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Show THE SUGAR TARIFF In complaining about the twenty per cent duty on sugar the Houston Post-Dispatch declares this is an outrage on the consumer and asks whether a whole nation of consumers "be prevented from getting a necessity of life because interests in this country find it impossible im-possible to produce that commodity as cheaply as do the growers in a neighboring country? Mere at last is the old fashioned argument of the free trader. But it is to be remembered that this is not a nation of consumers but of producers. The only simon-pure consumers we have are the idle rich and the hoboes. All the rest of us, farmers workers, manufacturers, manufac-turers, clerks, professionals, are producing something, whether it bej a material commodity or a form of service. It is by the production and not the consumption of wealth that a nation grows great and prosperous and it is to be remembered further that unless our people produce something they cannot purchase the things which are necessary neces-sary or desireable for the perpetuation and enjoyment of living. But still there is another thought while we are on the sugar business. busi-ness. Suppose the tariff were removed and the American sugar producers pro-ducers put out of business. Thousands of farmers would suffer, but would the user of sugar save anything in the long run? We rather think not. As soon as Cuba controlled the market you would see the m'arket go skyward and we would be paying not six and seven but ten and fifteen cent3 a pound for sugar. Do you think that coffee would be as high as it now is did not the government of Brazil have a virtual monoply on the market? If American farmers could raise coffee the price in South America would soon go down, tariif or no tariff. Removing the tariff would not mean permanent cheap sugar. It would mean the destruction, of a great American industry and the turning over of the American sugar users to the tender mercies of a foreign monoply. |