GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE. 303 



The Russians determined nearly forty years ago to make their own 

 sugar out of beet-root, and at first encouraged their manufacturers 

 with a specific bounty. Subsequently they substituted for the bounty 

 an almost prohibitory duty on imports, and under this system the pro- 

 duction of beets and sugar increased rapidly for many years, with large 

 resulting profits to producers. In 1881 the Russian manufacturers 

 produced just enough to satisfy the demands of the home market. In 

 1882 there was an excess of production. Prices then began to fall and 

 manufacturers to fail. They could not export their surplus at a profit, 

 because they could not compete in foreign markets. More protection 

 at home was not wanted, because the iDrotection existing was complete. 

 Under these circumstances application was made to the Government to 

 pay them for exporting their surplus, and this the Government agreed 

 to do, to the extent of giving a bounty of one rouble per pood * on an 

 exportation that was to be limited to two million poods, with a remis- 

 sion also of all internal taxes on the same. This arrangement con- 

 tinued until January, 1886, when, the Russian market being overstocked 

 with sugar, an extension of the bounty on an unlimited exportation 

 was demanded, and granted by the Government for a period of about 

 six months, or until July, 188G. The result was that the Russian 

 exporters poured upon the English and Italian markets (the only ones 

 readily available to them) during this brief time, and to the great dis- 

 turbance of the world's markets, sugar to the amount of seven and a 

 half million poods (227,000,000 pounds), leaving still three million poods 

 surplus at home unsold and unsalable. The present French export 

 bounty on sugars is estimated at from 6s. to 10s. ($1.20 to 62.40) per 

 cwt., entailing an annual expense to the treasury of at least $15,000,- 

 000. As the French refiners, however, obtain a great quantity of 

 untaxed raw sugars, the actual annual loss to the Government is 

 believed to be much greater. The present export bounty in Germany 

 is 25. per cwt., and the present annual treasury expenditure, in order 

 that foreigners may have cheap sugar, is believed to be about 37,- 

 733,796 marks, or $9,334,000. For the year 1885-'86, Austria is sup- 

 posed to have paid $8,000,000 ; Belgium, $4,000,000 ; and Holland, 

 $1,330,000, on account of sugar-export bounties. The United States, 

 in this business of selling sugar cheap to foreigners at the expense of 

 their own people, has also played a not undistinguished part, the 

 exports of refined sugars having risen from 22,227,000 pounds in 1881 

 to 252,579,000 pounds in 1885, or 26,000,000 pounds in excess of the 

 entire cane-sugar product of the country for the latter year. The 

 secret of this probably was, that a bounty was paid under the guise 



Of this exportation a large part wont to the United Kingdom, where the average con- 

 sumption of sugar for that year was in excess of seventy pounds per capita, as compared 

 with an average of seventeen pounds for the population of Germany. 



* The Russian pood equals 35 English pounds, and the single silver Russian rouble 

 may be reckoned at 60 cents. 



