Page:Forgotten Man and Other Essays.djvu/70

62 {|align=center
 * Centrifugal raw sugar testing 97° ||6.00 ||
 * Less duty ||2.28 ||
 * &ensp;Net || |||3.72&ensp;
 * Granulated refined testing 99° ||6.37½ ||
 * Less drawback ||2.71 ||
 * &ensp;Net || ||3.66½
 * || |||6½
 * }
 * Less drawback ||2.71 ||
 * &ensp;Net || ||3.66½
 * || |||6½
 * }
 * || |||6½
 * }

Nothing could demonstrate the absurdity of the present rate of drawback more clearly than the above. A refiner pays 6½ cents per hundred more for raw sugar testing 2° less saccharine than he sells refined for. Not, however, to the American consumers, but to foreigners. After paying the expenses necessary to refining by the assistance of a drawback, which clearly amounts to a subsidy of about 50 cents a hundred pounds, our large sugar monopolists are assisted by the government to increase the cost of sugar to American consumers. One firm controls almost the entire trade of the east; at all events it is safe to say that the trade of the entire country is controlled by three firms, and the Treasury assists this monopoly in sustaining prices against the interest of the country at large. Up to date the exports of refined sugar have amounted to 83,340 tons, which, taken at 50 cents a hundred, has cost the treasury over $830,000. All this may not have gone into the pockets of the refiners, as the ship owners have obtained a share, but the fact remains that the Treasury is the loser by this amount. Besides this bounty presses hard upon the consumers. They not only have to pay the tax, but during the late rise they were compelled to pay more for their sugar than they otherwise would have done had not the export demand caused by selling sugar to foreigners at less than cost, the Treasury paying the difference, increased prices. While an American consumer is charged 6½ cents for granulated, foreign buyers, through the liberality of our government, can buy it under 3¾ cents. Certainly it