Show fill r washington I 1 have frequently mentioned in these columns the problems t that h a t business have confronted problems and d continue t 0 confront the commerce and industry of the united states however one may regard the ethics of the business interests of the nation I 1 think everyone must admit that bus business liless has its problems that are just as serious as the job of earning a living ilvina Is to you or me this has lieen b een especially true during the period of the depress depression ion 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 pursued or any legislation that Is enacted by congress or by state legislative bodies in consequence it seems to be a fair statement to say sa that business lives by tho the will and the whim of the elected representatives whether those representatives senta tives be local state or national those observations should demonstrate on fully the importance of one piece of bf legislation now pending in congress I 1 refer to the so called permanent sugar bill seldom in history I 1 believe has a tingle 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 or twenty plants that refine about seventy five per cent of all the sugar we use an our tables and otherwise in this nation the situation succinctly is that president rodsevelt Rop sevelt has recommended to td 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 pursuant to the presidents proposal of march 1 last thel the house louse committee on agriculture Is working out a piece of legis legislation lati on which seeks to reconcile ec onelle the differences of nil all the various interests a and n d make thereby a permanent poly which this country may follow as regards sugar it must be remembered that the united states imports something like seven seventy ity eight per cent of all the sugar it consumes the other twenty two per cent is produced by our sugar beet and sugars sugar cane cane farmers a consequential consequent industry worthy of protection from its government but still quite unable to satisfy demands for the commodity some of the sugar wa we import bome comes from puerto rico some comes from hawaii some from the philippines but the bulk comes from cuba since puerto rico and hawaii ar are insular territories of our nation they must receive consideration as an integral part of our nation the philippines are no longer a possession session I 1 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 to help the islands econom economically cally and politically in i order to insure the independence which our nation helped them to establish so it is seen that we WeI have fave in the sugar problem questions involving 1 la a home hoille indus theres there s try 2 nn an indus sugar ary y jn i an n insular possession pos Q 3 arf an industry in a nation newly born and which we dr are e trying to lead into a poil position tion of df completa inde pen derice and solvency and W 4 the maintenance e of our our chief source of sugar supply in a nation for which out go government vern ment yet feels somewhat responsible that summary indicates the complexity of mhd general problem to be dealt with vath in the current legiel sl adon but the picture omits a ffrost most important unit in the industry I 1 refer again to those plants who must refine the sugar and must make it ready tor for home use or other consumption td make tho the picture complete it ought to be replied recalled that for several years ye ars we jiahe have had bad a temporary law wh which lacfi fixed tho amount of sugar that could be imported it was vas managed through what is called a quota system that is the law provided authority tor for the secretary of agriculture I 1 to prescribe how much sugar could come in front from each of tae th e regions that I 1 have described had the effect of stabilizing sugar prices and guaranteeing an ari to the cane and beet growers of the united states a dependable market but it had another eti ef feet which was shown by the operation of the law an effect not so painfully evident when the law was erf enacted acted this effect was to encourage the refining of sugar in the ardai areas of the united states where the bulk of it was grown in consequence of that pur our own sugar re finers began to suffer and they continued to suffer because re finers operating in cuba or hawaii to mention two examples were able to employ labor that co cost st about one fourth as much as the standard ot wages paid in this country the natural result was that our own workers were thrown out of jobs and the refining industry was running at barely two thirds of its capacity to show by figures what has happened 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 ji hundred undred thousand tons ions of refined sugar was imported it has grown some since and for every ton toll imported naturally the refining plants of this country have had their volume reduced the president wants legislation that is fair to all Inte interests but it seems that some fair 0 to o all of those interests interests are desirous of using cheap foreign labor in prefer preference epee to Ama american rican labor and they are fighting the presidents bill it is too early to forecast what is going to happen but there is every evidence that american owned sugar companies in somo 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 the state department the home industry of course concerns the department of agriculture but there la Is the department oi of the interior also to be considered because of the insular territories teni over which it has supervision on the surface it Is made to appear that the secretaries ret aries arles of these three executive departments are at af loggerheads logger heads over what shall be done and as tar far as I 1 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 mi conversations with members ot of the house committee who have studied the problem le rn backward and forward convinces me that congress had better for once do its iti own reasoning and pay less attention to the three cabinet members each of whom Is seeking to push forward the interests teresta of his own department the whole situation can be summed up in one statement if congress wants to pret preserve erve the sugar refining industry in this country an hidu stry that is more than two hundred years ald it ban can do so by providing a low limitation on the amount of refined sugar that can be imported and it t can protect the cane and be beet et 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 com output of the american cane and b beet t gr growers aers I 1 reach that conclusion because I 1 am an Arile american rican who believes in a self sufficiency of american industry as tar far as it Is possible to go I 1 take the position further because no other leading country in the world falls to protect iia home industry dusia in the handling of sugar 4 nearly everyone has realized lately that prices are climbing at an alarming rate this has gone on I 1 I 1 climbing over ove r a period of about two years and there is nothing on the horizon to indicate that the top has been reached ot or that prices are becoming stabilized you and I 1 feel it ot cour course hd directly in what w we e pay for the things we ve buy shoes shoe or clothing co thing food fu furniture rn iture and essential sent senti ial illg for the household the situation is a bit disturbing for several reasons for foi one thing if prices price s continue to skyrocket sky sooner soone e or later we ate are going goffig to be confronted with another condition like that of 1929 and ab nb no one can doubt that it if pr prices aces get too high a tailspin will follow if there is another tailspin like that of 1929 I 1 am afraid that this nation as such is likely to go to pieces numerous factors are pt at work to cause the price increases new nev D deal al policies as were formulated formulate d first of bf all with the mhd idea of raising prices to bring us out ot of the depression president roosevelt contended it had to be that way hi his s p program to force prices higher has been eminently successful intact it has been too successful and in that thai lies one ot of the grave dangers effective means of control ol 01 are lacking and there Is every possibility lity that the upward movement may reach the stage where it will fall of its own weight another cause ot of the price inflation has been the labor movement throughout the nation organized labor has been demanding higher and higher wages I 1 think there can be no doubt but that labor is entitled to io higher wages than obtained during the depression but to ill m many a ny ca cases se s according dc C to government records the demands of organized labor have been so great as to constitute a burden on indus try which it cannot carry 0 western Vic stern newspaper union |