22 ESR OM SRVAS? EON, Lee 
ee 
facturers of products requiring sugar in their composition, and through the manner 
in which negotiations for sugar were carried on, From every quarter of the United 
States appeals were made not only to recognized sugar factors here in Cuba, but 
also to every one whose tame as a resident of Cuba had become known in the United 
States, to secure the appealing parties the supply of sugar that they required, In 
very many cases no price was specified, so that the supplies were purchased at the 
market price prevailing at the time; but in many other cases, perhaps the great 
majority, haggling was indulged in, neither buyer nor seller being willing to make 
straight offer, with the result that many orders for purchase were finally closed at 
prices two and three cents above the figures prevailing when the negotiations began— 
for it was a seller's market, pure and simple. Under these conditions no one can 
attach the slightest blame to any one else who, knowing that there exists an active 
demand for his product, asks therefor a price slightly above that prevailing at the 
time, taking the position that if not accepted by the first comer, it would be by the 
next. 
Thus matters continued till late in May when sugar had reached the high of 
°2iee e & f. New Orleans. About this time, doubtless, consumption had begun to 
decrease in the North among the households whose members refused to pay the prices 
ruling for refined, and it is also probable that the shadow of the great decrease in 
exportation of food products of all kinds had cast itself across the commercial horizon, 
so that greater caution began to rule. Later events proved also that heavy purchases 
of foreign sugars, which in normal times found a market in other lands, had been 
made for future delivery in the United States. The result was that beginning in 
late May prices began to sag, and that after June a downward tendency set in that 
found no stopping point until a level somewhat lower than that now prevailing was 
renched. It was during the early days of this period that the holders of sugar in 
Cuba, many of whom had actually made heavy purchases of this product at prices 
ranging around 20c¢, and others of whom had found themselves with their latest 
production on hand, for about half of which they had paid their cane producers at 
the high average prices prevailing in late May and June, banded themselves together 
and chose the members of the “Sugar Sales Committee,” and came out with the 
statement that their sugars would he held till the price secured therefor was such as 
to leave them a nominal profit in the transaction. All the sugar left in Cuba at that 
time represented only a small per cent., about ten at the outside, of the total crop, 
and only a part of this was ever identified with that held by the Sugar Sales Com- 
mittee, but in the opinion of the sugar world of the North, all was classed under the 
same head. Quite a number of individual holders of crop remnants, some quite large, 
offered their sugar at less than market quotations as the price came down, without 
finding takers. The damage had been done. The scarcity in the United States that 
had heen heralded by every one, even the statistical heads of departments of the 
Government, had been transformed by purchases of other outside sugars, by a limita- 
tion of consumption by the general public, and by the tremendous decrease of demand 
from abroad for goods containing sugar, into an actual surplus, evidence of which 
became greater and greater as time passed, with the result that holders of heayy 
supplies of sugar began to get out from under, offering their sugars at ever decreasing 
prices and taking their losses as opportunity offered, so that at no time was a recovery 
possible. Actual losses by Northern holders who could sell, and paper losses by 
holders in all countries who found it impossible to dispose of their product, were 
piled up, embarrassing both holders and their bankers and producing a condition of 
financial stringency that has left its impress on all sugar producing countries, and ~ 
from which time alone will bring about a cure. 
To the onlooker, the effects of these conditions f1-Cuba has been very interesting. 
During the years of United States Government control of prices of sugar, the sales 
effected at the prices fixed for our preduct left good or medium profit depending on 
