The Trust Or The People

THE TRUST OR THE PEOPLE

The sugar trust, having bought a controlling interest in its competitor, the Beet Sugar trust, the fight so long waged between the republican factions over Cuban reciprocity may cease. The reduction in the duty on sugar for which Cuban reciprocity provides, will give the combined trust an enormous bonus, amounting to millions of dollars on all the raw sugar imported from Cuba, and, under the ordinary laws of trade, the price of refined sugar should decline at the same ratio. But the trust is so fully protected by the duty of about one and one-quarter cents a pound on refined sugar that the foreign article can hardly be imported here to compete with the trust. Freight tariff duty and other charges make the cost of importing foreign refined sugar about equal to the trust price. If raw and refined sugar paid the same duty, the trust would have to reduce its price accordingly and the consumers of the United States would buy their sugar at retail for at least one cent a pound less than they now pay for it. That is the reason the democrats in the last congress proposed and passed through the house of representatives the amendment to the Cuban reciprocity bill abolishing the extra tariff on refined sugar, which is technically called the discriminating duty. When the Cuban reciprocity measure comes up at the coming session of congress, the democrats will, it is said, offer the same amendments. How many republicans will be found voting with them? The issue will be a plain one - the trust or the people.