Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1892 — Sugar-Trust Profits. [ARTICLE]

Sugar-Trust Profits.

The American Wool and Cotton Reporter of Sent. 1 says: “The American Sugar Refining Company is at present making a profit of $50,000 a day. It 1b working on raw sugar bought at considerably less than the present quotation, and until it gets on to its stock- recently acquired its profits will continue at the rate mentioned above. In addition to the low price of the raw whioh it is now refining, the company is getting the highest price for refined sugar in eighteen months, or since April, 189], At th&t time it was getting 4$ cents per pound, the quotation to-day. The course pursued by refined sugar since April, 1891, has been interesting. That was the time when the duty went off of raw sugar, and the wholesale grocers throughout the country made it a point to Bff out sis fcflned pucrar Maroa 31, The gemand aT£cr April J Jherefore was veiynea'vy, and. Jhe American Company, by holdihg the umbrella over its Cpmpetfoxpj as could yell afford to do, kept the jftice of refined atsliig£ figure. When, hoyevpr, the immediate demand Was Satisfied, competition began to get in its work, and the price went down to 4 cents, when the outside refineries could stand the strain no longer and sold out to tbe American Company. Freed from competition, tlu latter has worked the price up to the old figure. Until new competition springs up, the American Company is likely to have everything its own way. ” It then mentions the fact that “tho proposed McCahn refinery in Philadelphia has been given up,” and that the Mollenhauer refinery, soon to be started up, is the only new competitor. This will have a capaoity of 1,500 barrels a day; the Reverq refinery, with only 1,000 barrels capacity (less than 2 per cent, of our consumption), is the only refinery now even suspected ol being outside the trust. The sugar trust, by depressing the price of raw and elevating the price of refined sugar, is leaving itself a big margin for profit. The actual cost of refining is lees than g of a cent per pound, and this was about the difference in the prices of raw and refined sugars when the refiners were so foolish as to actually compete with each other before 1887. Now, however, they are selling refined sugar at 4J cents that cost them raw but 3 1-16 cents, leaving a margin of over 1 cent per pound as clear profit. This, instead of being $50,000 a clay, is over SIOO,OOO or at the rate of about $10,000,000 a year, fully 150 per cent, on the actual capital invested in plants not held idle. Without the duty of 4 cent on refined sugar, which curses all except the holders of sugar-trust stock, the profits could not for any length of time exceed 4 cent per pound. The removal of this inexcusable duty is one of the urgent necessities of the hour.