The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-01-16


 doubt, and if we leave her under tin,
 present tariff conditions we do st
 knowing that it is highly probable tha
 she will not be able to maintain such z
 government as we have declared she
 shall establish and maintain.
 This is a position the United States
 cannot afford to take. It means the
 ruin of the great industries on whict
 the island depends; a ruin which vii
 be totally unnecessary and benefit nc
 one, and will destroy for all time the
 good will of the Cubans for us and their
 confidence in our good faith.
 We produce about four hundred and
 fifty thousand tons of sugar in the
 United States proper; and in the coun-
 tries belonging to the United States or
 now under her protection Qncluding
 Cuba) about million tons more, and we import from Europe between seven hundred thousand and eight hundred thousand tons, It will be seen at once that, even if all of Cubas sugar crop were admitted without any duty, it would not necessarily affect the price of the home product, as the price at which the European sugar, which amounts to about one-third of our con- sumption, can be imported and sold will regulate largely the price or the home product.
 Cuba cannot expect free sugar, but | she can expect with all reason and jus tice that a liberal reduction will be made on the duties which her sugars pay on entering the United States She can give dollar for dollar in a reciproc- ity arrangement, and even if she could not, the Platt amendment, propased by us and accepted by Cuba, cert affily inn poses upon us a moral obligation to see to it that Cuba is justly treated by us and enabled to live up to it's require mef1ts
 The total amount of sugar produced within the limits of the United States after many years of sugar raising is only one-fifth of our consumption. This indicates very clearly that it will be many years, even under the most fa- vorable conditions, before it can be in creased to a sufficient extent to take the place of the sugar bought ill Eu- rope, even if there were no increase in the consumption; but, when it is re- membered that the consumption is rap idly increasing and that it is still nearly twenty pounds per capita less than the consumption in Great Britain, it will be seen that, even if great increase in the output of Cuban sugar should take place in the future, there will still be large field to be filled by the home pro- duct. Cuba, in her days of greatest prosperity, produced a little less than one million two hundred thousand tons of sugar, and it is highly improbable that she will exceed this amount for a number of years to come. It can be stated as fact that a reasonable re- duction of the duty on Cuban sugar will in no manner be to the disadvantage of any person now engaged in the produc- ton of sugar in the United States. In this connection attention is invited to the official statements issued in 1899 by Henry T. Oxnard and w. Bayard Cut ting, leading American authorities on sugar, and president and director, re- spectively, of the American Beet Sugar relative to the beet sugar in dustry and it's prospects. Their decla- rations are positive and unequivocal. | They say: "The island of Cuba is so | that it's sugar industry can 1 rapidly recover the ground lost during ! the instruction, provided that the la | bor question can be satisfactorily set | tied. There is, however, no fear that | Cuban production, even under an an | nexation to the United States can in | one day expand to the point where the United States would become exporters of sugar instead of importers, and | hot 1@~ protect"
 We have taken Cuba from Spain and broken up very largely such special trade relations as she had with that We have repeatedly asserted that we were going to esta blish her as stable government. We have admitted times without number that she was ruined and needed every kind of assistance, but we have kept up against her products, through which alone she can become rich and prosper ,us, as high a wall of protective tariff IS against our most dangerous com mercial rivals.
 Few people are probably aware of the 'act that for generations the struggle against yellow fever in the south, in- there from Cuba, has cost our government millions upon millions of | lollars every year, and in years of great apidemics, in which the business in arge cities was practically stopped. the oss in money has been beyond compu- ! aton and the loss of life very great Are we to establish the new govern nent so crippled in means and re- that it must inevitably permit | hese conditions to recur through lack ] if money to maintain proper system if sanitation? Are we going to per- nit the school system, the syst em of hospitals and charities, to go to pieces? 1 Ire we to assume the responsibility for ninety miles off our coast a government which, unless we give it's industries chance to live, will be for generations a menace to us, and un- oubtedly necessitate another interven- ion to correct conditions arising from 1leness and poverty and compel us to Q ocer again the work which has cost IS up to date some thousands of lives nd many millions of dollars? The
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