46 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



complaint on the part of producers that the amount received by 

 tliem does not cover the cost of production. Under such a condi- 

 tion of affairs, the German Parliament (Reichstag), in May, 1896, 

 accepting a popular declaration that " sugar was the last and only 

 agricultural product in which there remained any profit for the 

 German farmer, and that whatever skillful legislation could do 

 to preserve and protect that industry should in justice to the 

 suffering landowners be given a prompt and thorough trial," 

 passed an act increasing the bounty on the export of sugars to an 

 extent assumed to be sufficient " to enable German exporters to 

 compete against all comers in foreign markets"; advancing the 

 import duty on sugars to a prohibitory degree ; and fixing an 

 internal-revenue tax on sugars to such an extent as to yield a net 

 income to the state in excess of its disbursements on account of 

 bounties on exports. The effects of the new statute have now 

 become apparent and ominous. The foreign sugar market has 

 responded to the increased bounty export by a proportionate 

 decline in price ; and a movement now finds favor to petition the 

 Reichstag to make certain amendments in the existing statute 

 so as to restrict instead of stimulating production, and to invite 

 international negotiations for the gradual abolition of all export 

 bounties, which have been proved to be simply a burden on the 

 treasury, which pays them for the benefit of non- producing for- 

 eign countries. 



The present burden which the sugar-bounty system entails 

 upon the taxpayers of Europe is estimated at about $25,000,000 

 per annum, while the excise tax on sugar in Germany, France, 

 and Austria is said to amount to $100,000,000 per annum. On 

 the sugar consumed by the people of the continental nations of 

 Europe which have adopted the bounty policy there is no bounty, 

 but on the contrary an excise tax ; the result of which legislation 

 is to make exported sugars very cheap and home consumption 

 abnormally dear. This is demonstrated by reference to the sta- 

 tistics of the comparative consumption of different countries. 

 Thus in England, whose policy since 1874 has been to give her 

 people sugar free of taxation, the per capita consumption has risen 

 from fifty-six pounds in that year to eighty-six pounds in 1896; 

 while the saving to the British people from the reduction of the 

 cost of this one item of their living has been estimated to be at 

 least 6,000,000 ($30,000,000) per annum. The great reduction in 

 the price of sugar has also given a remarkable impetus to the 

 British industry of manufacturing sweets, in the form of confec- 

 tionery, preserves, jams, marmalades, etc., which last to a consid- 

 erable extent have undoubtedly supplanted the use of butter. The 

 present annual average consumption of sugar in Germany is re- 

 ported to be about twenty- seven pounds 2^^^ capita. In France 



