The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1912-11-01

Fully one-half of the sugar supply
of the United States is produced in
this country and its insular posses
sions the balance being purchased
from foreign countries, mostly from
Cuba, which occupies a particularly
intimate relation to the United States
The tariff on sugar, at the same time,
Is so adjusted that we obtain from it
SOS, 100000 annually, or one-sixth Of
our total customs receipts. During re-
cent years about oneshalf the worlds
production Of sugar, exclusive of In
dia, comes from sugar beets. The
worlds crop OF sugar Is produced ex-
clusively in Europe and the United
States. In European countries the in
dustry, which Is one hundred years
old, has been fostered, as in the
United States, by high tariff, by con-
ventions and cartels. The price Of
sugar in Europe, either for domestic
consumption or export, Is not gov
erned by the law Of supply and de-
mand but by syndicate, the So
called Brussels convention. The en-
tire commercial movement of sugar in
Europe Is thus controlled by legal
lied international trust.
Should both houses Of the next
United States congress be Democratic
the protective duty on sugar would
be removed, the governments yearly
revenues would be reduced $50 900, 600,
but the retail price of sugar would
not be lowered cent. The wholesale
rsiees OF sugar are fixed by the Euro
pean syndicates and are placed about
l y cents per pound lower to United
States dealers than to those of Great
Britain, q so-called free trade nation,
because Of the customs duties on i'm
ported sugar imposed by the govern
meht of the United States. The pres-
ent Republican tariff on sugar enables
the refners, the beet sugar people and
the farmers producing sugar beets to
obtain fair prices for their products
and to pay their employees reasonable
wages.
The only protection which the peo-
pie of the United States have against
the manipulation of European produc-
ton and prices is the tariff. If this
is removed the producers OF sugar in
the United States, Porto Rico, Hawaii,
the Philippines and Cuba will be
placed not merely on a free trade
basis, but will be compelled to suffer
a handicap caused by all the different
regulations which the experience of a
hundred years has taught TO the Euro
peans. There Is no such thing In the
commerce OF the world as the free
and untrammeled movement OF sugar
under the law Of supply and demand.
II the United States Abolishes it's
duty on sugar IL will stand alone
among the civilized nations of the
world as the only one having sugar on
the free list.
The unanimous report Of the Demo-
cratic members of the ways and
means committee of the lower house
OF congress accompanying their free
sugar bill gives the cost of producing
refined sugar in German as $2.41h
per hundred pounds, and the average
cost Of producing beet sugar by thir-
teen OF the leading companies in the
United States as 1884 per hundred
pounds. AS the freight rate from Ger
many to New York Is only IL Cents
per hundred pounds, 1t is apparent
that free trade in sugar means either
that the factories of this country must
close down or that the American
farmers and the laborers in our fac
tories must accept practically the
same prices and wages as European
and laborers receive.
Foremost among the European ma
lions in the production of sugar Is
Germany, whose average annual plant
ngs for the last three years amount |
10 100000 acres, from which she |
has harvested an annual average crop |
'or the same years of 2,0S2,000 long |
-ons. This is, on an actual planted |
area equivalent to only forty-eight OF |
,ur townships she produces annually |
about two-thirds as much sugar is |
ne United States consumes.
The secretary of agriculture states |