The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1903-10-02
The American Sugar Industry Must
Take Precedence Over Cuba.
From the Beet Sugar Gazette.
Continued from fast week.

a domestic sugar industry by the sugar
trust will be an accepted fact within the
next few years. The trust may continue
at present to use its political power
against the home industry, regardless
of the fact that it is itself interested in
some beet sugar factories. This action
of the trust, if successful, would only
hurt the small capitalists interested in
beet sugar enterprises and might tenn
porarily cause some losses to the farm
ers engaged in growing sugar beets.
The trust would not lose anything
For the profits realized by a material
reduction of the sugar tariff would more
than atone Cor its losses in beet sugar
factories And the more profits it could
make in refining the greater would be
the surplus which it could invest in beet
sugar factories, which others had de-
veloped for it. Ultimately the small
capitalists as well as the beet growing
farmers can only gain by the permanent
investment of the sugar trust in the
beet sugar industry. 1t is true that the
trust may consolidate plants located
close to one another, and effect consid-
cradle economies in factory and Office
equipments and stats. But neither the
present owners of such factories nor the
farmers have anything to fear from the
trusts growing inroads in their field.
The trust will not attempt to manage
the beet sugar factories directly during
the stage of transition. Neither will it
place all beet sugar factories, in which
| it becomes interested, under one man
agement. The intimate connection of
the local people with the farmers makes
it highly desirable for the trust that
those people should remain on the spot
and keep on their own shoulders the ex-
pense and responsibility of securing the
necessary beet acreage. Not that the
trust could not secure all the acreage it
needed, if it so desired. 1t would but
have to offer a sufficiently high price
for beets to get all the raw material it
requires. But this would evidently in
volve great deal more worry and ex-
pense for the trust than the present
policy of letting the local people do this
strenuous work. This policy is cheaper
and more convenient fol. the trust, and is
in line with that followed in the world
market to secure its'raw material for
refining.
These facts, then, stand out boldly
from the evolution of the beet sugar in
dustry; That the beet sugar indus
try can only be hampered in its de-
velopment by tampering with the pro,
tective tariff, and that such tampering
at the present stage of development
would further the plans of the sugar
trust; that the beet sugar industry is
here to stay, and will grow in spite of
all opposition; that, eventually, the
American people will produce all the
sugar needed for domestic consumption
right here in the United States, by their
own unaided efforts; and that in this |
domestic sugar production beet sugar |
will far outweigh the combined produc-
ton of cane, maple and sorghum sugar
With these facts fully established, we
must also accept the other fact, that the
sugar trust will eventually be the main
promoter of the beet sugar industry and
of its many valuable side industries
1t will do this not from any sentimental
but from sheer economic
necessity. But so far as the American
people are concernedit is infinitely more
important that such vitality sound
principle as the production of national
necessities by the nation itself on its own
territory be realized, than to be troubled
about the question who will be the main
factor in its realization. Whether the
trust or individual capitalists develop
the American beet sugar industry is inn
material to the American people OF the
present and of future generations. as
long as it is developed. classification
is but passing stage in industrial de-
which will serve as basis
for still higher and more efficient
economic organization.
Those who look ahead into the future
and understand the economic tendencies
of social development in the United
States and Cuba can easily see another
reason why the sugar trust should be-
come deeply interested in the American
beet sugar industry. This tendency to-
ward higher industrial organization,
Of which we have just spoken, is at work
in Cuba as well as in our country. It
will inevitably transform the old feudal
method Of sugar production on large
estates by slave labor and semi slave
abor into modern machine production.
The present owners of the sugar estates
may be ever so antagonistic to change
n their methods of production. They
nay prefer to employ the cheap labor of
he natives rather than improve their
Of cultivation and manufac-
;ure. But the influx of American CAPT
al on Cuban soil will gradually develop