Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-02-09

PRICES BOOSTED
Some Of the wholesale houses are
tirely out OF refined sugar and have no
hope of getting more. While the whole
sale price remains the same, hundreds OF
retail grocers throughout the city today
took advantage OF the scarcity to advance
the price They have boosted the price
from eight to ten and twelve cents per
pound. Unless the strike Is broken and
the refining OF sugar resumed, wholesalers
predict sugar will be selling for fifteen and
twenty cents per pound in Philadelphia
within n week.
An officer of the Girard Grocery Com
pany, a wholesale firm which supplies sew
eral hundred retail grocers throughout the
city, said today:
The situation Ia quite serious We
are getting only about fifty per cent OF
our normal consignment of refined
sugar, but we are making every effort
10 supply the actual needs Of our GUS
toners Philadelphia will soon be in "A
very bad way for refined sugar unless
this strike Is broken.
Ex-Sheriff A. Lincoln Acl<er, of the Fin
ley Acker Company, said;
The shortage in refined sugar is rap
idly becoming more serious. We are
supplying our customers now but we
don't know what the future Will bring
forth.
An Of1lClal or the w. d. mC'dHdH ohBdI
Refining Company, one OF tho companies
affected by the strike, said;
our normal output of refined sugar Is
5000 barrels daily. We are not deliv-
ering now to anybody because we can
not get anybody to deliver the little
amount we have on hand
Philadelphia can get no relief from
the outside. for New York is crippled
by the strike In the Brooklyn plant of
the American Company. y is very
bad situation, which threatens to spread
over the entire country. In Cuba l
have learned that the output of raw
sugar is being threatened by labor
troubles
The normal output OF the Franklin Com
pany, another company affected, is about
5000 barrels daily, and the Pennsylvania
Company manufactures about the -ame
amount under ordinary conditions. Not a
barrel is being moved from either Of those
plants.
Notwithstanding the conditions and the
growing scarcity. the wholesale price of
refined sugar has not advanced and the
refiners say they Will not advance the price.
The price still hangs at s6.75 per hundred
pounds.
RAW SUGAR UP
The wholesale price of raw sugar ad-
sanced today from S4.89 to $500, despite
the glut in the raw product caused by the
closing of the refineries,
III eApidillHB uie auNdhCe III raw sugar
q representative of the Pennsylvania Com
pany, the third refinery closed by the strike.
said:
The market Is glutted with raw sugar
because of the stopping of exports by
the German submarine campaign and
the closing of the refneries by strikes
Under the circumstances the price
should go down, but the raw sugar in
dustry is conEolled by the Cuban firm
of Czarnikow Iionda in New York, and
this firm has a habit of forcing the price
up when 1t should go down. In other
words, this firm virtually has corner
on the raw sugar market.
According to advices from New York
England has bought much more Cuban
sugar than is generally supposed in the
United States. and English buyers are said
to be on the point of closing another big
purchase