94 TUCUMAN AND MENDOZA 



The curve of sugar-production is just as irregular 

 as that of wine-production is regular. From one year 

 to another the output may vary by as much as 100 

 per cent., and the changes cannot be predicted : 147,000 

 tons in 1912, 335,000 tons in 1914, 150,000 tons in 1915. 

 The reason is that the sugar output depends upon the 

 season. Canes which have been touched by frost go 

 sour and ferment in the ground. They have to be 

 milled quickly, and the harvest must not be prolonged. 

 Even in good years the costly equipment of the works 

 is active during only three months (July to September, 

 but at Jujuy, July to October). 



This irregularity of production, which makes pro- 

 tection inevitable, also complicates it infinitely in 

 practice. Sometimes the harvest is not large enough 

 to meet home demands, and imports have to be per- 

 mitted. Sometimes production is far beyond the 

 home demand, and the sugar-manufacturers have to 

 export the surplus so as to prevent a slump in prices 

 on the overloaded home market. In order to meet 

 these very different situations, the protecting tariff 

 has had to be repeatedly modified and complicated. 

 But it is impossible for us to give the history of it in 

 detail here. The duties on foreign sugar were fixed, 

 in successive instalments, between 1883 and 1891 ; 

 and special protective measures were taken in the 

 interest of the refiners in 1888. Over-production 

 appeared for the first time in 1895. Export at a loss, 

 to relieve the home market, was at first organized by 

 an association of the producers themselves (in 1896). 

 But in 1897 the Government developed it by putting 

 a premium on export. The export period lasted from 

 1897 to 1904. The law of 1912, which gives its latest 

 form to the Protectionist regime, gives the Government 



fixes the minimum percentage of alcohol, and prevents the dispatch 

 from Mendoza to Buenos Aires of alcoholic wines to mix with must. 

 Finally, it defends the vinatero against the bodeguero by fixing the 

 quantity of grapes to be used in making a hectolitre of wine and so 

 prevents fraud at the bodega. 



