The herald., 1897-06-02
"A SWEET MoRsEL

New York, dated last Saturday, brough,
the following sugar plum. a toothsoms
morsel surely to the trust-controllet
Republican in the United States Sen
ate:
1.-THE United States government ac-
cepted bid today for 1.25o.ooo pounds
of foreign granulated sugar, entirely
ignoring the offers made for supplying
sugar Of home production, because the
American Sugar Refining company ar
bitrarily dictated the price at which
dealers in its sugars should sell. while
importers, having a free field and
knowledge Of the rate fixed by the
sugar trust, cut under it 16-100 Of cent
a pound.
"A notice posted today at the govern
ment warehouse reads: Gustav A.
jain. 04OA. sugar. That means that
the yearly supply Of sugar for the In
dian bureau, costing s53, 125, will be pur-
chased from jain. who will supply i'm
ported product. The Indian bureau is
the largest single purchaser Of sugar
in the United States, and its offer for
bids for the annual supply is watched
for with interest. They were opened
Tuesday, and it was found that six had
been filed, five from New York and one
from Chicago. Five of these bidders
had offered sugar at 44O cents pound.
while one bid offered it at AZ cents a
pound"
The commissioner who gave out the
contract, being questioned about it.
said:
II made the award on the merit Of the
sugar."
One of the brokers, who put in a bid
to supply American sugar, said in con-
fidence to the newspaper reporter:
This state of affairs has come about.
not because American sugar could not
have been offered at profit as low as
foreign production, but because the
sugar trust dictated the price at which
we should offer It,
"It would not be we'll for me If the
trust knew was complaining. but its
arbitrary action is an outrage. and the
result in this case is that their own
product is kept out of the Indian bureau
to the injury of all works in the indus
try
Even the sacks in which the sugar
will be imported will be Of foreign
make. This is the effect of the factor
plan, which enforces an equality
price. That is, we factors must sell at
just the price the trust dictates. AS
it controls the American output, we are
helpless. When the price changes we
are notified and are governed by new
figures. If we should depart from
them the American Sugar Refining
company would quote us prices on SUI
gar that would be prohibitory and drive
us out of business. In this case many
Of us could have bid as low as the i'm
porter and made a profit, but we did
not dare to-"
Here is revelation for protective
tariff advocates. What is that? Thi
foreign exporter pays the tax imposed
by protective tariff, and the result i:
always lower prices to the consumer
Well, perhaps once in a while this i:
so, when the high-handed schemes o
plunder, concocted by the trusts, are
sent like the mouse's nest Bobbie Burn:
turned up in the stubble where he wa.
Flowing. The we'll laid plans Of the
sugar trust must gang aglee" before
the foreigner pays the tax, or the con,
sumer gets cheaper goods. And un
fortunately for us, these plans o,
the trusts are usually laid 81
much better than poor mousey's, thai
no reform plow is deep enough to turr
them up to the light of day.
Oakland is thinking up scheme tt
keep up with the procession and become
the second city in the state in 1900, leav.
ing the third position to Los Angeles
The program is to incorporate Alameda
Berkeley and all the intervening coun
try within the city limits of the pro.
posed Greater Oakland. In 1870 Oak.
land had nearly double the population
of Los Angeles. In 1880 it had three
times the population of this city. II
1890 Los Angeles was a little larger thar
Oakland. In 1896 Los Angeles was
nearly double the size of Oakland, Will:
the whole of Alameda county had only
122,670. No; the city of Oakland cannot
take in the whole of Alameda county
and if it did it would still be second
to Los Angeles in 1900. No use trying.
The city council yesterday accepted
the Main street pavement, on the re.
port of the special committee Of thai
body having the work in charge thai
the resurfacing with asphalt had beer
done i'll satisfactory manner. This
finally settles one of the most notable
cases Of street improvement in the his
tory CT the city. and is the first instance
on record where a contractor has beer
forced to tear up work after it was com.
pleted and entirely resurface the same
1t will now be in order for the property
owners to pay the bill. 1t will cost then
several thousand dollars more than II
would otherwise, but they will have tho
satisfaction of getting a pavement u
their liking.
The contract for the improvement OF
Central avenue between the tracks OIL
the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe
railroads. distance of something over
two miles, was yesterday awarded by
the city council to Frank Harmon, he
being the lowest responsible bidder, II
having been ascertained that the bond
of S. B. Clayton was not satisfactory
r