The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-02-01

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Empirical legislation, fostering indus
try, has led to the production of suffi-
c1ent results to warrant the welI-sus-
tanned deduction that every such law
involves, invariably, a certainty and a
doubt; certainty that it will not pro-
duce the results intended, and a doubt
where the arrangement it unavoidablv
causes will be felt. It will be we'll
for the state if the legislators who will
shortly be asked to approve a yet more
seductive measure to tempt labor and
capital into the manufacture of sugar
IN this state, ponder we'll this fact be-
fore committing it to an experiment
that has never yet produced the ends
Tor which it was projected, while it
has always produced results entirely
unanticipated and hurtful.
The experience of Germany is espe-
c1ally in point. The same arguments
were used there that we hear here; the
immense sums spent for foreign sugars:
the benefit of keeping that money at
home; the assistance it would be to the
farmers in diversifying their crops and
providing them with good market;
the decrease in the cost of sugar to the
consumers that would follow the expuI-
sion of the foreign by the domestic
product, and the prosperity that would
come to all by means of this embarca-
ton of the state in fostering sugar pro-
duction. For years Germany has held to
the policy, increasing bounties and tax
es out Of which they were drawn IN
III the treasury is embarrassed
and it's officers are casting
about for relief The first effects cf
the stimulation to production gave the
same old familiar results. The land
lords increased their scale of expenses
to absorb their increased income. ex-
travagance replacing frugality, and. af-
ter production passed the limits of con-
sumption and began to flood the world
reducing prices, the scale of living was
maintained by money derived from
mortgages.
meanwhile the peasant farmer, ten
ant or small proprietor found nothing
but ashes where promises had led him
to expect benefits, the increase Of rents
or taxes, or both. taking away the
profits he was led to expect from the
cultivation Of the beet Then came the
tremendous pressure for more and
higher bounty recently acceded to and
the contagion spreading, demands
Tor more and more legislation in behalf
OF the poor agrarian. The consumers
OF sugar. the urban jewellers. found
mat the cheap sugar promised them
"hen Germany made all the sugar it
consumed never materialized. but. on
the contrary, prices steadily rose until
the people taxed to produce cheap
sugar pay more for it and use less Of
it than the people of England. The ex-
tent to which this law has demonstrate
ed the certainty that lives in all such
laws is shown in another communica-
ton on Sugar Bounties' published in
the G o b of Thursday.
II sugar can be grown profitably from
the beet in Minnesota, it is capable of
easy and inexpensive demonstration
Our experimental station can ascertain
the cost Of production, the percentage
Of sugar. The cost of reduction is
factor already established in the Ne
braska re1neries. The field is wide
open for individual Initiative. If there
is money in growing beets, the farmer
viii produce them; if there is profit in
refining, capital is ready to embark in
the plants. Thus initiated and devel-
oped the growth will be natural and
normal, no decisions will be spawned.
no deinoralizing dependence upon state
aid will be fostered, sapping the very
foundations of the state, the self-re-.
liant, independent manhood of it's peo-
pie. Society has no worse enemy than