The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-04-14
TIE CUBAN BILL.

This week may witness the termina
ton of the struggle in the house over the
proposition to reduce the duties on Cuban
sugar and tobacco by 20 per cent.
1t is to be hoped so, for it is really
derogatory to the national dignity to be
wrangling over what appears, on analysis,
to be the question whether the United
States means to recognize the RESPONSE
bilities it assumed in the Plat amend
ment or not. AS trustee, cur govern
ment has performed it's duty properly in
Cuba for three years and half, AS as
suRing proteCtorate under the Platt
anendment, we have pledged ourselves to
the CUbans, in return for their accordance
of our terms to do all that a great and
powerful! nation can do to promote the
welfare of the new born republic, whose
Independence is limited by specific terms.
One by one the arguments of the oppon-
EMS of the small concession proposed
have been successfully met and overcome.
The no-concession element argued that
1t would be a violation of the "most
favored nation clause of our treaties
with other nations to give Cuba special
reduction. Of sugar duties. Hhis argu-
ment has been dropped because it has
been demonstrated that a long line Of
pFecedents, from 1903 when France was
denied equal advantages with Great
Britain by our government on the ground
that advantages gained by one nation
through reciprocity cannot be claimed
without an equivalent compensation, to
the present time, settle the question. and
the position of our government has con-
sstently been that no commercial con-
oessions shall be made to another coun-
try except for equivalent concessions,
which are, in the case OF Cuba received.
When Germany claimed that her salt was
entitled to free admission into this coun-
try in 1894, when salt was placed on our
free list, she was refused because she
had placed an import duty on foreign
salt.
Another argument of the no-concession
element Is that the proposed reduction Of
duties will simply benefit the sugar trust
which will put up prices. The American
Sugar Refining company, however. does
not and cannot regulate general market
prices, for they are made at Hamburg
and are governed by the surplus sugar
product Of Europe. What the sugar trust
wants is free trade in sugar and, at the
same time, retain the tariff on refined
sugar. They fatten on the differential
duty-the difference between the tariff
on raw and refined sugar It is true the
proposed reduction in the duty On raw
sugar from Cuba would help the sugar
trust so far as the sugar already con-
tracted for is concerned
Some of the most violent utterances
against any concession whatever are to
the effect that the republican party will
repudidate it's pledge to protect the beet
sugar industry so as to promote its
growth. The bet sugar interest is pro-
tected to the extent of "a per cent, ac-
cording to the claims and admission of the
beet sugar men themselves. They would
still be strongly protected by duty of
20 per cent. They would thrive under
protection of so per cent, according to the
testimony of some of their own number,
and we have the positive testimony of
Henry Oxnard himself, printed and wide
ly circulated as recently as 1899, that
even on free trade basis the beet sugar
industry would be perfectly safe.
The republican party would be abso-
lutely true to it's pledges if it gave Cuba
concession OF 20 per cent on sugar
duties. tt would be just as true If it con-
coded 90 per cent of those duties. The
industry would be amply protected
There are other of our sfiourishing in
dustries which are protected by such a
large measure of duties that the latter
become gratuitous bounties, in amount far
in excess Of the protective duty actually
needed.
AZ for the opposition to reciprocity