The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-06-18
SOME FACTS ABOUT
 SUGAR WORTH KNOWING

Compare the total investment in the American sugar industry with the
 amount the duty sugar costs the American people annually, and we pick up the clue explaining why., des- pite the presence of the sugar Iobbies in Washington. the 2-cent tariff tax is to be removed from sugar. Exclusive of land and farm animals (which can be used in other farming operations) the total investment in sugar in the United States is about s1OO,Ooo,O0o. For the benefit of the few men owning this industry, the American people are taxed annually in the increased price of sugar $14O,- O0o,00O, or $40, o,0Oo.OO0 more than the total sugar investment. It is also $40, O,ooO,6Oo more than the total an
 nua1 value of the American sugar crop
 including it's by-products.
 To the individual this tax amounts to $1.5 or an annual charge of $7.50 on a family of average size. Since 1897 the protection to the su-
 gar industry has cost American con sumers two thousand million dollars.
 But if the public got value received
 for this: sun-in revenue to defray the cost of governm ent-there would not
 be so much complaint But the ac- tuaI duty collected in 16 years has | been only $soo,o 100000 The bal
 ance, $1,2oo, o,Ooo5Ooo, has been a bonus pure and. simple lwrung from the poor
 to create new group of American
 nillionaires.
 Leaving aside the principle that su l gar asia prime food necessity should 1 come untaxed to the American public, l the production of cane sugar in this
 country lis an artificial, unnatural in dustry. There are two types of sugar | production-from sugar beets, grown
 in many sections of the country, and l from sugar cane, grown along the gulf Ecoast. of Louisiana and Texas. It is possible, indeed possible, that beet su- l gar productionahas now progressed to
 a point where it can be called a nat l urai industry. If so, it does not need
 protection in order to survive. But
 there is no natural justification for cane sugar production in the United States.
 1 It is possible to grow bananas and
 tea. in NewfEng1and in hot houses. Yet not even the most +rabid protectionist
 would advocate a prohibitive duty on
 bananas or tea, raising the prices of
 these foods ten times above what they
 are now, in order that tea and bananas
 might be produced with profit in hot
 houses in. New. England.
 In 6 somewhat. smaller degree cane
 sugar growing is a hot-house indus
 try The sugar in cane is called su-
 crose by chemists Louisiana cane l is only six to seven per cent su-
 crose, while Cuban cane is II to IA
 per cent. and Hawaiian from 14 to
 much sugar is the same amount of
 cane.-
 In Cuba sugar cane grows natural 1y, and Is planted once every 10 years.
 Tn Louisiana the cane must be re- planted every year. There is never } frost in Cubas in Louisiana the cane !, must be cut in October before matur- ity to escape frost, thus accounting
 for the lower sucrose content Louis
 jana sugar mills are most antiquated; while some of the Cuban factories-ar the latest and most efficient in the world
 And so, though Louisiana wages are t much lower than those paid in Cuba, : 1t costs nearly four cents to produce : a pound of raw sugar in Louisiana.
 against a Cuban cost of two cents. ]. Said Representative T. W. Hardwock, 5 of Georgia, the great sugar expert of the House:
 "In order to produce cane sugar 2. crop valued at 5.oOo.Ooo. our Louis 6 jana friends insist that we ought to r continue a system of taxation that costs the American people $14o,00O r 900 in the increased price of sugar. Tt 8 is undemocratic: it is unfair; 1t is un-
 righteous; and, so far as am con ! cerned, I will never stand for a con . tinuance of this policy to keep a duty = on this great necessity of life which q cannot possibly be produced in Louis d jana one-ha1f as cheaply as it can in U the balance of the world"