The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-03-09
SUGAR JOINS THE PROCESSION

The tariff is at work. There is no pos sible doubt about that. This Republican pet measure known on the statute books as the Fordney-M -McC Cumber act, is indus triously functioning and it would not take a visitor from Mars to discern it's operations. Any housewife can furnish convincing tes- timony on that point. She knows; her household bills constantly inform her. She knows for example, that where she paid few months ago six cents for a pound of sugar she is now paying ten cents. But she does not know how long it will be be- fore she will be paying twenty cents pound for sugar, which price may well be reached before the canning season, if the advance of recent weeks keeps on.
 The causes of the soaring of sugar may not be so we'll known to the housewife. In fact. these causes seem perplexing to the market-wise As accounting for the rapid rise in the price it is generally stated that there is a corner in sugar, crisis, Tn other words, brought about by control of the stocks of available sugar. But what IS 1t that makes this manipulation possible! Is tt the scarcity of the product? We have plenty of proof from various and authentic sources that there is no sugar shortage. What is it then? That is one of the ques- tions the proponents of high tariff will have to answer when they appear before their constituents for reelection in 1924. The reason is that the present price of sugar, with it's indication of still higher price, Is stimulated and protected by the high tariff act
 The profit in sugar to the grocer is, as is well known, small. At present the re- taller is compelled to pay for large lots 965 cents pound, which is little enough below his selling price. The refineries get the 965, whereas few weeks ago they got less than 6 cents. But everything else has gone up, all other manufactured pro- ducts. By reason of the high tariff the consumer has to pay about thirty per cent. more for these goods than he did before the passage of this act five months ago. What prevents compelling the consumer to pay a like increase in the price for his sugar? That question the sugar barons have answered by seeing that the consumer does pay it. The sugar refiner has simply gotten on the high-tariff, high-cost-to- -to-the-consumer band wagon. Why should he be left out in the cold? Isn't the consumer tied hand and foot so that the privileged beneficaries of the Fordney- Nc Cumber measure may shell out his pockets? The sugar refiners knew before the enactment of the high tariff law that retail prices of all commodi- ties were being stabilized at a lower level They also know full well that under this new law the reverse is now happening in all lines. A "corner" is as suitable an excuse as any in the case of the refiner. He simply steps on the band wagon and waves aloft ten cents for sugar. The chances are he is now reaching for another banner marked, say, twelve cents. The tariff is unquestioaably at work.
 Senator Walsh of Massachusetts, on the closing day of congress, told the indis- putable truth when he said: "The Ameri- can peopl. in five months have had the cost of living increased from ten to thirty per cent. The Fordney-McC Cumber act IS responsible for the advance"