Show n n I 1 I 1 washington I 1 have frequently mentioned in these columns t the h e problems t that h a t business have confronted problems and 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 business has its problems that are just as serious as the job of earning a living is to you or me this has been especially true during the period of the depression and it is equally true at this stage of economic recovery business moreover is affected to I 1 a greater extent than you or me by any governmental govern me antal policy that is pursued isred or any legislation that is enacted by congress or by state legislative bodies in consequence it seems to be a fair statement to I 1 say that business lives by the will band and the whim of the elected representatives whether those representatives senta renta tives be local state or national those observations should demonstrate on fully the importance of one piece of legislation now pending in congress I 1 refer to the so called permanent sugar bill seldom in history I 1 believe has a single unit of industry found itself in a position where it is so utterly dependent upon federal policy for its ed existence stence I 1 as is the case now with those eighteen or twenty plants that refine about seventy five per cent of all the sugar we use on our tables and otherwise in this nation the situation succinctly is that president roosevelt has recommended to 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 the house comm committee attee on agriculture is working out a piece of legislation which seeks to reconcile the differences of all the various interests a and n d make thereby a permanent policy which this country may follow as regards sugar it must be remembered that the united states imports something like seventy eight per cent of all the sugar it consumes the other twenty two per cent is produced by our sugar beet and sugar cane farmers a consequential industry worthy of protection from its government but still quite unable to satisfy demands for the commodity some of the sugar we import comes from puerto rico some comes from hawaii some from the philippines but the bulk comes from cuba since puerto rico and hawaii are insular territories of our nation they must receive consideration as an integral part of our nation the philippines are no longer a possession 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 economically and politically in order to insure the independence which our nation helped them to establish 0 so it is seen that we have in the sugar problem questions involving 1 a home indus theres try 2 an indus sugar try in an insular possession 3 an industry in a nation newly born and which we are trying to lead into a position of complete independence pen dence and solvency and 4 the maintenance of our chief source of sugar supply in a nation for which our government yet feels somewhat responsible that summary indicates the complexity of the general problem to be dealt with in the current legislation but the picture omits a most important unit in the industry I 1 refer again to those plants who must refine the sugar and must make it ready for home use or other consumption to make the picture complete it ought to be recalled that tor for several years we have had a temporary law which fixed the amount of sugar that could be imported it was managed through what is called a quota system that is the low law provided authority for the secretary of agriculture to prescribe how much sugar could come in from each of the regions that I 1 have described this had the effect of stabilizing sugar prices and guaranteeing an to ta the cane and beet gro growers I 1 of the united states a depe dependable nd market but it had another effect which was shown by the operation of the law an effect not no t so so painfully evident when the law wa was enacted this effect was to encourage the refining of su sugar gar in the areas outside of the united states where the bulk ot of it was grown in consequence of that our own sugar re finers began to suffer and they continued to suffer because refiners refinery re finers operating in cubi cuba or hawaii to mention two examples were able to employ labor that cost about abol it one fourth as is much as the standard rd fit wages paid ki in this country count rj the natural result was that our workers were thrown out of jobs r and the refining industry was run j ning at barely two thirds of its capacity to show by figures what has hap i bened imports of sugar ready aorl foil table use came from cuba to the amount of about one thousand tons in 1925 in 1933 more than fiver five hundred thousand tons of refined sugar was imported it has grown some since and for every ton im ported naturally the refining plants of this country have had their vol voli i ume reduced the president wants legislation that is fair to all interests but it seems that some fair t E air t to all AH of those interests interests are desirous of using cheap foreign labor in preference to american 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 ameri can owned sugar companies in 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 borne industry of course concerns the department of agriculture but there is the department of the interior also to be considered because of the insular territories over which it has supervision on the surface it is made to appear that the secretaries ret aries of these three executive departments are at loggerheads logger heads over what shall be done and as far as I 1 can see none of the three is paying much attention to protection of the refining people who nave have been caught between the upper andl and nether millstones my conversations with members of the house committee who have studied the problem backward and forward convinces me that congress had better for once do its own reasoning and pay less attention to the three cabinet members each of whom is seeking to push forward the interests of his own department the whole situation can be summed up in one statement if congress wants to preserve the sugar refining industry in this country an industry that is more than two hundred years old it can do so by providing a low limitation on the amount of of refined sugar that can be imported and it can protect the cane and beet growers of the united states by establishing a quota of imports of both raw and refined sugar small enough to permit the home borne market to absorb the complete output of the american cane and beet growers I 1 reach that conclusion because I 1 am an american who believes in a self of american industry as far as it is possible to go I 1 take the position further because no other leading country in t the he world fails to protect its home industry in the handling of sugar 0 0 nearly everyone has realized lately that prices are climbing at an alarming rate prices this has gone on climbing over a period of about two years and there is nothing on the horizon to indicate that the top has been reached or that prices are becoming in stabilized you and I 1 feel it of course directly in what we pay for the things we buy shoes or clothing food furniture and essentials senti als for the household the situation is a for several reasons for one thing if prices continue to skyrocket sooner or later we are going to be confronted with another condition like that of 1929 and no one can doubt that if prices get too high a tailspin will follow if there is another tailspin like that of 1929 1 am afraid that this nation as such is likely to go to pieces numerous factors are at work to cause the price increases new deal policies were formulated first of all with the idea of raising prices to bring us out of the depression president roosevelt contended it had to be that way his program to force orce prices higher has been eminently successful in fact it has been too successful and in that lies one of the grave dangers effective means ot of control are lacking lac kinn and there is every possibility lity that the upward movement may reach the stage Z where it will fall of its own weight another cause of the price inflation has been the labor movement throughout the nation organized labor abr abor has been demanding higher and higher wages I 1 think there can be no doubt but that labor is entitled to higher wages wages than obtained during the depress sion but in many casks cases according to government records the demands of organized labor have been so great as to constitute a burden on industry which it cannot carry c western newspaper union |