THE BEET SUGAR INDUSTRY. 11 



ance to this end. So long as their enormous profits are sure, they don't care if thereby 

 vast and promising domestic industries are destroyed, and $250,000,000 a year new taxes 

 are piled upon the American farmer and people. History fails to reveal so shameless a 

 conspiracy of pelf at the national expense. Its success would cause a moral decline and 

 undermining of the basic principles of government that bode far worse for the republic 

 than the sacrifice of men and money in the tropics and of material prosperity at home 

 that this nefarious plan would involve. 



NO COMPENSATING ADVANTAGES OF IMPORTANCE 



have yet been demonstrated for such a result. It is probable that exports of certain 

 manufactures from the United States to the tropics would be somewhat increased, {t 

 is true also that such an impetus to tropical sugar would greatly enlarge the demand for 

 sugar machinery, etc., in those regions, but the whole world would compete in furnish- 

 ing this machinery. Even if the United States furnished it all, the business thus obtained 

 would not equal the volume of trade that would be created by building and equipping the 

 nearly 1,000 factories (at an expense of $300,000,000) needed to supply the domestic con- 

 tinental market with sugar from crops grown by American farmers. 



It is also claimed that such free trade with the tropics would vastly increase the 

 export of cereals, meats and dairy products from the United States to those sections. 

 Experience emphasizes the error of this hypothesis. The productiveness of the tropics 

 is so liberal that the masses there do not require to import large quantities of food 

 oroducts, nor have they the ability to pay for such products. Experience under the 

 reciprocity features of the McKinley tariff of 1890 showed how small was the increase 

 in the market for American grains and meats in the West Indies, compared to Great 

 Britain and Europe. 



Nor is there much force to the argument that free tropical or colonial sugar would 

 materially reduce prices to consumers in this country. It might for a short time, or just 

 long enough to kill the domestic industry, but that accomplished it would be compara- 

 tively easy for the sugar trust (which is back of this annexation scheme) to control the 

 supply and again force up prices. It must be remembered that the price of sugar at the 

 present time is just about what it was under the free sugar McKinley tariff, with its 

 bounty of 2c per Ib to domestic producers. The present price of sugar is nearly 50 per 

 cent, less than during the ninth decade. Sugar is as cheap here as in England, while it 

 costs our consumers only about 5c per Ib compared to 7 to 14c in Europe. 



IN CONCLUSION. 



There appear to be no valid reasons for sacrificing the interests of domestic sugar 

 producers. There is every reason for maintaining the present tariff against all imported 

 sugar from wherever it may come, for at least ten years. 



American agriculture and labor believe the American Congress will do just this, the 

 American people will back up such a policy, and the early future will vindicate its 

 wisdom. 



