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Show Cuban Producers Want Prices Raised i Announcement by the Cuban government gov-ernment that the sugar crop of that country will be limited to 4,000,000 tons this season with the probability that out of this amount not more than 3,300,000 tons will be permitted permit-ted to come to the United States is stated by the trade journal Facts About Sugar to be a move in the direction of getting a higher price for Cuban sugar in this market. Under the reciprocity treaty between be-tween the United States and Cuba adopted in 1902, Cuban sugar is admitted ad-mitted to the American market at a tariff rate 20 per cent below that charged on sugar from other countries. coun-tries. Under the present tariff law-Cuban law-Cuban raw sugar pays 1.76 cents a pound for entering the country while sugar from any other quarter must pay 2.20 cents a pound. Theoretically Cuba should be able to get 44 cents a hundred pounds more for sugar sold to the United States than for the same grade of sugar sold to other countries. For many years Cuba actually received this preference but in recent seasons, sea-sons, owing to the tremendous increase in-crease in Cuban productions and the necessity of marketing a portion of their crop abroad, the Cuban producers' produc-ers' have not been getting any part of their nominal preference. By restricting re-stricting the portion of their crop that can be sold to American consumers con-sumers to the bare requirements of this market the Cubans believe that they can recover their former advantage advan-tage and get from a quarter to two-fifths two-fifths of a cent a pound more than they otherwise could for the sugar sold to the United States. |