Ogden Standard-Examiner | 1921-02-02 | Page 31 | Sugar Profit Went over Seas

SUGAR PROFITS INT P StAS The past year has witnessed start-'ahg start-'ahg and violent fluctuations In the I Sugar prices. A few months ago whor ithe wholesale price of sugar was ovei '2", thousands of tons of foreign sug-'ai sug-'ai were sent to the United States by (every country having any excess With the rates of exchange between those countrlea Moi the United states oul ; of all proportion with the United ; State-- dollar equal to from twice to 8 l hundred times the value of the foreign .money one can readily figure thai .Immense sums were realized by foreigners fore-igners on sugar sold in this country ! Beet sugar producer? and other domestic do-mestic producers hud nothing what- 'ever to do vv ith tho establishment of I high prices for their Commodity and aold proportionately a very small part lof their sugars at the high prices, thei profits from which have gone mainl ! inio the hands of foreign producers, asj streled. With BUCh large and unusual lmpor-j talions of foreign sugars it is but a! natural consequence that prices should I drop jvlth B letup in the demand. Still! the rabidity and suddenness of ihe ! cline was Mich thai even the experts were misled. Kverybody knew that' a drop from the high sugar prices was Jbound to come, eventually, but that it ahOuId occur within a space of four month" Instead Of as many years is a (condition unforsecn by even the wisest; I heads. The drop In sugar prices, huge, and sudden as It was, hroughet financial finan-cial ruin to, many dealers Such violent 'changes are another vindication of the ! age-old law of supply anel demand 1 ijThe decline In prices commencing 'gradually in the early summer eontln--jued until ft became an almost denior-j 'jaliling clrop. During May, 1920, rawi jsugar sold above 2 1 cents per pound 1 1 seaboard base and the granulated pro- duct brought a high ax 36 c ents re-1 re-1 1 tall in many eastern cities. Recent -ijly raw sugar has been purchased as 1 1 lOW as 4 cents per pound plus duty nti"l freight, and refined ls at the present pres-ent tlm netting the consumer onlyi to f'-j rrnts pci peonnil In New1 York and N'ew Orleans. Few persons realized t-i wh.tl an ex- tent the beet sugar industry of thc'i west saved our country frOm a sugar 1 famine during the war. t was the un-' selfish patriotism of the beet Sugar producers of the west that enabled the government to fix the price at $7.30' per hundred wholesale for this COUn- ' try while the pike in foreign latTds was twice To three times that figure. 1 The stand of the beet sugar manu-i facturera not onlv aafeguarded us on 1 price, but if It weae not for their production pro-duction of over a billion and a halt 1 pounds of beet sugar there won hi rioi have been the largo amount of eighty-j four pounds per e-gpita te cODBUme last year. The American people owe it lo' the bee! SUgar producers of the United1 States that this domestic industry sup-, ported by American capital anel Amer-! lean labor, be lostcrerd and encourageei; and that the government should adopt' measure.-- lending to this end The people of Utah and Idaho are! particularly Interested in Ihe growth and success of this prosperity produc ing home industry as it means million , of dollars to the farmers and great fi- ' nanclal benefit to the community at1 large. 14 1.; J