estimates and Scores the Trust.
Ex-COngresSman John De Witt War
npr is Gre of the beSt-DOsted men in
this country on sugar tariffs. When in
congress he carried the house for free
sugar. In a recently published state
ment he estimates the net protection
to the trust given by the Aldrich Sched-
ule at from 30 cents to S1.14 on every
100 pounds of refined sugar
Without attempting to give his argyll
mpnt rs to each of the ways in which
the trust would be protected, we give
his summary Of trust profits, as follows:
Specific difffferential. SO Ii to so 40
Thirty-fye per cent al
yalOrpm differential. +. OLA to 0 II
Couhteryailing duty,
say. ......... -. 70 u " 40
Additional by Substitu-
ton of 70 per cent ad
yalorem for specific du-
ties in low grades. . 90 to . Is
Total SO 80 to 81 II
In the vast majority of cases, hOWeV-
or. the actual result is between 10 and
go cents per 100 pounds let protection
10 the trust, and it is impracticable SO
to combine circumstances as to br.Ag
this below 40 cents or above 90 cents
for any considerable amount.
AS an item of tariff taxation the SUI
car schedule is ideal from the pr0tcc-
ZIONIST standpoint. Sugar is the one az
ticle used by poor and rich to an equiv
alent extent, and Il tax on which, there
fore falls most heavily On the poor i'll
proportion to their ability to pay Il. Its
production and distribution are con-
trolled by a concern which is ut once
the greatest of our mean trusts and the
meanest of our great ones.
1t is consistent therefore, that, on
this one article there should be levied
more than One-third of our total tariff
taxation. and that our people SHOULD, be
burdened by Il tax of more than 500
100000 that realizes less than $1O,OO0.-
COO for the treasury and more than
S2OOOOOOO for the sugar refining com
bine, while the same combine is en-
abled to net an additional $10,000,O0O
by the opportunity given it to import at
present duty raw sugars from which it
can make refined tC be sold by it under
the enhanced price assured it by the
proposed Aldrich schedule. The net
''protectiOn" of from 40 to 60 cents per
100 pounds given the trust on its rein
ing process alone should be considered
as sufficient. when we remember that
the labor cost of this process is slightly
less than ID cents per 100 pounds
that is to say, Senator Aldrich, III be-
half of American labor, proposes undu-
" to tax Wage-earnerS in order to give
the trust from five to seven times as
much protection" as it pays for all the
labor involved.
Next to the wage Garner, 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 out farm
erS from grain raising into fruit cult
ure, This has now so developed that.
except for exports of canned goods
jams. preserves. etc.-in which we
ought to supply the world, the business
of fruit raising has, in its turn, become
almost protitleSAy. And poverty is now
assured to those who are dependent
upon fruit culture by the proposed tax
of cents per pound OH sugar. rms
increases by from sc to 70 per cent the
article which would make up from 40
70 per cent of the total weight of the
jams. etc. the export of which mlght
insure living prices for the surplus
fruits, but which is now practically pro-
hibited.
And this is "a government OF the peo-
pie, by the people and for the people.
Who are 1.-The peOple?"