other semi-tropical and tropical regions. The European beet industry today 

 has not yet regained its pre-war standing and it seems to be the consensus 

 of opinion that it will be many years before the industry will fully recover. 

 It is this great decrease in European beet sugar production on account of 

 the war which accounts for the fact that world production of sugar in the 

 present season will be nearly 1,000,000 tons under the figure for the crop 

 year 1914-15. While beet sugar production has declined, cane sugar pro- 

 duction has shown only a normal and healthy growth. 



The world's greatest individual market for sugar is the United States. 

 We secure our supply from our own beet and cane sugar industries and 

 from Hawaii, the Philippines, Porto Rico and Cuba. The production of beet 

 and cane sugar in the United States and of cane sugar in our insular possessions 

 is in a large measure dependent upon the tariff bounty, and other economic 

 factors operate to restrict any large increase in production in these areas. 

 For many years we have been dependent upon Cuba for about half of our 

 annual sugar requirements. 



Cuba is the world's foremost low cost sugar producer because of unusually 

 favorable climatic and soil conditions. Sugar cane has been produced in Cuba 

 for centuries but not until after the Spanish American War did conditions 

 become favorable for a considerable expansion of the industry. For the 

 present season it is estimated that Cuba will produce 4,000,000 tons as com- 

 pared with 2,429,000 in the season 1912-13. Cuban sugar enjoys preferential 

 tariff treatment in the United States market, being imported at a reduction of 

 20% from the regular duties. Our political relationship with Cuba, if not 

 our economic relationship, requires that American public policies continue 

 to be so directed as not to menace the prosperity of Cuba's major industry. 



The sugar depression through which we have passed was in part due to the 

 speculative fever which prevailed in nearly all lines of enterprise, but the chief 

 causes of the troubles of the industry were the uncertainty regarding 

 termination of government control and certain policies inaugurated during its 

 continuance. The sugar industry of Cuba closed the year 1921 with an 

 unprecedented stock of approximately 1,225,000 tons of sugar on hand. 

 Prices were low and the industry was in a state of acute depression. 



Freed from government interference and arbitrary restrictions the Cuban 

 sugar industry has in the last six months returned to normal conditions. 

 This return to normalcy has manifested itself in increased prices, in the 

 liquidation of stocks, in a phenomenal increase in our domestic demand, 

 and in an increased exportation of refined sugar from the United States. 

 The sugar industry of Cuba is fundamentally sound. Low production costs 

 have given it an impregnable position among the world's producers. 



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