BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1902-06-24

question will come before the new Con-
press than whether the United States is '
to exchange manufactured products
with Cuba, for sugar, which the sun
raises so bountifully, or fly in the face
of nature and our economic conditions
by bolstering up the sugar-beet industry
as the Secretary urges That it is
a case of flying in the face of nature
seems not to be denied by the Secretary
of the American Beet Sugar Assocla-
tion He nowhere pretehds that the
beet is as good sugar growth as the
cane, but merely insists that we ought
to produce our own sugar, saying in
conclusion that this policy has the sup
port of the party now in power, and
that its benefciaries will demand the
fulf1ment of party promises.
Charles A. Champion of Iowa, the
tother chemist of the Internal Revenue
Bureau, who has had charge of the
scientific work in connection with a
commission appointed b. the Secretary
Of the Treasury for the consideration OF
questions relating to sugar duties, makes
an important contribution to the beet
sugar discussion in recent number OF
| the Forum" He shows that by the
latest census bulletin on beet sugar,
and that prepared by an employee of
the Department of Agriculture, the
beet sugar production had reached only
II 900 tons in the United States in the
last year under review, while the con-
sumption for the same year was 2,22o,'
900 tons, or an increase over the year
before of about 10000 tons. In other
words, after twenty years OF nursing,
our total beet sugar industry today
amounts to less than half of Our annual
increase in sugar consumption. This
suggests that tariff of practically one
hundred per cent. against Cuban sugar
is hardly sufficient to bolster up the
domestic industry For its successful
conduct we must have lower priced
labor.than any now in the United States,
or higher protection.
+ Already the desire of the beat-sugar
people for more than one hundred per
cent. protection has found expression in
demand for indirect bonuses IN other
ways. For example, Congress will be
asked next winter to expend millions of
dollars upon irrigation ojects When
the suggestion is made that our we'll
watered land in the Mississippi valley
is already producing cereals in abun-
dance, and that private enterprise will
carry irrigation wherever economically
profitable, the reply is made that we
need national aid to irrigation in order
to help the beet, and that, if the Gov
ernment will only water the deserts, we
can raise it to advantage. If, inaddltlon,
we shut off the butterine industry, as
the same interests demand, so as to put
domestic protection on butter the
beet industry will be still further help
ed, since diaries form an important
adjunct. In other words, threefold
system of Government aid will support
the beet in its warfare against nature i;
but it remains to be seen how far in
such directions the United States Gov
ernment is now willing to go.
The Cubans are by no means dis
couraged, in spite of the unfriendliness
of Secretary Wilson toward their project.
They say that without some concession
on sugar they will be economically
worse off than under Spain they say
the United States Government taS
given them schools and clean streets,
and so on but that, without some
market for their goods on terms of
reciprocity, they will be in the position
of man who has been provided with
magnificent house, but with no income
to keep it up. They believe that there
was an implied promise on the part of
! the United States to treat them fairly
and that public sentiment in this coun-
TRY will assert itself in their behalf