BEET SUGAR 931 



essence of the argument. In the contemporary German con- 

 troversy, considerations of this sort have been advanced in sup- 

 port of the duties on grain ; but there is quite as much weight 

 in the counter argument that agricultural improvement is most 

 effectively spurred by adversity. It comes not from high prices 

 and easy gains, but low prices and the need of facing a difficult 

 situation. The low prices of sugar which prevailed for a con- 

 siderable period (especially in the decade 1890- 1900) proved a 

 blessing in disguise to the Louisiana sugar planters ; their 

 methods of cultivation and sugar extraction were improved in 

 the effort to meet conditions of depression. The same seems 

 to have been the case with the Hawaiian planters during the 

 period (i 890-1 894) of free sugar. It has already been pointed 

 out how difficult it is to say whether protection tends on 

 the whole to promote technical improvement or to retard it. 

 A general proposition one way or the other would be as hard to 

 prove conclusively with reference to agriculture as with refer- 

 ence to manufactures. But it seems clear that acquired skill 

 and established advantages count for more in manufactures than 

 in agriculture ; and that tariff protection is therefore an even 

 less promising device for promoting better use of the soil. 

 Education, experiment stations, diffusion of the right sort of 

 information, are much more promising. But education and the 

 spread of information, to be really effective, must be adapted to 

 the economic conditions. In this regard our Department of 

 Agriculture for many years showed no discrimination. Under the 

 Republican regime of 1 897-1 91 3 its publications were pervaded 

 by a crude mercantilism. Its propaganda for beet sugar rested 

 not on the young-industry and eventual-independence principle, 

 but on the crude protectionist doctrine that any and every increase 

 of domestic supply was necessarily to the country's advantage. 



Questions in some respects different arise concerning the beet- 

 sugar factory, which buys the beets from the farmers and makes 

 the sugar. Here there is what the business world calls " a straight 

 manufacturing proposition." Whether the manufacturing of sugar 

 can be done to advantage in the United States depends on the 

 same conditions as in other manufactures. It is much affected 



