Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1893 — Sugar Bounties and Duties. [ARTICLE]

Sugar Bounties and Duties.

Willett & Gray’s Statistical Sugar Trade Journal of Jan. 19 prints a letter from Mr. H. W. Wiley, chemist in the Department of Agriculture, to the Secretary of Agriculture, on the subject of sugar bounties. Mr. Wiley says: “The present actual cost of the production of beet, cane and sorghum sugar in the United States is almost the same for every variety, and is perhaps a trifle over four cents per pound. The market value of the raw sugar so produced is about three cents a pound, deducting the freights. If, therefore, sugar remains on the free list, and the bounty is removed, it would cause the produ ers in this country a net loss of one cent a pound on every pound of sugar made. The immediate result of such a policy would he the closing es every sugar house in the United States, anti the utter destruction of the sugar industry. “If the bounty is removed a duty should be placed on sugar of about one and one-half cents, in order that the manufacture may be profitable. “It is notdifficult to foresee that in from ten to fifteen years, the time appointed by the law for the continuation of the bounty, the cost of sugar production in this country would be so reduced as to render possible the manufacture of, sugar at a profit without any protection whatever; but in the present status of the industry such a consummation is impossible at once.

“The sugar industry of the country, therefore, depends for its existence upon the wisdom of Congress in dealing with the subject.” For 100 years the protected industries have been asking for a few more years of governmental aid to enable them to stand alone. And all this time they have been as\ing for, and obtaining, only temporarily, of course, higher and higher duties. Duties of from 5 to 10 per cent, have been multiplied by 10, 15 or 20. Mr. Wiley must have been a poor student of history if he really thinks that any protected infant industry will ever be quite ready to leave off its pap. But, aside from the unwarranted promises, what a state of affairs is revealed by this letter. An industry half a century old, that has received during the past thirty years directly and indirectly over $100,000,000 as a gratuity for producing what has sold for perhaps $200,000,000 cannot continue its existence, it is said, unless aided by a bounty of 33 per cent, of the se.ling price of the product. This beggar, after pocketing its many millions of ill-gotten gifts, now shows its appreciation by brazenly asking the United States tocompel its 05,000,000 of people to go down in their pockets, during the next ten or fifteen years, to the extent of from $150,000,000 to $500,000,000, for toe benefit of'this great beggar industry—that is, of the 600 or 700 growers of cane, sorghum and beets, who now get the $10,000,000 or $12,000,000 a yeir bounty. What, now, are some of the ev 1 consequences of trying to stimuate an industry here that would probably thrive about as well without stimulants?

In the first place, protection has increased the cost of sugar during the last twenty years about 75 per cent. This, besides adding several dollars a year to the cost of living for the average family, has crippled and prevented or destroyed many important industries. The canning industry alone, if it had had cheap sugars, would now be fifty times as great as the whole sugar producing industry. The United States has unrivaled facilities for producing vegetables, fruits, corn, fish, meat, etc.,- and should supply the world with canned goods. With big and prosperous canneries in all parts of this country, our farmers would have certain and reliable markets for surplus products now wasted. Many crops now often sold at a loss would then yield large profits, and farmers would be prosperous where they are now on their way to the poorhouse - not 600 or 700 farmers merely, but several millions of them. England now is the center of supply of canned goods for the whole world, because Germany and France have been paying heavy bounties on sugar produced and exported, and because her canners have had free sugar, glass and tin. The European countries now pay about $45,000,000 a year to encourage the exportation of sugar, and to enable outside countries to get sugar below the actual cost of production. England, more sensible than the United States, does not refuse to accept cheap sugar, but, through the European bounties, receives a gift of about $10,000,000 a year on her sugars and builds up the industries thus driven out of the Continental countries. She then supplies the foolish countries with jams, jellies, and other canned goods. Congress may in its wisdom, at the close of this enlightened nineteenth century, see fit to donate several hundred millions of dollars to the few hundred sugar producers of Louisiana; but, Mr. Wiley, we think the probabilities are that the Fiftythird Congress will do nothing of the kind. We think it will not entirely neglect the interest of its 65,000,000 consumers as its predecessor# have done.