The Washington herald., 1913-04-07
Sugar.

Probably the most important ques-
ton in the tariff situation today on
Capitol Hill is the duty on sugar. AT
the present time the rate of duty on
raw sugar, testing 90 degrees, which
constitutes the great bulk of Our
duty-judging importations, is LOSS
cents per pound. The most of the
raw sugar, however, which pays duty
comes from Cuba. which is favored
with a preferential duty of 20 per
cent. Sugar imported from Porto
Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippine Is
lands is admitted free of duty.
In 1911 there was produced in the
United States 6o6,o4o,ooo pounds of
cane sugar and I,o2o, $4,000 pounds of
beet sugar. In the same year there
was imported from Porto Rico 645,-
S34,4os pounds; from Hawaii I,oII,-
2I5.S3S pounds; from the Philippines
23o,35I,485, and from other countries,
chiefly Cuba, 3,7o7,5S3,445 pounds. The
per capita consumption OF sugar in the
United States in 1911 was 77.oI
pounds. From these facts, it must be
obvious that the duty on sugar affects
many interests and is of vital i'm
portance to the United States.
The people who have the greatest
interest in the tariff are the Louisiana
cane growers. 1t is hardly too much
to say that the cane growing industry
in the South exists only because of
the tariff, and that if the tariff were
removed and the Louisiana cane grow
ers forced to compete with the sugar
produced in the tropics they would be
compelled to discontinue their produc-
ton. This is due to the fact that the
growing season in Louisiana is short
and the cane does not have time to
fully mature as it does in the tropics.
As result. the sugar content of
Louisiana cane is far below that of
country like Cuba. Another fact which
would make it inpracticable for the
Louisiana cane growers to compete on
equal terms with the tropical countries
i that in the latter the cane
grows up year after year from the
stubble, whereas in Louisiana it must
frequently be replanted These facts
make the cost of production in Louis
lana so much greater than it is in the
tropical countries that Representative
Harrison suggested at the tariff hear
ings that the Louisiana industry was
not economically adapted to the coun-
try. The American Can Growers
Association disputes this fact strenu-
ously, and its representatives, includ-
ing the Democratic National Commit
teeman from Louisiana, are in Wash
ington making a fight for the life of
their industry.
The beet sugar industry in the
United States has gone forward in re-
cent years with leaps and bounds. 1t
has dehed the discouraging prophecies
made by many learned economists, and
is today established in Our agricultural
economy. 1t perhaps needs some
tariff in order TO preserve the advances
which it has made and to make posi-
bic further progress, but it can be
pursued successfully in the United
States with less protection than it is
getting now. The compromise sug-
gested by President Wilson to the
sugar people of the rate of one cent
per pound upon Cuban sugar would,
without doubt, be sufficient protection
for the beet sugar industry. This in
dustry has back of it the initiative and
courage of the American business man.
and while the representatives of its
association may fuss and cuss about
the lowering of the tariff, the average
beet sugar man would be satisfied with
the moderate tariff suggested BY the
President.
Strange as it may seem, the interest
which is most bitterly opposed to free
sugar is the sugar producing class of
Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philip
pine Islands. Sugar is now admitted
free from these possessions. The pro-
ducers in these islands enjoy, on the
one hand, the natural productive ad-
yantages of tropical climate, and, on
the other, the prices of the American
market, enhanced as they are by the
tariff. Remove the tariff from sugar
imported from Cuba and other foreign
countries and the prices in the do
mestic market will fall to the level of
the prices in the world market. AS
a result the producers of Hawaii,
Porto Rico, and the Philippines will
be deprived of The advantages of the
American market and be compelled to
60 without the bounty given them by