The Maui news. [volume] (Wailuku, Maui, H.I.) 1900-current, 1922-08-11
SUGAR TARIFF PROPOSAL

Novel and for that reason worthy of consideration is a proposal
for a sliding scale protective tariff on sugar up to some certain set
price for raws made by a New Orleans banker and told of in CORES
pondence to Facts About Sugar. The proposal would mean that
when foreign raws were being marketed at a price which would al
low American sugar growers a fair margin of profit, such margin
to be previously determined, foreign raws would be admitted free
but they would never be admitted duty paid below the price that is
supposed to carry such fair margin of profit to the home growers.
Charles deb. Claiborne, vice president of the Whitney, Central
National Bank of New Orleans, an institution vitality interested in
sugar-prOducing property in Louisiana, has publicly advanced the
sliding scale idea as applied to the sugar tariff. He believes it is
worthy of discussion, inasmuch as he claims it would, if adopted
for enr1ching United States sugar producers, while at the same time
this plan would, he says, insure a proper and reasonable margin of
profit to domestic sugar producers and make their business a legti
mate banking risk, which Mr.. Claiborne, speaking as a banker him
self, declares it frequently is not.
Mr.. Claiborne believes that a careful and official determination
of the cost of sugar production in the United States and abroad
should be made, as a necessary preliminary, this, of course, being
an admitted necessity in connection with any intelligent protective
tariff plan. 1t is after this has been done that he proposes to deviate
from the fixed sum idea in imposing a duty. He believes that if it
be determined, for example, that the cost of sugar production in the
United States is 4 cents and that half a cent a pound is a legitimate
proft-these figures being used merely as an iluStration-and that
the cost of production abroad, let us say in Cuba, is 2 cents, then
there should be a duty of the difference between the two production
costs q cents imposed, to equaize things, but he does not believe
that the domestic producer should enjoy a protective duty of 2 cents
if sugar is selling for such a price that the cost of production is
fully met, with a reasonable profit besides, without this amount of
protection.
For instance, if the price of foreign sugar is AZ cents " over,
and the domestic producer can sell at that price or over the sugar
that cost him 4 cents to make, MIR. Claiborne would have no duty at
all. If foreign sugar sells at 3 cents, he would have the sliding scale
tariff involved in his plan placed at 10 cents, so that the domestic
producer would get Az cents.
If the price of foreign sugar is 225 cents then the duty would
be 225, maintaining the Az cent price for domestic sugar. If
foreign sugar drops to $50 cents a pound, then Mr.. Claiborne would
have the duty slide up automatically to 3 cents, maintaining again
the AZ cent level for domestic sugar.
Mr.. Claiborne claims that under this plan a definite price, rea-
sonably profitable, and determined as being so by previous thorough
expert investigation would always be assured for domestic sugars.
He claims that no one could oppose the plan on the ground that it
was a 'rObber tariff" for it would never do anything more than
equalize the accepted difference between the cost of domestic produc-
ton and foreign production, and he claims, as a banker, that such
a tariff would stabilize the domestic sugar industry and make it an
industry to which the banks of the country would make loans with
a feeling of definite security.