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Show SEEN-' HEARD around the National Capital " By CARTER FIELD Bi5ii Washington. Allotment of more than a million tons of sugar per year of the market in continental United States to the Philippines by President Roosevelt In determining the quotas of various sugar producing sections caused a furore among sugar Interests in Washington. It was only five years ago, it was pointed out here, that Henry L. Stimson, just returned from a tour of duty as governor general gen-eral of the Philippines, and sworn in as secretary of state, testified before the house ways and means committee. Mr. Stimson opposed either of two actions which the committee was considering. con-sidering. One was to assign a quota limiting the amount of sugar which the Philippines could send into the United States free of duty. The other was to place a tariff duty on Philippine Philip-pine sugar. Mr. Stimson declared with such certainty cer-tainty that it never occurred to anyone to question him that the Philippines could not increase their production of sugar beyond 500,000 tons a year. As that was the amount they were sending here then, and as the whole excitement excite-ment was about preventing them from sending more, rather than trying to get them to send less, Mr. Stlmson's statement state-ment solved the problem. There had been talk of not permitting Imports from the Philippines In excess of 000,-000 000,-000 tons; In fact that was about the smallest' figure mentioned. The curious part of that story is that every practical sugar man in the world knew that Stimson was as dead wrong as a man could be. They knew, for example, that at that time the Philippine sugar plantations were still using a type of cane known to be far inferior to others developed and fully tested, for example the POJ type which had already demonstrated its effectiveness effective-ness in Louisiana. They knew Introduction Intro-duction of this or an equally efficient type of cane in the islands would result re-sult In enormously increasing their sugar production. They also knew, which Mr. Stimson seemed equally deceived de-ceived about, that enormous tracts of land not then in sugar production could be adapted to that purpose, and would be if the free market in the United States continued. Spurred Independence Talk This was the real reason why the strength of the Philippine independence independ-ence movement grew by leaps and bounds from that time on. Added to the dairy Interests of the Northwest, who were educated to fear competition competi-tion from Philippine coconut oil, a great many people who had thought of the presence of this country In the Philippines as a duty began to think of it in terms of a big nation oppressing oppress-ing a little one. Woodrow Wilson's theories about the rights of minorities began to make itself felt. Then came the climax when the congress con-gress voted to free the islands on a certain day, followed in turn by the rejection by the Philippine legislature of liberty on those terms and Insistence Insist-ence on a better bargain. What the politicos in the islands, headed by Manuel Quezon, say they want is quicker independence, and no strings. What the sugar producers here, in Hawaii, and in Cuba would like to see is quicker independence, and no tariff concessions. All of which is likely to be aggravated aggra-vated considerably by the quota allowance al-lowance to the islands just fixed by the President. It will be noticed that he allows the islands more than half the total maximum production considered con-sidered possible by Henry L. Stimson. One will hear plenty of Philippine protests pro-tests even about this figure, which will be amusing when one considers where it must have been that Stimson got his idea the Philippines could not possibly produce any more than half a million tons a year. Whisky "Blends" Misconceptions about "blends" as applied to whisky have been causing quite a little dissatisfaction among the customers, and some complaints to the Federal Alcohol Control administration. administra-tion. Some operators, who evidently knew very little about the whisky business and started off with tiie theory that a "blended" whisky is what its name would seem to imply a blend of two or more whiskies have been selling a rather dangerous and highly injurious beverage, compared to which the average aver-age bootleg was pure as the driven snow. They bought a certain amount very small of tine old bonded whisky. Then they bought a certain amount-large amount-large In proportion of whisky fresh from the still. They mixed the two together and put them on the market for a quick profit. The trouble Is that the new whisky, by far the predominant Ingredient, was chockful of fusel oil and other harmful ingredients which, in the process of combining with charcoal In aging, disappear In properly treated whisky. In the case of a certain Canadian whisky of the American type, this elimination of harmful Ingredients Ingre-dients Is accomplished by chemical processes. But the new whisky used by the villains or rather the ignoramuses ig-noramuses of this story was treated neither by aging In a charred barrel nor by any other, process intended to remove the poisons. It played havoc with stomachs, which had weathered 14 years of bathtub gin and bootleg whisky. Actually It was much worse than any of them. Most bootleggers, since the very early days of prohibition, had been able to get a very fair grade of alcohol indeed. in-deed. This, with distilled water, constituted con-stituted the main Ingredients of most of their wares leaving bottles really smuggled out of the picture. Moonshine Not So Bad Actually most bootleggers used onfc or both of two varieties of so-called whisky. One was frankly moonshine "Maryland rye" was the favorite here, as "cawn" was the favorite in most of the states south of here. With the passage of time the moonshiners became fairly expert and produced a drink which, If aged in a charred barrel bar-rel for a fair period of time, was only partially poisonous. The other variety was blended, using the good old pre-prohibitlon pre-prohibitlon formula of two gallons of real whisky to the 50-gallon barrel. The first variety was apt to run heavily to fusel oil, unless the purchasers pur-chasers kept it for some length of time in a charred keg, regardless of how long the dispenser said it had been "In the wood." The second, being made from pure aged whisky, alcohol (Cologne spirits or, as some experts prefer to call them, neutral spirits) and distilled water, was no more injurious in-jurious than If It had all been straight whisky. The government has gone out of its way, so to speak, to provide the liquor trade with a sufficient supply of neutral neu-tral or Cologne spirits in short with enough alcohol for blending purposes. It has been realized ever since it was seen that repeal was inevitable that the supply of good whisky In this country- was bound to be utterly inadequate. inade-quate. The only way the trade could possibly be taken care of was by blending. Some Poker Game The biggest international poker game in all history is in progress, with something some-thing like three and a half billion dollars dol-lars In the two major stacks of chips, but with all the secrecy of drawn shades and locked doors barring spectators spec-tators from discovering even how the game is going. It is all over gold. The British have been worried about it since last spring. Parliament appropriated 200,000,000 pounds, and then 150,000,000 more, making a total of 350,000,000, equivalent equiv-alent to more than a billion and a half dollars at the present rate of exchange, ex-change, for a "stabilization" fund. This was to be used in international exchange, in the purchase of dollars or the sale of pounds, or vice versa, the main object being to keep the value of the pound in international trade Just where the British government govern-ment desired. Its operations have been so secret that when Inquiries were made on the floor of the house of commons the inquiring in-quiring members were told that It was "against public policy" to reveal even whether the fund had suffered losses or made profits. Generally speaking it has been the operations of this fund, in the opinion of Professor Warren and others in agreement with him among President Roosevelt's currency advisers, which has so hamstrung the effects of this government's gold operations until the recent formal devaluation. Now this government has set up a fund of $2,000,000,000, the purpose of which is to speculate in gold and dollars, dol-lars, and to keep the dollar and the price of gold in dollars at a figure satisfactory to the government. And unprecedented plans have been made to guard the secrecy of its operations so that no one is to know anything about what is done with this huge fund for something like three years 1 But the country and the world know what was one of the first effects. Gold began to pour into this country as a result of the new price of $35 an ounce fixed by this government for gold. Speculators bought francs, turned them into gold, and shipped the gold to New York to the value of millions mil-lions of dollars to get the high price. Very Puzzling All of which is very puzzling, not only to laymen without much idea of what It is all about, but to some of the advisers of Professor Warren. For what all this seems to indicate, assuming assum-ing that no curious operations of the huge stabilization funds is responsible, is that over In Europe they just do not believe President Roosevelt intends in-tends to do what he says he is going to do. The favorite explanation always omitting curious operations of the stabilization funds from the equation is that people selling that gold to the United States government at $35 an ounce, less a quarter of 1 per cent and mint charges, believe that later on they will be able to buy the gold back at a lower price. The point is: Do they believe that all this is a temporary thing, and that sooner or later gold will be put back to the old figure? It would be rather strange, for there is no record in history of a government, govern-ment, which once devalued its currency, cur-rency, putting it back at the old price. France devalued her franc from nearly twenty cents to below four cents gold. But there has never been any whisper that she might restore re-store it. On the contrary, whenever there is a rumor, it is that she will reduce the gold value still further. The same with Belgium and Italy. In the present case the President nas the power, at any time he chooses, to advance the price of gold from $35 an ounce anywhere up to $41.34 as a limit. He will use that power If ho figures It necessary. (Copyright.) WOT Service |