The Washington times., 1911-10-19
SUGAR, COFFEE, AND ECO
NOMIC TOMFoOLERY.

without beginning to test the producing
capacity of that province.
Grown and marketed under normal,
natural conditions, both coffee and
sugar would give their growers q
gratifying profit and yet sell at prices
30 much lower than the worlds mar
kets know that the average person
would not believe the truth If it were
told to him.
The worlds capacity for producing
either of these staples is many times
it's requirement for them.
On the other hand, there is another
world-staple, wheat, for whose produc-
tion the worlds capacity, measured by
available land and numbers of people
living on that land, is constantly
closely pressed by the consuming de-
mand.
Sugar and coffee, in short, ought to
be very plentiful and cheap, while
there could be found much justification
for rising prices and short supplies
of wheat.
The very reverse of these conditions
actually prevails in the worlds markets
today. Coffee and sugar are scarce
and dear, wheat is selling at reason
able prices, and in ample supply.
1t is an anomaly that deserves more
consideration, in its philosophic as
poets, than it gets. We worry about
the cost of coffee, the short supply, the
soaring price of sugar, the prospects
that it may soar yet higher; but real
illumination of these conditions is to
be found only in a study of the con-
ditions that have surrounded the coffee
and sugar industries for many years.
Sugar and coffee tell the story of
disaster flowing from governmental in.
reference with natural economic
processes. There has been a maximum
of governmental interference with
conditions as to these two staples.
There has been q minimum as to
wheat.
First, consider sugar. For many
decades France, Germany, Austria
Hungary, Italy, Russia, and about all
the rest of Continental Europe paid
huge bounties to encourage the rails
ing and export of beet sugar. To pay
these bounties to the producer they
imposed excessive consumption taxes
on the people. The result was that
the countries got the INDUSTRY, but
their people were denied the SUGAR
Normally and naturally sugar should
be grown in the tropics, not in Ger.
many, because the tropics can grow il
cheaper. But governments have inter
fered with the natural adjustment, re,
sulting in the transfer of the industry
in considerable measure to the TEN.
perate zone, and in MAKING SUGAR
so EXPENSIVE THAT THE PEOPLE
COULD NOT GET WHAT THEY
WANTED OF 1T.
Production in the tropics, thus dis
couraged, has not been maintained as
it would have been in natural con-
ditions. The burden of the bounties
became serious, and in 1907 the con
tinental countries held sugar con
ference at Brussels, agreed to quit pay
ing export bounties, and otherwise tc
reorganize conditions. Among the
agreements there entered was one
which bound Russia sharply to re
strict her exports of sugar for 3
series of years.
This year Germany's beet sugar croI
has been very short; the yields il
various other countries have been un
satisfactory; and there is world short
age that compels unprecedentedly higl
prices.
Russia, it develops, has big crop
but is bound by the Brussels agree
ment not to export it. So the worl'
can't get the sugar it needs, and Russi'
can't get the money it ought to col
lect for it's sugar crop. 1t is proposes
to reassemble the Brussels conferenc
and grant Russia permission to export
Of course there will be objection t.
this by the people who are reaping ex
cessive prices by reason of shutting ou
Russia, and it is uncertain what tn
result may be.
The whole crisis in the sugar traffi
"a world wide crisis, let it be under
stools the result of the long cours
of government interference wit
natural trade conditions.
Turn to coffee, and different sor
of governmental interference is foun
to have produced a very similar re
suit. The Brazilian government Sc,
eral years ago organized nations
monopoly in coffee, for the avowe
purpose of "holding up" the consum
ing world. With the backing of power
full banking interests in Britain, GEL
many, Holland, France, and the Unite
States, the project was financed. Braz