OCR Text |
Show SUGAR AS AN ISSUE It is reported from Washington that the opposition to the administration, ad-ministration, starting through an investigation in the Senate of the Tariff Commission, intends to make the sugar tariff the paramount issue in the corning campaign. If this is true, then the opposition is going to be as sadly disappointed as. it' was in its selection of issues for the 1924 campaign. For the tariff on sugar is one of the schedules most easily defended de-fended by the advocate of protection to American industries. 1; is the theory of the sugar tariff proponents that this duty' on foreigr sugar affords protection to the American sugar growers withou which the American sugar growing industry would languish and expire altogether. And the sugar industry is important now, no! only to the Southern cane sugar region, but to Colorado, Utah and ollher states in the North and West where the growing of sugai beets has become a very important industry. 1 he price of sugar to the housewife now is not excessive. Bu' it is the theory of the) free traders that if this tariff were taken of! the price of sugar would be a trifle lower. Possibly this might be true for a brief period of time, until the American sugar grower were put out of business, and the farmers in several states thereby impoverished. But the foreign sugar industry is now pretty much of a trust, ju-'t as the rubber growing industry is a trust. So whe; (American competition was killed off, there would be nothing to prevent pre-vent the foreign sugar monopoly from doing exactly what the rubber rub-ber trust has done namely, boost the price' to a figure that would remind us again of war time prices. , Rubber manufacturers are now telling us that the way for American rubber users to protect themselves from foreign monop oly is to grow their own. What is true of rubber is true of sugar If we want to protect ourselves from', a foreign sugar monopoly ws want ta provide it with competition by continuing to grow our own Not only will this help the beet sugar farmer. It will eventually assist the corn farmer too, because corn sugar is going to become an important American commodity in the near future. |