T H E CU B A RE V I E TV 17 



mills to commence work on the new crop began operations, this unusually small quan- 

 tity also being drawn upon until on December 30th only 11,649 tons were on hand, 

 the buoyant feeling with which our industry began operations of the crop now in the 

 making can readily be imagined. Convinced as were its members of the need of all the 

 sugar that it would be possible for Cuba to make during this crop, they realized that 

 prices must be good, and that if offerings could be made in a regulated manner, hand- 

 some profits would result. 



It is only normal to expect that after a period of actual paucity of supplies of any 

 commodity, production at a rapid rate would cause weakness in the market thereof. 

 The belief among sugar purchasers in the North that with the very rapid entry into 

 operation of our sugar mills witnessed this year the offering of the large tonnage 

 produced would cause a lowering of prices in February or March, was only normal, but 

 it is evident that consideration was not given to the position in which Cuba's sugars 

 are held. The preliminary estimates of the crop give a production of around 28,000,000 

 bags, and it is evident that consumers in the North had not considered that some 

 25,000,000 bags of these sugars are held by parties whose financial needs are amply sup- 

 plied. Roughly these holders are: The Rionda interests with about 8,000,000 bags; 

 the interests of the National City Bank of New York with about 6,000,000 bags; the 

 Atkins interests with about 3,500,000 bags; the Royal Bank of Canada and the Cuban- 

 American Sugar Co. with about 1,500,000 bags each; the United Fruit Co. and the 

 Warner Sugar Refining Co. with about 1,000,000 bags each; the American Foreign 

 Bank with about 500,000 bags; and a strong Havana importing concern with about 

 2,000,000 bags. This leaves only slightly over 3,000,000 bags whose owners may not be 

 in the best of financial conditions, and who might be compelled to offer their sugars as 

 produced, regardless of market conditions. We believe that during the marketing of 

 our sugar last year, a somewhat similar position prevailed among sugar holders, and it 

 seems that a lesson can be learned by our producers who should deduce from the results 

 of the disposal of the very heavy carry-over and of the record crop of last year that 

 in union there is strength. Giving this sufficiently profound thought, it would seem that 

 an arrangement could be entered into by our sugar producers, if they have individually 

 regained the complete control of their properties, as the result of which the present 

 orderly method of offering sugars to the Northern purchasers could be repeated, avoid- 

 ing at one and the same time a surplus of offerings sufficient to unduly lower prices and 

 that speculative tendency which so frequently manifests itself when the individual pro- 

 ducer controls the sale of his products. 



It seems to us that another lesson can be learned from the results of the past 

 year in our sugar industry. Our readers will remember the propaganda that was ex- 

 pended upon the reduction of last year's crop to at most 2,800,000 tons, of which 

 2,500,000 tons were to be allowed entry into the United States. Is it not difficult to 

 imagine what the final result would have been if this idea had prevailed and if Cuba's 

 crop had been limited to the amount mentioned? Presuming that the crop had been 

 limited to 2,800,000 tons, that the carry-over was about 1,200,000 tons, and that all of 

 this had been available to the United States, there would have been constituted a supply 

 of 4,000,000 tons. Statistics show, however, that considerably over this quantity was 

 exported from Cuba to the United States alone, large quantities also being forwarded to 

 other countries. It would seem, therefore, that the speculation of 1920, so disastrous 

 to the world's sugar industry in its after results, would necessarily have been repeated, 

 though doubtless en a modified scale due to the memory of the bitter experiences only 

 recently passed through. We have in this only another proof of the fact that supply 

 and demand is the only basis upon which continuously satisfactory results can be ob- 

 tained in dealing in commodities. 



Among the events of paramount importance to Cuba occurring during the year, 

 was the final determination by the Congress of the United States of the duty to be paid 

 by sugar entering therein.- It will be remembered by our readers that the Fordney pre- 

 liminary tariff bill raised the duty on 96 degree sugar entering the United States to 2 



