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Show Washington. I have frequently mentioned in these columns the problems that Business have confronted Problems nd continue to confront the commerce com-merce and industry of the United States. However one may regard the ethics of the business Interests of the nation, I think everyone must admit that business has its problems prob-lems that are just as serious as the job of earning a living is to you or me. This has been especially true during the period of the depression and it is equally true at this stage of economic recovery. Business, moreover, is affected to a greater extent than you or me by any governmental policy that is pur sued or any legislation that is enacted en-acted by congress or by state legislative bodies. In consequence, it seems to be a fair statement to say that business lives by the will and the whim "of the elected representatives rep-resentatives whether those representatives repre-sentatives be local, state or national. na-tional. Those observations should demonstrate dem-onstrate fully the importance of one piece of legislation now pending in congress. I refer to the so called permanent sugar bill. Seldom in history, I believe, has a single unit of industry found itself in a position where it is so utterly dependent upon federal policy for its existence as is the case now with those eighteen eight-een or twenty plants that refine about seventy-five per cent of all the sugar we use on our tables and otherv !se in this nation. The situation, succinctly, Is that President Roosevelt has recommended recom-mended to congress that it adopt legislation of a permanent character "to protect the interest of each group concerned," and assure meanwhile that the interest of the consumer shall have due consideration. considera-tion. Pursuant to the President's proposal of March 1, last, the house committee on agriculture is working work-ing out a piece of legislation which seeks to reconcile the differences of all the various interests and make thereby a permanent policy which this country may follow as regards sugar. It must be remembered that the United States imports something like seventy-eight per cent of all the sugar it consumes. The other twenty-two per cent is produced by our sugar beet and sugar cane farmers a consequential industry worthy of protection from its government gov-ernment but still quite unable to satisfy demands for the commodity. Some of the sugar we import comes from Puerto Rico; some comes from Hawaii; some from the Philippines, but the bulk comes from Cuba. Since Puerto Rico and Hawaii are insular territories of our nation, they must receive consideration as an integral part of our nation. The Philippines are no longer a possession pos-session and yet there is something of a fatherly interest, or should be. on our part. With reference to Cuba, the United States long has attempted attempt-ed to help the islands economically and politically in order to insure the independence which our nation helped them to establish. So it is seen that we have in the sugar problem questions involving (Da home indus-There indus-There s try; (2) an indus-Sugar indus-Sugar try in an insular possession; (3) an industry in a nation newly born and which we are trying to lead into a position of complete independence inde-pendence and solvency, and (4) the maintenance of our chief source of sugar supply in a nation for which our government yet feels somewhat responsible. That summary indicates the complexity com-plexity of the general problem to be dealt with in the current legislation legisla-tion but the picture omits a most important unit in the industry. I refer re-fer again to those plants who must refine the sugar and must make it ready for home use or other consumption. To make the picture complete, it ought to be recalled that for several sev-eral years we have had a temporary tempo-rary law which fixed the amount of sugar that could be imported. It was managed through what is called a quota system; that is, the law provided authority for the secretary of agriculture to prescribe how much sugar could come in from each of the regions that I have described. This had the effect of stabilizing sugar prices and guaranteeing guar-anteeing to the cane and beet growers grow-ers of the United States a dependable depend-able market. But it had another effect ef-fect which was shown by the operation opera-tion of the law, an effect not so painfully evident when the law was enacted. This effect was to encourage encour-age the refining of sugar in the areas outside of the United States where the bulk of it was grown. In consequence of that, our own sugar refiners began to suffer and they continued to suffer because refiners operating in Cuba or Hawaii, to mention two examples, were able to employ labor that cost about onr-fourih as much as the standard ol wages paid in this country. The natural result was that our own workers were thrown out of jobs and the refining industry was running run-ning at barely two-third of its capacity. To show by figures what has happened: hap-pened: Imports of sugar, ready for table use came from Cuba to the amount of about one thousand tons in 1925. In 1933, more than five hundred thousand tons of refined sugar was Imported. It has grown some since and for every ton imported, im-ported, naturally the refining plants of this country have had their volume vol-ume reduced. The President wants legislation that is fair to all interests but it seems that some Fair to All of those interests Interests are desirous of using us-ing cheap foreign labor in preference to American labor and they are fighting the President's Pres-ident's bill. It is too early to forecast fore-cast what is going to happen but there is every evidence that American Ameri-can owned sugar companies in some of these foreign areas are doing their utmost to kill the legislation which would substantially reduce the Importations of this refined sugar. Now there is a question of foreign policy that is involved and that part of the situation in congress concerns con-cerns the' State department. The home industry, of course, concerns the Department of Agriculture but there is the Department of the Interior In-terior also to be considered because of the insular territories over which it has supervision. On the surface, it is made to appear that the secretaries sec-retaries of these three executive departments are at loggerheads over what shall be done and as far as I can see none of the three is paying much attention to protection of the refining people who have been caught between the upper and nether millstones. My conversations with members of the house committee com-mittee who have studied the problem prob-lem backward and forward convinces con-vinces me that congress had better for once do its own reasoning and pay less attention to the three cabinet cab-inet members, each of whom is seeking to push fgrward the interests in-terests of his own department. The whole situation can be summed up in one statement; if congress wants to preserve the sugar sug-ar refining industry in this country (an industry that is more than two hundred years old) it can do so by providing a low limitation on the amount of refined sugar that can be imported and it can protect the cane and beet growers of the United States by establishing a quota of imports of both raw and refined sugar small enough to permit the home market to absorb the complete com-plete output of the American cane and beet growers. I reach that conclusion because I am an American who believes in a self-sufficiency of American industry in-dustry as far as it is possible to go. I take the position further because no other leading country in the world fails to protect its home industry in-dustry in the handling of sugar. Nearly everyone has realized lately late-ly that prices are climbing at an . alarming rate. Prices This has gone on Climbing ver a period of about two years and there is nothing on the horizon to indicate that the top has been reached or that prices are becoming becom-ing stabilized. You and I feel it, of course, directly in what we pay for the things we buy shoes or clothing, food, furniture, and essentials es-sentials for the household. The situation is a bit disturbing for several reasons. For one 'thing, if prices continue to skyrocket, sooner, soon-er, or later we are going to be confronted con-fronted with another condition like that of 1929 and no one can doubt that if prices get too high, a tail-spin tail-spin will follow. If there is another tailspin like that of 1929, I am afraid that this nation as such is likely to go to pieces. Numerous factors are at work to cause the price increases. New Deal policies were formulated, first of all, with the idea of raising prices to bring us out of the depression. President Roosevelt contended it had to be that way. His program to force prices higher high-er has been eminently successful. In fact, it has been too successful and in that lies one of the grave dangers. Effective means of control are lacking and there is every possibility pos-sibility that the upward movement may reach the stage where it will fall of its own weight. Another cause of the price inflation infla-tion has been the labor movement Throughout the nation, organized labor la-bor has been demanding higher and h;gher wages. I think there can be no doubt but that labor is entitled to higher wages than obtained ob-tained during the depression But in many cases, according to gov ernment records, the demands of organized labor have been so great as to constitute a burden on ind-s-try which it cannot carry. Western Newspaper Union. |