The Hawaiian gazette., 1912-03-19

uidi Nigs ~ 10 Weh, say bOIne sugar
men, that the attack comes now, many
months before the election, so that there
will be time for the people all over the
country to learn that the free sugar
SO far from being a hit at
.he Sugar Trust, is just what the trust
wants.
A Refining Trust Only.
The American sugar trust is a refining
trust, not sugar growers trust, and
this is the distinction which, it is stated,
will be eventually brought out all over
the country by the present discussion.
All over the land the growers of sugar
are identified with the truth, whereas
their interests are opposite, for the
trust will make more money if it can
get foreign sugar free of duty, for its
refineries, than it makes now.
That the issue has been made so far
in advance of the national campaign is
regarded as n favorable proposition for
the sugar men, for there is time, it is
argued, for the people of the country
generally to learn the facts. A vote
taken now would be against sugar men
all round on the general proposition
of the virulent sentiment against the
Sugar Trust. 1t is regarded as lucky
for the sugar men that there are months
to come, during which the facts may
be digested by the voters and the whole
problem thoroughly threshed out, before
it has to be settled at the polls, if
sugar is to be an issue. In other words,
the sugar proposition is being SO thor
oughly aired now that if it is a feature
in the campaign next November, the
trust will no longer be associated with
the growers in the public mind.
Growers Not the Trust.
In this connection the Louisiana
Planter received here in the last mail
contains a striking editorial calling at
tention to the fact that the Sugar Trust
is in no way to be identified with the
growers of sugar. 1t is the fact that
discussion now, months ahead of the
home to the American people before
growers feel that they are possibly very
luChy buAlh bOhCuuiC bhC
first one to be attacked. The Louisiana
Planter says:
"In the recent investigation of our
consolidated American refining interests
and the home sugar growing industries
of beet and cane the Hardwick Congress
sional Committee developed at least one
view which should rebound greatly to
the advantage of our home sugar grow
ers.
Gas the Louisiana Planter has previ
ously stated, the general iniquities and
proven frauds of most of the leading
branches of the great refining combina-
ton, or Sugar Trust, have aroused for
several successive years steadily in
creasing popular sentiment of hostility
against the sugar interests as a whole
in all of the country. In that hostility
popular ignorance and falsely founded
prejudice have confused the issue under
consideration and unjustly caused ma
jority of the people to consider from an
inimical point of view the sugar grow
ers of the country as well as the sugar
refiners. The all too false idea appears
to have been largely cherished that the
honest sugar growers of the country
were equally sinners against the people
and copartners with the cordially hated
Sugar Trust.
"The report of the Hardwick com
mittee should certainly remove that
false and foolish impression from the
minds of all of our American people.
1t shows that, far from being in any
partnership with the combined sugar re-
filming interests, the sugar growing in
dustries of our States have been very
much the worst oppressed victims of
the consolidated refining industries. In
all of the twenty-one years of its exis-
tence, the Sugar Trust has been doing
its best to destroy the cane sugar indus
tries of Louisiana and Texas, by lobby.
ing against them in congress, by stead
lily trying to reduce the raw sugar
duties and comparatively enhancing
those on refined, by fraudulently i'm
porting hundreds of millions of pounds
of raw sugar free in New York and
Philadelphia, by forcing the Cuban reel
procity legislation through congress, os
tensibly to benefit Cuba, but really ia
benefit themselves by straight tariff
reduction of twenty per cent, and
worst of all, by fixing a differential
against Louisiana raw sugars ranging
from fifteen to fifty cents hundred
pounds under the false pretense of that
being necessary to pay the freight to
New York, when the sugar was not re-
fined in New York, but in New Orleans,
in the midst of the Louisiana cane
fields.
"The Hardwick committee has also
shown part of the iniquities of the sew.
eral years war of the Sugar Trust
against the beet sugar industry of the
Western States, which ended in the abb
sorption of an enormous or controlling
proportion of beet sugar stock by the
Sugar Trust and the establishment of
truce against beet sugar which has
now endured for several years.
90 All of fheAa sirsr 30 tha cl,,,,a, u.,,a4