Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1913-08-21
F U I U RE
Of SUGAR
ISBRIGHT
IBy Latest MailJ


NEW YORK.-Like several other
business men leaders in various lines
of industry-who have just returned
recently from few weeks travel IN
Europe, Claus A. Spreckels. president
of the Federal Sugar Rehnering Com
pany finds much cheerier and more
confident tone prevailing in trade cir
cles than when he went away. The
general financial conditions abroad
he considers improving as a firm be-
lief obtains that the Great Powers
will hold a ring fence round the Bal
kan states, fighting among themselves
for the booty and will impose the ulti-
mate settlement. Germany has its at
tention concentrated on southeast Eu-
rope and Asiatic Turkey and Great
Britain will pursue policy of nom
Intervention in either hemisphere. Mr..
Spreckels therefore thinks it unlikely
that either power would exercise in
fiuence in Mexico that would cause
President Wilson to involve the Unit
ed States in deeper complications in
that disturbed country.
The clearing up of the tariff contro-
versies will further help to dispense
the financial clouds. There Is an
end to everything" said Mr.. Spree
kels yesterday in conversation with a
representative of The Journal of
Commerce, in his office at 81 Wall
street, new headquarters of the Fed
eral. People are getting tired of mere
obstruction, and by September or Oc-
tober, the tariff question will be out
of the way and we shall have settled
down to the new order of things. The
new conditions have already been
pretty well discounted by large bust
ness concerns. Trade will be free to
go ahead The period of hesitation
and uncertainty will be over. Per-
sonally look for a rapid upstarting
of the wheels of industry, and next
year ought to be one of the most pro-
sperous in our annals
AS to the technical situation in the
sugar trade, Mr. Spreckels went on.
The sugar industry is in a good,
healthy condition, with a heavy de-
mand coming in from all directions.
FOR a good many months the whole
salers ran along buying from hand
to-mouth, and carrying no stocks to
speak of, so that whe the summer
consumption movement started a few
weeks ago their shelves, like those
of the wholesalers in other commodi-
ties and goods, we're soon bare. AS a
result they are ordering all they can
get, and asking for immediate deliy-
cry. The lack of supplies keeps pric-
es firm, and l would not be surprised,
to see higher quotations.
I'VE know fully what to expect I'M
der the new tariff Next March the
sugar duties will be reduced, and in
three years time, March, 1915, SUI
gar will be placed wholly on the free
list. Thus there will be ample time
for the trade to readjust itself to the
fiscal changes
What will be the effect of this?"
For one thing, we shall become a
refined sugar exporting country, while
we Increase our domestic trade so
that the per capita consumption in the
United States may get to equal that
of the United Kingdom.
How do you think the Cuban sugar
producers will be affected by the re-
moval of the preferential of % per
cent Cuban sugar now enjoys"
In no way injuriously, as far as I
can see Europe's beet sugar is cost
ing more to produce, and there is no
danger of our market being interfer-
ed with by competition from that
quarter. In any case, it is not the
Cuban sugars that have taken the
benefit of the prefential duty They
have given it away, and the United
States consumer prefited by it. Moth
ing can take away from Cuba the
initial advantage OF possessing the
United States market close at its
doors, and the cheaper cost of freight
and transportation will always tell in