Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1901 — THE BEET SUGAR INTEREST. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE BEET SUGAR INTEREST.

Will Vlßoroosly Oppose Havcmeyer Trnat Plan of Reduced Unties. Mr. Oxnard, a large manufacturer of beet sugar, is engaged in a fight with the great refineries of the country, which control a large share of the sugar business of the country, which draw their supplies of raw material from the tropics, and which are decidedly adverse to any expansion of the beet sugar Industry here. Mr. Oxhard says that the Sugar Trust is to make a strong effort at the coming session of Congress to have the present duties upon sugar cut out of the tariff law. Mr. Oxnard’s Interests, as well as the interests of all of the producers of the raw material which he uses In his factories, are against the withdrawal of the duties on raw sugar. On the other hand, and here is the important point which he brings out, the interests qf his rival, the so-called Sugar ’jj.’rust, are directly in having ttye duties on raw sugar abrogated. The matter is simple and easily understood 5f all whoy4*are to look at the facts. The Sugar Trust, otherwise the American Sugar Refining Company, obtains from abroad the bulk of its supplies of raw cane sugar, which it refines and sells in competition with the beet sugar produced in this country, from beets raised by American farmers. Its interests are to get raw sugar at the - lowest price. Still more do its Interests require this because it cannot now monopolize the American market, but must share it with American sugar, produced at home. With free raw sugaT, the Sugar Trupt can keep the price so low as to any further expansion of the beet sugar industry. Hence all of the Interests of the American Sugar Refinery are for a removal of the duties on raw sugar. This is all so perfectly obvious that it would be scarcely worth while to recite it, were it not for the fact that a number of rabid free-traders, who rush blindly Into assertions'vvithout a single fact upon which to base themAhave argued that the Sugar Trust is re^p<|n- a sible for the Imposition of the difty on raw sugar, that Congress imposedTtnat duty in deference to the demands of the trust, and that to remove the duty on sugar would be to inflict a severe blow upon the Trust. The fact Is that the duty on raw sugar imported from abroad is not only a revenue measure of considerable value to the country’s finances, but is the main- protection of the beet sugar industry in this country, an industry of large importance to the agricultural interests and of great economic value to the country as a whole. To remove the duty on raw sugar would have the triple effect of advancing the interests of the Sugar Trust; of preventing the establishment of further beet sugar factories, and thus forbidding an extension of the beet-growing industry; and of continuing in effect the economically wrong practice of sending abroad millions annually for the purchase of a product which might just as well be produced at home. To advocate this under pretext that it would injure a trust is simply to ignore or willingly misstate the actual facts.—Seattle Post-Intelllgeneer.

The Crops and Prosperity. Discussing the corn and wheat crops, one of our free trade contemporaries here In the city, which can find no consolation in anything except the abolition of tariff duties, has announced its conclusion that if we have had any prosperity In the last few years it has been due almost entirely to our fine com and wheat crops, and that a failure of these crops, or either of them, would throw us into ■ the old-time distress. Now, let us look into some facts and see if that Is true. As a matter of fact, the total value of all the corn crops since 1894 has been $700,000,000 less than for the same number of years preceding that date. Likewise the total value of all the wheat crops has been $200,000,000 less. For the seven years preceding 1894 the amount of money which the farmers got out of their corn and wheat crops was almost one billion dollars more than they got out of the corn and wheat crops for the next seven years up to and Including 1900. Yet we do not suppose that even a free trade pessimist will declare that there was more prosperity in this country in 1894, the time of general financial depression and bankruptcy, than in 1900. If the free trader will insist that there was, we shall ask how It Is, then, that the savings.Jiank deposits, the prosperity gauge of the United States, were in 1900 $750,000,000 more than in 1894, and way over a billion more than in 1887, the beginning of the period we have mentioned as showing the largest crop values In the history of the country? Not the crops, but the general industrial conditions, under the protective tariff system, have made the prosperity of this country.—New York Press.

Want Hard Times Asrain. The Ohio Democrats In their State convention Wednesday declared for the suppression of the protective tariff and for a tariff for revenue only. These words have a familiar sound to the American people. What a tariff for revenue means, the present generation has not forgotten. It has had one experience with such a tariff. It Is a declaration of preference for foreign manufactures and of war against home Industries. It is In effect a surrender of the home market to foreigners. Six years ago tills country was going through a period of financial stagnation and Industrial paralysis. Factories were idle and hundreds of thousands of men were out of work. There were good times abroad and a wretched condition of affairs at home. The Government itself ran short of cash and had to sell bonds to the extent of $250,000,000 to procure money. The tariff tar

I revenue passed by a Democratic Congress proved a tariff for deficiency. The effect of the baneful bill was felt hi every part of the land. 4,. The Democrats want to give the people another dose of this same kind. It is like giving to a well man medicine that will make him sick. The return of such times as those of six years ago is not desirable from any point of view. They were calamitous. If there Is any reason for adopting a system that will bring about a return of such times one falls to comprehend what it Is.—Galesburg, 111., Register.

lowa as a Sample. A dispatch from Des Moines, published recently in the Minneapolis Journal, reports that from the statement Issued by the lowa State Auditor glvingareportof the condition of State and savings banks in lowa, it appears that since the middle of December there has been an Increase In the bank deposits In that State of $14,493,031. The dispatch characterizes this as "unprecedented in the history of the State, and goes on to say that the total amount on deposit in the State and savings banks of lowa is $112,405,254, and that during the last year the increase in the amount of deposits has been over $21,000,000, while there has been -qn increase of twenty-four IB the number of banks transacting business. Manifestly there has been no falling off Isl Dingle/ jaw prosperity in the State of lowa. Uncle Horace Boles may still find it in him to write calam-ity-breathing articles for the free-trade syndicate, but his articles will exert as little influence on the opinion of the people of his own State as on the opinions of the rest of the people of the country, and the amount of that influence is not startlingly large. Printed articles holding forth on the disastrous results which must inevitably come out of the policy of protection do not carry very much weight with people whose pockets are already loaded ddwn with the abundant fruits of the prosperity which they owe directly to that same policy of protection.—Exchange.

Doctrine of Tariff Reformers. “What the friends of tariff reform will continue to urge, without regard to reciprocity treaties,” says the Philadelphia Record, “is such reduction of duties on imports as is obviously demanded by the interests alike of American consumers and producers. The official returns of commerce have shown for years just what protective duties might reduced or wholly repealed without any disturbance to American industries.” What the tariff reformers have heretofore is urged that all protective duties are pernicious and Immoral and ought to be wholly repealed without regard to the effect of American industries. This is one reason why the country became panic-stricken when the tariff reformers got Into power in 1893, and why the country has shown an eagerness to keep them out of power since that time. —Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

For Whose Benefit? Russia does not like our tariff and therefore, say the tariff tinkers, the tariff must be changed. Other countries do not like some provisions of the law and therefore these must also be changed. It might be worth while to stop a minute and discuss the question whether we make our tariffs for the benefit of other nations or for our own benefit. If for the benefit of Russia, Germany and England,-we might as well turn the work of making the tariff over to them and save the expense of congressional labor on it. But there Is little prospect that the tariff tinkers will induce the people to listen to them. Conditions are pretty Tair now, and there are not many who want to go back to Democratic times such as we had in 1893 to 1897.—Moline (Ill.) Dl* patch. , A Friendly Bnggettioa.

Uncle Sam—So things are not doing well over your way? Guess you’d better try some of our fertilizer. Not a Democrat. Senator McLaurln has a right to feel complimented by the action of the South Carolina Democratic State Committee in voting to fire him out of the party. Not to be considered a Democrat of the South Carolina type is indeed an honor. When a man votes for the industrial and commercial upbuilding of his State they call him a renegade and expel him. He cannot do such things and remain a Democrat in good standing. That sort of politics will bear good fruit In the South some day. The South Carolina Democratic Committee has furnished precisely the object lesson needed to illustrate to progressive, thinking people what a man must and must not be in order to be classed aa an orthodox Southern Democrat.—American Economist

They Can't Explain. Those Democratic editorial doctors who prescribe free trade as a cure for trusts might do a better business If they would explain why It Is that trusts have developed fester under free trade In England than under protection with us.—Sparta (N. C.) News.