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Show CUTLER RETURNS FROM MP EAST The Deseret News 3ays: General Manager T. R. Cutler of the Utah-Idaho Sugar company has returned from a trip to Washington, New York, Cuba and New Orleans, on which ho left March 11. He Is greatly interested in the telegramB from Havana, regarding the spread of the bubonic plague. He says he narrowly escaped being dotained in Havana after his return from the Interior In-terior of the island. There is a rush of people leaving Havana, and very few are coming in, and no one can embark on a vessel until he has had an examination. This Mr. Cutler Cut-ler took at the Marine hospital, and came home by way of New Orleans. He ridicules the statements made in the dispatches that the plague is communicated com-municated by fleas In the bags of sugar. Tho sanitary conditions in Havana are always such In the warm weather, he says, that the bubonic plague is likely to break out, and if it is crried by fleas, it is In the burlap bags used to ship the raw sugar from the mills to thc refineries. Mr. Cutler Cut-ler rather thinks that a scare Is being raised to prejudice people against Cuban sugar. His visit to thc interior of Cuba, where he inspected the sugar cane plantations and mills, was full of interest. in-terest. The wide spread depression In thc sugar world Is very evident in Cuba, where growers are realizing not more than 51.75 per hundred pounds for raw sugar, and they clajm they cannot produce It less than 2.50 por hundred and make any kind of a prof-It. prof-It. For this reason, he thinks the crop of BUgar will be much less next year than the present one, but for this season it will break all records, being be-ing about 2.S00.000 tons. Labor con ditions are very unfavorable, and while the mill hands in Cuba obtain only about one-half the wages paid the beet sugar hands, yet they are much higher than they were some years ago, with a constantly rising tendency. The sugar industry in Porto Hlco Is equally depressed, because it costs more to produce sugar there than in Cuba. In Louisiana, where Mr. Cutler called on his way home, conditions con-ditions are worse still. They are using up their cane seed, so evidently do not expect to plant another yuar. The sugar and rice exchange In New Orleans, he says, was practically at a standstill. The lands of Cuba are astonishingly astonishing-ly fertile, and sugar raising is tho I principal industry. What will happen hap-pen to the islands if that industry Is impaired, it is hard to imagine. Among Am-ong the New York refineries who buy the Cuban product the same demoralization demorali-zation exists. In fact, Mr. Cutler says the whole outlook for the sugar Industry is at present one of uncertainty. uncer-tainty. Some hope exists that the administration, adminis-tration, which has to have a vast amount of pioney to carry on the government, will need to raise more revenues than had been anticipated, in which event all the tariff on sugar may not be wiped off. In some circles cir-cles in the east, he says, it is felt that thc country will never come to an absolutely free trade basis In sugar. su-gar. Speaking of the government experts ex-perts who are being sent out to investigate- the cost of making bee sugar, Mr. Cutler said the two mer "ent to the west were now In Colorado, Colo-rado, and could bp expected here at any time. He said they would be welcome, the books of the company will be thrown open to them, and every means afforded them to gain the fullest information, as the sugar companies have nothing to conceal, and want the government to have all the information possible Mr. Cutler Cut-ler said ho hoped the exports would also extend their investigations into the beet growing districts, so they might know what the industry had done in the way of building up communities com-munities liko Garland, Sugar oity, Lincoln and other places. nn |
