10 THE SUGAR INDUSTRY. 
industry by a liberal system of direct subsidies, high protection and export bounties, 
until the European beet-sugar industry has practically ruined the cane-sugar industry 
of the tropics and monopolized the sugar market of the world. To complete the 
destruction of the American sugar industry, or at least to prevent the further devel- 
opment of the beet-sugar business in this country, Germany has recently increased 
its export bounty. And France is about to follow suit, thus enabling their sugar to be 
sold in the United States below the cost of production in this country. The United 
States is supporting the sugar industry of Europe at the expense of the American 
farmer. 
WHAT IS NEEDED 
is a reasonable specific duty on all imported sugar, with an additional discriminating 
duty from countries paying an export bounty, equal to that bounty. Then with such 
aid as the various states and localities interested may offer to secure sugar factories, 
the beet-sugar industry could be put on its feet in this country, within a very few 
years. 
It would afford farmers the new and profitable crop that they must have. 
It would also offer a new market for labor and an immense business to machine build- 
ers, railroads and others, and a fair return on the capital invested in the business, 
and it would distribute among these people the 100 million dollars that are now 
paid annually for imported sugar—a billion dollars during the past ten years! Amer- 
icans being the greatest users of sugar in the world, its consumption here has doubled 
in 15 years and is likely to increase in the same ratio in future. Thus by 1910, if the 
domestic industry supplies the home market as it should, it will be putting into the 
pockets of our people 200 million dollars a year that otherwise would be sent out of 
the country. 
We want to divert capital from further investment in refineries on the Atlantic 
coust to refine imported raw sugar, and induce capital to invest in the hundreds of 
new factories that will be required to work up the amount of beets and cane neces- 
sary to supply the home market with sugar. To build and equip these factories, 
and to supply the paraphernalia incident to this vast industry, means an investment 
of $300, 000, 000 or so. 
AMOUNT OF PROTECTION NEEDED. 
Opinions differ as to the precise figure, but all are agreed upun the points made in 
the preceding paragraph. Also that the new tariff should go into effect promptly, so 
capital and agriculture may know what to bank on, and that no reciprocity to the 
detriment of sugar should be enacted. The tariff of 1883 imposed a duty of about 2c 
per lb on raw sugar, which yielded a revenue of $54,000,000. Somesuch rate, with a 
fraction of acent per lb bounty on domestic sugar (to be gradually reduced) to 
directly encourage it and to protect it against unscrupulous competition by the sugar 
trust, would doubtless be sufficient. 
It will be seen from the table below (Table D) that the proposed duty in the 
United States of about 2c per Ib on the best grades of imported raw sugar is only one- 
third to one-half as much as the present duties on sugar imposed by European coun- 
tries. It is this high protection, coupled with direct subsidies and export bounties, 
which has brought about the immense development of the beet-sugar industry on 
