Arizona republican., 1912-06-23

l
 in the country. The price of coffee | has doubled in the past half dozen years, and the expenditures for this 1 breakfast luxury at the retail rates prevailing probably represent an out 1 lay of about $10 a year for each fam 1 fly. Of tea. on the other hand. Amer 1 jeans consume relatively little, less l than five and a quarter pounds being I used by each family at a yearly cost 1 of between two and three dollars.
 1 When it comes to sugar, it must be admitted that Americans have very !, pronounced sweet tooth They con- sume about eighty pounds of sugar 1 apiece in the course of a year, or more | than the people of any other country except England, and the United States as a whole uses nearly onefifth of all i the suga" produced in the world. or the average consumption of eighty pounds, however, only about one-half is bought direct for family use, the other half being used in manufactur- ing various food products. Sugar is almost the only article of general household use also that has not been subject to marked advance in price within the past few years. EXpeIdi- lures of the average family on this score amount to about $12 a year, or
 just about the amount that is spent for coffee and tea. In view of the food
 value of sugar as a supplier of energy, this is a very moderate expenditure.
 It doubtless will surprise most per
 sons to learn that the United States
 now produces about half of all the su-
 gar consumed in the country. The su-
 gar beet farmers of the country pro-
 vide over a billion pounds of sugar
 year; the cane sugar growers of
 Louisiana and Texas furnish about
 700, 900, ,000 pounds additional; Hawaii,
 Porto Rico and the Philippines send
 1,S00, 900, 900 pounds The remaining
 half, or 3,700,00O.00O pounds, comes al
 most entirely from Cuba. From the economists viewpoint, sugar is of pc culiar interest as the only commodity
 now purchased in vast quantities from foreign producers which the United
 States can grow from it's own soil. It
 is claimed that if the domestic sugar industry continues to receive the en-
 coura cement of the government as it
 has in the past through 2 customs 1 duty on the imported product, this re-
 suit wilt be accomplished within an-
 other two decades, and that this is
 about the only hope of keeping the
 balance of trade in foodstuffs favor able to tne United States If the S100,- 100000 or more now sent abroad to
 pay for sugar were disbursed through domestic trade channels, the cOuntry's trade balance on the exchange of food commodities would be $132, 900 900, or nearly five times as great as it now is. The desirability ,of having Uncle Sam produce his own sugar has been widely discussed as a result of the pro posal brought before congress recently for the admission of foreign sugar free of duty Advocates of this proposal
 asserted that it would be better to abandon the domestic sugar industry and to purchase the entire supply from abroad, claiming that this would result in a lowering of the retail price of the commodity and a saving estimated at something like a cent and a half per pound. 0r sixty to seventy cents a year for each person. Opponents of 1 the plan asserted that even if such d saving could be effected, it was of neg i ligible importance compared to the dis 1 basement of s45,OOO,000 year to the farmers and wOrkingmen of the coun- try through the domestic industry, with a prospect of ultimately increasing this to $250, ,0OO,O0 a year. Represent atives of the department of agriculture | lent the weight of their testimony to | the view that the industry should be l encouraged, pointing out that by the l utilization in sugar beets one year in l four of only one acre in fifty of the 1 cOuntry's farming lands adapted to 1 beet culture, the United States could grow it's entire supply of sugar, and l that moreover the culture of this crop l was of vast benefit to the country by i increasing the yield of every crop grown in rotation with it.
 l One oe the striking exhibits in the 1 list of annual expenditures is the out 1 lay of over $50 by the average family 1 for various forms of alcoholic refresh-
 ment. The average consumption of each individual on this score is 22.79 gallons year, of which the greater part, between twenty and twenty-one gallons, is beer. Whiskey and other 1 hard liquors are used to the extent of i slightly less than a gallon and half, 1 while only two-thirds of a gallon of | wines is consumed While these items 1 perhaps should not be included in an estimate of food costs, they play a
 very considerable part in accounting l for the disposition of the average fam | fly income
 Of tropical fruits, the United States | imports yearly about $25.600,0 900 worth, 1 in addition to the more than $20O,000,- l 900 represented by the vast variety of 1 native fruits, making an annual ex- | penditure of SIP to $15 by the average 1 family for this purpose.
 | Taking into account the expenditures 1 of the average American family for what may be called the staple articles
 of diet. 1t appears that they amount to about $500 a year This 1Ues not in- clude the amount spent fOr alcoholi2 1 drinks, nor does it include vegetables 1 the supply and prices of which vary
 so much in different parts of -he
 country that it is difficult to com
 pute the average amount expended for them. Estimating the cost of
 vegetables a one-half the average expenditures for bread and cereals
 l which seems ! conservative eStiinate
 and adding in the liquor bill. we find
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