New-York tribune., 1917-10-27
1917 Supply Greater Than in
1916, Exports Less; All
Explanations Fail
Spreckels Blames
Food Commission
Declares Permission to Sell
35,000,00O Pounds in
Warehouses Is Refused
This is q mystery story.

This is a mystery story.
Approximately 25,oo0,oo0 housewives
in the United States are to-day asking:
What happened to my sugar bowl?"
About q dozen of the wisest men in
the world on the question Of sugar
gather down in Wall Street, sit around
a mahogany table and expend their vi
tality, not in answering that question.
but in trying to look as wise as they
did two weeks ago.
Not a single one of the worlds
wisest sugar men has been able to give
one single conclusive or convincing
reason for the sugar shortage.
All Of them have passed the buck. They
have passed it to the abortive Cuban
revolution last February, to United
States Senator Broussard, of Louisiana;
to the sugar spectators, and finally to
the housewives Of the United States.
According to the latest reports from
III Wall Street, where the sugar men
are still sitting around a mahogany
table, the nations army Of food pre-
servers, the housewives Of the United
States, are holding the buck by the
horns and struggling with it with true
feminine gallantry.
Yesterday Charles II. Spreckels,
president of the Federal Sugar Rein
ing Company. placed the blame for the
sugar shortage on the Federal Foo
Commission. He declared there are in
the warehouses now 3S.000.000 pounds
OF refined sugar, which the commission
refuses permission to the owners 10
sell except at loss.
81 Mr.. Ssreckels's statement in part fol.
lows: rlz1rt.g',s-s szf.t. 9
"In various warehouses serving the
port OF New York there are held for
shipment TO certain neutral coun-
which cannot be shipped on account of
the recent embargo. This is sugar
which was contracted for early in the
summer before any shortage existed.
These neutral governments have
agreed to release this sugar and sell
it at cost In fact, they have been
commissions permission to dispose Of
it. The food commission, however, will
not allow them TO do so, on the ground
that to sell at cost would mean a whole
sale price of a quarter of a cent
pound above the arbitrary quotation of
S.35 cents a pound, fixed by the COM
At their price, little or no
sugar is available.
"Thirty-fve million pounds seems a
tremendous amount Of sugar, but its
relative Importance is minimized by
the fact that there are 456,0O0,O00
pounds to be accounted for"
The following hard facts about sugar
are available to anybody who cares TO
lcok over and digest the most for
midable bulk of commercial statistics
that Wall Street can produce:
THAT the total available supply Of
sugar for 1917 to October % has been
at least as great as the supply of the
first ten months OF 1916.
THAT our exports in 1916 were
nearly twice as great as in 1917.
THAT our consumption TO date in
1917 was only a trife more than our
consumption for the same period in
1916.
And there was no sugar shortage IN
1916.
The figures are supplied by Willett
G. Gray, sugar statisticians, who re-
ceived a gold medal at the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition in 1904 for accu-
racy in sugar statistics. According to
their statistics, the total available sup
ply of sugar for domestic consumption
in the United States for The first ten
months of 1917 compares with that for
the first ten months OF 1916 as follows: