The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1912-04-14
ON KILLING SUGAR INDUSTRY.

We note that number of Utah men
have testified before the House Com
mittee investigating the Sugar Trust
that if the tariff is taken off from
sugar and that commodity put on the
free list, then the beet sugar industry
in all the region about here will be
thereby destroyed. We do not in any
way impeach either the veracity or
the Judgment Of the gentlemen who
have thus testified, On the contrary,
we concede to them honesty Of convic-
tion and earnestness of opinion. We
may be permitted to say, however, that
there is abundant room for difference
of opinion upon this question, and there
Is also afforded reasonable incentive
for the investigation Of the foundation
upon which the opinion is expressed
that the beet sugar industry in Utah
and Idaho would be destroyed with the
elimination Of the tariff on sugar.
We take 1t as assured that the opin-
ions expressed by the Utah gentlemen
who have go testified are based upon
the conditions as established by the tre-
mendous overissue of sugar stocks by
the Amalgamated Sugar Company,
which is commonly referred to as the
local sugar trust. What they mean, uu-
doubtedly, in testifying that the sugar
industry here would be destroyed by
the removal of the tariff duty on sugar
is, that tho local trust would not be
able to make the dividends which 1t has
sues, or that those dividends would be
very much reduced. If, however, the
over-issue Of stock should be called in,
and the stock pruned to the physical
valuation of the property, meaning by
this the actual value and no nccumu-
lated values on mere junk, (and the
great profits made heretofore would
easily admit Of the throwing away of
the junk or antiquated machinery
there can scarcely be doubt that the
beet sugar industry would flourish here
and afford good profits without any
tariff whatever. First of ALL the
rates from the seaboard
to this region for sugar would operate
as sufficient protective tariff for the
sugar industry here if that industry
were placed upon a basis Of actuality
in place of a fictitious basis upon the
overissue Of stock. Very great diyi-
dends have been made on these stocks
for a number Of years past. Those divi-
4.
old basis, perhaps, with the abolition
of the sugar duty, but with a stock
issue based fairly and on business
like basis commensurate with the real
value Of the factory plants, there would
be no doubt whatever in our Judgment
of the paying character Of beet sugar
making in this region, without any
sugar tariff.
In the earlier DAYS OF sugar making.
sugar was sold from the Lehi factory
at $3.50 per hundred. There have been
many improvements in sugar machinery
since that time, many economical de-
vices discovered and applied. and we
have not the least doubt but that with
the factories paying TO the beet raisers
what they pay now, sugar could be pro.
duced here at good profit for "a per
hundred, Ralph Spreckels, who is an
expert in beet-sugar making, says that |
S3 hundred would meet every cost |
OF beet.sugar production If this is so, |
as it probably is, then the 81 which We
suggest would afford 81 profit on every |
hundred pounds Of sugar, that is 33 1-3 |
per cent profit to the factories making
the sugar. This surely ought TO he
ample. and VIC do not doubt that it !
would In practice prove to be a suffi- |