HF 2651 B84 EfJSlTY OP I .IFQRNIA I li Dieeo "-# UNiYEf CALIFORNIA SAU CONCISE RESUME SUGAR TARIFF TOPICS IN DEFENCE OF AMERICAN SUGAR INDUSTRIES ANl> Coiisiiniers, Coniiiiercial, aud Revenue Interests AGAINST ILLICIT INVASION, THE HAWAII TREATY, Etc. BY 'HENRY A. BROWN, Ex-Special Treasury Agent ^ TJ. S., Saxonville, Mass. WASHINGTON, D. C: JUDD & DETWEILER, PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS. LS82. CONTENTS. SECTION FIKST. Sugar Making from Cane Juice; Cuban and Demerara Crystal Making verms American Sugar Industries ; Vacuum Pan Coloration Devices ; Producing Countries ; Production and Consumption of Sugar ; Louisiana and other Sugar Producing States ; Dutch Standard and Tariff Defects ; Effects upon Consumers and Home Industries; Official Classifications for Duty; Unwise Dependence on Cuba and Spanish Possessions for Sugar ; Statements, Statistics, and National Eequirements, Etc., Etc. SECTION SECOND. Hawaiian Sugars versus Dutiable Sugars ; Pernicious Results of the Reciprocity Treaty ; Pacific Coast Consumers of Sugars Oppressed Thereby ; Eastern Refined Sugars Prohibited in California ; Comparative Exhibit of American Commerce with Hawaii ; Loss of Duty on Hawaii Sugars Annually exceeds our Sales of Domestic. Merchandise to the Hawaiian Islands; The Treaty Violated by Hawaii and Pacific Coast Monopolists ; Impending danger of Annexation ; Statements and Statistics, Etc., Etc. SECTION THIRD. Comparative Sugar Tariff" Analyses; Animus of The Carlisle Sugar Bill, and other Uniform Duty on Sugar Plans ; The Present Sugar Tariff'; Advalorem Equiva- lents ; Tariff" and Dutch Standard Defects ; Compound Sugar Tariff' Exhibit ; Folly and Danger of Wholesale Reduction of Sugar Duty ; Canadian Sugar Tariff Examples ; Refining Sugar in Bond ; Congress and the Executive ; Existing Tariff" Abuses and Defects in Levying Duty ; Statements and Statistics ; Tariff" Amendment and Remedies, Etc., Etc. Entered according to Act of Congress by Henry A. Brown, January, 1882. SECTION FIRST. HP Sugar Making from Cane Juice — Demerara Crystals versus American Industries— Producing Countries— Consump- tion, Production and National Requirements — Classifica- tions under the Dutch Standard. Sugar cane juice, and virtually the juice of all sugar producing trees, plants and vegetables, when expressed therefrom, is generallv of a greenish yellow color and exhibits gra3-ish brown globules in suspense; the juice is cloudy and turbid, and contains from 10 to 20 per cent, of sugar crystals in solution, with 80 to 90 per cent, of other matter consisting of water, wood fibre, vegetable wax, gum or albumen, salts, etc., in varied proportions. Owing to too long exposure in the air before clarifying, imperfect handling, climatic changes, cutting cane too early or too late, and defects in the process of concentration, most of which may be avoided, cane juice seldom yields more than 10 to 15 per cent, of sugar, and the average of sugar hitherto obtained therefrom has not been more than 9 per cent.; the average of sugar obtained from sugar beets does not exceed 8 per cent., and from sorghum the av- erage yield in sugar is about 7 per cent.; improvements in machinery, vacuum pan boiling, and more skillful handling of crops, largely increase the sugar yield from cane and beet juice, and render the production more profitable and rapid. By reason of sudden climatic changes and the less tropical tem- perature of Louisiana as compared with Cuba, Hawaii, and other sugar producing countries, the natural difference in sugar yield is largely in favor of those countries: this difference is as 12 to 20, that is, Cuban cane yields juice containing an average of 20 percent, of sugar, and Louisiana cane yields juice containing an average of about 12 per cent, of sugar ; any process that increases the yield from Louisiana cane, would increase it from Cuban cane pro rata. Louisiana also pays much higher than Cuba for labor, and is struggling under many disadvantages out of the old feudal and slave system, into the new free labor and equality system of the North. This nation is largely dependent upon Louisiana and home sugar pro- duction in the future, to check the rapacity of foreign sugar pro- ducing countries which already threaten to inundatethis country with abnormally cheap sugars to destroy our sugar industries; hav- ing done which, they will enhance the cost of sugar food in the United States at pleasure; self preservation demands tariff protec- tion of our sugar producing industries. Deducing from general results, I am satislied that in order to ob- tain the highest crystalline yield, after cane juice is expressed, it should be heated and clarified immediatelj', to prevent fermentation which changes a larger percentage of the crystals contained in sol- ution in the juice, into various solvent impurities such as gum, glucose, and invert or uncrystallizable sugar during concentration, than would happen if the juice were heated and clarified without delay. Cane juice is generally passed through the fumes of sulphurous gas when on its way from the mill to defecators. This gas has a tendency to bleach the juice which, if properly done, is an advan- vantage, but sulphurous gas has powerful affinity with oxygen, which it absorbs from the atmosphere with great rapidity, and thereby speedily becomes sulphuric acid which, passing into the syrup, hinders crystallization and injures the product. When sul- phurous gas is used to brighten juice or syrup, every precaution should be taken to prevent the introduction of outer air. Manufacturing raw sugar from cane juice commonly consists of three processes conducted substantially as follows : By the old process the juice is first heated slowly to the point of boiling to clarity it, that is, to precipitate feculents for removal from the raw juice. When the heat does not fully separate feculents from the juice, and when acid is in excess therein alkalies are used, such as quicklime, milk of lime and bisulphate of lime. The quantity of lime required is determined by the use of litmus paper, and fecu- lents are removed by skimming, filtration and settling. The clarified juice is boiled at about 215° F. to evaporate the juice and reduce it to syrup. The syrup is next concentrated to melada by more rapid boiling at an increased temperature, which should not exceed 235° to 238° Fahrenheit, at which point the best results are usually obtained. During the process of evaporation and concentration, acidity in excess is again corrected by the use of lime, and feculents that rise are removed by skimming. Open boilers, or kettles, or tanks are used for sugar making by this process, and were formerly used for refining sugars. The use of animal charcoal, called boneblack, for bleaching the syrup has become general in refining sugar, and is used by some sugar makers. Foreign producers of vacuum-pan centrifugals or Cuban and Demerara crystals, bleach the juice or syrup to a very light straw color, nearly white, then boil, evaporate, inspissate, grain, and when intended as accessory of fraud, doctor or discolor the same in the vacuum-pan to outwardly imitate raw sugar in color. The pretense that the feculents are boiled into the sugar to form dark crystals is simply absurd. Claying raw sugar, also formerly practiced in retining sugar, originated as a process for bleaching raw sugars in China and Java, and the practice quickly extended to other sugar producing coun- tries; the raw sugar is placed in cone shaped vessels holding some 200 lbs. or more, the base remains open, and there is a hole in the apex for drainage ; the cone is fixed in a frame in an inverted position and bleaching is begun. A mixture of white clay and water is placed on the base of the cone, and the clay water percolates the mass of sugar ; when the day mixture becomes dry it is removed, and fresh clay paste applied until the base of the cone of sugar becomes white ; when the drainage ceases, the cone is removed and cut into cross sections, each of which differs from the other in shade, from pure white at the base, to light brown at the apex, the whole having a grayish tinge. This variety in shades of raw sugars clayed in Java, originated the Dutch Standard of color in Holland, which for more than forty years until vacumu pan crystal coloring subverted this natural test, was the only generally accepted method of determining the intrinsic quality and value of cane sugar, and is still employed in all sugar producing countries for the same purpose ; but owing to the crystal coloring devices of sugar producers, the trade adjuncts of analysis and polarization, in connection with the Dutch Standard are now generally employed in the sugar marts of the world. Vacuum pans briefly described are close boilers or tanks, oval or pear shaped, of any size up to a boiler in which 50 or more tons of syrup may be grained or crystallized ; it is virtually a finishing pan in sugar making as well as in refining sugar ; steam passing through coils or worms of pipe in the closed tank, and the exclusion of outer air causes syrup to boil at a low enough temperature to form sugar crystals at pleasure; attached to the pan or tank are a syrup feeder, an overrun to catch grains of sugar that fly off in the vapor, a vapor condenser into which cold water spray is admitted and which has a long outlet pipe connected with a water tank having an overflow pipe ; the boiling sugar is viewed through a glass bullseye in the side of the pan, to which is also aflixed a testing tube. By the use of the vacuum pan in sugar boiling and in refining sugar, the pressure of the atmosphere which comes in contact with the syrup when boiling in open pans, is reduced by exhaustion; boiling in vacuum-pans reduces the loss of material to the mini- mum of waste in handling, and prevents the formation of formic acid, which darkens boiling syrup and hinders crystallization ; this acid is formed by the action of the ox\'gen of the outer atmosphere upon heated sprup. Syrup may be concentrated in the vacuum-pan to the point of crystallization, and the strike be made when the crystals have begun to form, graining will continue in the receivers without further evaporation until the crystals are formed; but both in making and refining sugar, in order to build up the crystals and obtain the greatest percentage of sugar from the charge of syrup, graining in the vacuum-pan is continued by the addition of fresh syrup, until the desired result is reached, when the strike is made. Sugar is separated from the syrup or molasses by various methods of draining, and by the use of centrifugal machines ; draining by [)utting raelada into casks, tanks, or boxes pierced with holes to permit the syrup to escape while the sugar remains, is still practiced in sugar producing countries ; conical moulds are also still used for the same purpose ; other and more primitive methods of draining are practiced in producing countries where the knowledge of sugar making is crude and imperfect. Centrifugal machines perform the work of separating sugar from syrup with dispatch, and are indispensable in making as well as in refining sugars, by such aid the tedious process of drainage is avoided, and separation accomplished in a few moments, the con- centrated mass of sugar and syrup is placed in cylindrical baskets finely perforated, and fitted upon central shafts that are made to re- volve swiftly, the rapid motion drives out the syrup, and leaves the sugar comparatively dry and pure in the baskets. Molasses obtained by draining raw sugar, is reboiled, evaporated, inspissated, crystallized, and treated the same as the first product of syrup already described: the raw sugar thus obtained is called mo- lasses sugar, and is equal in value to muscovado sugar for refining purposes ; the molasses of commerce is drained from melada and is often extremely rich in sugar crystals. Porto Rico molasses is especially rich in crystals ot sugar. Cu- ban and Porto Rico molasses test from 48 to 60 in sugar crystals. The average test of the latter exceeds 54 and of the former 52 de- grees in crystals, but it should be remembered that during transit and while waiting sale and shipment cr\'stals of sugar are con- stantly forming in molasses drained from raelada. Molasses testing above 55 is more valuable for reboiling in this country to obtain the sugar than for consumption as molasses. Hence molasses boilers buy such molasses with avidity, and efforts have often been made to import syrup of sugar containing 70 to 85 per cent, of crystals as molasses in order to obtain the sugar by con- version without paying proper duty. The ease with which this fraud can now be detected, and the fact that when syrup of cane sugar is found entered as molasses it will be seized by the Govern- ment, renders the practice unprofitable. The introduction of vacuum-pan boilers varies the old method of making sugar at the second or evaporating process as follows : The syrup, having been brought to the proper consistency, is run into receivers, thence run through filter bags or directly into subsiders, and from thence drawn into the vacuum-pan as required. Sulphur- 0U8 and sulphuric acid, quicklime, milk of lime and sulphurous gas are used in the manufacture of Deraerara and Cuban crystals for the American market. The process is delicate but simply a matter of skillful handling. If sulphurous acid is admitted to the boiling syrup in excess it not only discolors the mass but compels the free use of lime to correct the acidity. Thus the desired shade of discoloration is lessened or lost. Bisulphate of lime is also employed as a colorant for the same purpose, while sulphuric acid, muriate of tin, etc., are some- times admitted to the syrup in the vacuum-pan and in centrifugals to give bloom or delicate straw color to yellow crystals intended for the London market. Thus it will be seen that various articles employed to brighten sugars in the vacuum-pan will, when used in excess, darken the crystals. For iiistance, eight to ten quarts of diluted sulphuric acid to each ton of mass in the pan when injected upon formed crystals before the strike will give bloom to the crystals, while the admis- sion of a greater per cent, of the acid, or too high a temperature when boiling, will discolor the sugar and endanger the strike by inverting more or less of the crystals. More simple methods are also extensively employed in Cuba and Demerara to color vacuum pan crystals made to test from 93 to 99° in purity, but intended to evade Nos. 10 and 13 of the Dutch stand- ard of our tariff"; a favorite formula employed is, to every 600 gal- lods of juice add 4 to 5 pounds of lime in the defecator, and again use the same quantity of lime in subsiders for dark sugars, whereas only one half the quantity of lime is used for light sugars ; the ex- cess of lime retained in the syrup, discolors the crystals more or less throughout, during inspissation and graining. Again, thoroughly clarified cane juice is evaporated in triple effects or in open pans, run into subsiders, and thence drawn into the vacuum pan for finishing; where the highest grade of crystals, say 95 to 99° in purity are required, and No. 10 or 13 D. S., the limit of color, crystals are fully formed and, just before the strike, the proper percentage of molasses impurities or caramel, or both, is admitted to the boiling sugar, and the pure crystals are outwardlv colored to imitate raw sugars not above No. 7-10 or 13 D. S. in color as desired. Molasses carefully run into the vaccum pan at intervals, after graining has progressed nearly to the desired striking point, pro- duces a molasses crystal of great purity from 93 to 97°, but not above No. 10 D. S. in color, when skillfully manipulated. Great attention, excellent judgment, and superior skill, are the most es- sential elements in producing manufactured sugar crystals of the highest degree of purity, and of the requisite color to evade the payment of the full duty that would be properly levied in this country upon such sugars, if they were not discolored for this market to imitate raw material. s Unless tampered with at some stage of sug-ar making, properly clarified cane juice will yield light yellow crystals of any desired size in the vacuum pan, which equal 14 to 16 J). S. in color; after being purged in the centrifugals, these crystals will be of a natural color, equal to from 16 to 18 D. S., and test from 95 to 99° in pur- ity; the duty on such sugars, when not above 16 D. S., would be $3.43f per 100 lbs., and when above IS^o. 16 T>. S. in color, the duty would be $4.06^ per 100 lbs., hence the various foreign methods of discoloring a manufactured article of sugar of superior value, to imitate raw sugar material and evade duty. Grocer's sugars are no longer made in Cuba and Demerara for this market ; such sugars would test from 88 to 92° in purity, and be about 14 to 16 D. S., in color, the duty thereon would be $3.43| per 100 lbs. Grocer's sugars are not prohibited by the tariff, but by Cuban and Demerara crystals which test from 93 to 99° in purity, but although far superior in ([uality to grocer's sugars, they are colored down to 7, 10 or 13 D. 8., and pay an average of less than $2.50 per 100 lbs. duty, thus prohibiting the importation of grocer's sugars. The Carlisle and kindred uniform duty on sugar plans, whether at one cent or 2.40 cents per lb., are all framed to legalize the im- portation of Demerara crystals of highest purity, discolored to not above No. 13 D. S., at the lowest rate of duty, to the exclusion of raw sugar material ; such crystals can be washed in centrifugals and then placed upon this market as high grade grocers sugars, with an immense advantage of duty evaded, to enrich the manipulators, such sharp tricks in legislation become dangerous and destructive to American industries and revenue, in practice. Clearly, if there were no Dutch Standard of color in our tariff laws to evade, discolored vaccum-pan crystals would be unknown, and if Congress will authorize the use of the Polariscope and grind- ing the sugar, as adjuncts to the Dutch standard for levying duty, discolored crystals will no longer surreptitiously flood this market to the detriment of every American industry and interest connected with commerce, consumption, production, refining, and revenue, in their relations to the Sugar Question. Artificial methods of finishing sugars are constantly practiced in sugar producing countries contiguous to the United States, to evade the color standard of our sugar tariff, and to control the market and sugar industries of this country ; the No. 13 D. S. Sugar Bill, and other uniform duty plans, are efforts of foreign sugar producers in neighboring countries and their American allies, to secure a sugar tariff admitting semi-refined cr^^stals as raw material, in order to prohibit the latter, control our market, destroy our sugar industries, and then oppress consumers. The production of raw sugar in foreign countries injures no American sugar interest or industry ; we depend upon foreign pro- ducers for an adequate supply of raw material while home produc- tion is advancing, but the advancement of raw sugars beyond their normal condition, by the foreign producer with his coolie and slave labor adjuncts and devices of manufacture to evade our revenue laws, purposes the destruction of American producing and refining industries; these mastered, the cost of sugar to consumers will be enhanced by foreign producers, and American competition be- come suicidal. ' Briefly stated, the refining process by boiling, evaporating, in- spissating and graining cane syrup in vacuum pans, coloring the crystals, and purging the strike in centrifugals, has come to be regu- larly pursued in the principal sugar producing countries contiguous to the United States ; in Demerara | and in Cuba and the West Indies f of the sugar is thus made ; nothing but the necessity of conforming to the color standard of our tariff, in order to avoid the duty on refined sugar, prevents Cuban and Deraerara producers from making their otherwise refined products of natural color from 15 to 20 Dutch Standard. These abuses of our revenue laws by sugar producers in neigh- boring countries, have attained great magnitude; having subtly undermined our sugar producing and refining industries, and pre- pared the way for their destruction before creating public alarm ; suspicions of foul play in years past, led the writer to rigidly inves- tigate and publicly expose the methods of foreign sugar making and duty evasions, by which this Nation has long been victimized. These exposures have already produced remarkably healthful, and mostly voluntary changes in the classification of sugars for duty, and consequent higher rates of duty and increase of revenue during the fiscal years ended June 30, 1880-1881, as will be seen in the following comparative table of classifications for duty of sugars, ex- clusive of melada, entered into consumption during the past six jears, 1876 to 1881 inclusive : 1 . . 1 c: O Ct r- l_ -tr ^ ir 00 CO ■^ CI 1 ^- I - ^ C- — ^ ^ '-?■ C 1.0 St J^ S ^ c > o c 1 o >» rr* C<. C ^7 C M C t- icScScS CO to 00 -— '^ r? u- 71 r- x oc 00 00 rt G otro'c^ t: r;- o OD CO ^ C5, CO CO, icT crT r-t I— 1 « co «i>CO ■* ■* 1 ^ 1 1 t- ct 0^ 1— ' r-i ci; c rcr:c"'c"<:; 0* oT 3 to w -*' -M r- to CC OD X OD C^ rH T« ;0 O rt i 00 1 > J c^ CO o" > C0_^Cl_O^ 1^ t- ■* ef do" rt S" '" oc S~ 00 r ! (N O •* 00 CO -^ ^ c;:: X ■^ T-^ r- t-0 r-i c t- CC CO 00 t^ t- 1-t o c- t- oc >. 00 oc ^- r- ■*! c- CK -+ >-. OC '~^^„^^'~t.R.'^ "*. , • -^ * CI C-l CI — 00 cr ■^ l^ C5 :d ^ r— — 'y cr — t^ t-- CI GC " CO -* t- c e CI tC C: CC rt r- t- 0- s iC 2 s: -S- t-^Cl (S c-r cc cT 05 Or-Trfcrr-r oi' ' c '^^ (^ss- 00 ^iSi;i O" '" lo & 00 oc_ ^ ^ ^ '"' i r- C5 cc (>J t- c* c -* Tf Tji t-O to t-c£ to c s ODC^ O CO »0-* to t;;C» O rt C O^C^'^^O t-^^ CO c 0^ c CO ^. ^ "e" _J^* t^OO'rhC^-^ tT ''■ c^ X' — X ic " *" Ti* ^ = 00 O 0- CO c- o O o c: r^ CC ~^ ^ ir" ^f o cc-o'rt" — -^•^ «%co CO 00 *■" r-' O 0? CO Ol C c; t- ^ rt CI N CI CO C ^ ro CC 0- •* rt =; CI to c CO c CO b> d oT r cf 9 d to oc CI C) -!< tr T^'^^lo'~ooo6'^- 00_ OC to" CC ' tx & « CI O 00 rt J to ce S^J^CC C^l 00 c C3 CO"!* O rt c. c c (ts > t^cTTjT co" ae > rt'cf co' I~^ r- Qo" w CO C. C-. Jr- t- O 00 r- c >. ,_/ X ■-• CO' rH -^^ X ot » ^0,O^CC tO__r- __ 05 0- ^ :rrr~r^"-^'~(>q"c oc t; cot^Smccx c ;^ Tt' 1— 1 CI CO r: cf *^ p* C: ^ C3 to ^- r- c t- C c-;^rt,^^ic^ c- c; c ^ C: CI t^ 01 CI 1- c^ 5 f— l-*" ce cf 0" to" 1 C^ lO o X ' •rt 3 ^ S ci ~ c 0- CI 1 cr ''J^ t-*^ & '* 1 -- -- ~ "" >r (M cs c^ r- a -* ^ CC to t- I~- rt ,- t^ CC CO ■* C-l -* o O -: o »r Ir-CO O O O C 0-. c o r- ■# t>. d CO CO CC 00 or 00 >•. ■^x'^C-ft^w^r- C^ oo" CC m (=;■ 'C ■5 •C -M O O- 1" (> 3 00 00 C rt r- CC a CC X -r^ ■*'_,t-^C_ 5 t- c. t- T— t- c- c- CO «i ' i^ 00 00 O O lO 0- c ^ p. I- to Ol t- o ?■ ^ t. Tf t~C CO -* c X c5 t- r- o CI « oc 0- CC d C: t~r-i QOO C 00 d ■^ O X — rt d c- t- CC e S X f. 0- c oe o'uj'cT Cr 1^ mt tO F^ fM CO CC CJ CI CC «© f^ •* t~ 00 1>) 00 'i iC •^ m CI O CC O rt to CO 1- CO CI 00 CO CO lO I- ■^ W 00 m to rt CI CI 10 ^ ^ ^ QO^O OO^t-^-TjH^C c ^ ^ rt to ■* rt CI ^ 0- CO *« C>f to t^t-^r-T-rt C: cf -B rt'-^'cc CO o'c: ^' -t.a S(N 00 O (M r-C- CO c S^'-.'-.-.O, X 1> tc c £ 00 S to Ti< " "" cS (« O ■«• C: C -O r-( O O'rtio' oc c: 3 ft^ggs to <^§S" c; 00 ^ CC, C cc_ r- '"' '" " ■7 ^" ' 3 ^ CO CO O! ■^ cr « C 1 ^ ■ r/J aD CC K . . . "coccc = - = 4? O rH r- C-1 .: "^ d d c J ^ - = for Yd.. .10 0.1 o. 1 0. 2 c ; I w^'^ t- !-X .S-5 ;- o o Ol: ^ X C X .D .c '^ "^ OJ T3 c; d ~- ^.C cS c« cS — s:~ **; -^*^ c != s ,. .^ -.£ o: s c:t: : "3 s B is -»^ O C O r- C K -^i *i O C O a C _ « Sampled No. 7 Du 7 and no 10 and n 13 and n 1() and n •20 lonf s C c C3 I Sampled i No. 7 Dn 7 and no 10 and n 13 and n 1(1 and n 9(1 Inof b i -a s Oi t J ^ a :■• = > ;- a C3 ? 6 6 6 6 c T J 9 6 6 6 6 c ;- eft C •O QJ ^ ^ QJ Q. ^ 3; ^ r ? J (P aj aj o a J c 5 <^ > > > > > C *>>;.> p. C c -ti o o o o c c -4- o o o o c &- c.;:^.^j:.c "C 0.£;^j0.q.^ c a: c! cs c; c c* C cS cS « OS a — c -^ «' <-* ^ 1 < -';-<-' - " 1 -3. S. for this market, but mysteriously supply themselves with a large amount of raw sugar material in excess of local pro- duction hitherto claimed. China and Manilla sugars might readily be imported and manufactured into higher grades for shipment to the Pacific coast, duty free. Such practices would quickly be pre- vented if Hawaiian sugars were made dutiable. 18 Extend the Hawaiian treaty to all foreign sugar producing coun- tries, or even the uniform duty methods, and the supply of low grade raw sugars would rapidly decrease, which would increase the foreign value of raw material, because all raw material would be consumed in the foreign manufacture of vacuum pan centrifugal crystals and other high grade sugars for this market. Protected by the Carlisle bill and reciprocity, Cuban and Demerara crystals, and Hawaiian free sugars, would certainly prohibit the importation of raw sugar material and increase the cost of sugar food in this country. Abundant evidence exists that the adoption of the Hawaiian Re- ciprocity Treaty of 1875 was, by experts, deemed to be a legislative blunder, presaging danger to American sugar producing end refin- ing industries, menacing consumers with enhanced prices, and deal- ing treacherously with all other sugar producing countries, upon whose sugars, when sent to this country, large duties are levied, while sugars from the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands, are admitted duty free. Instance the following protest of San Francisco sugar refiners, against a Reciporocity Treaty with Hawaii, sent in March, 1875, to Representative Luttrell, in Washington, for presentation to Con- gress ; the solicitude of signers of this 1875 protest in regard to the interests of Eastern refiners and Louisiana planters, is quite refresh- ing in view of the advantages since taken of this treaty blunder. The protest was as follows : The undersigned, refiners of the Pacific coast, respectfully direct your attention to the following additional, and, in our opinion, cogent reasons, why the Reciprocity Treaty with the Hawaiian Kingdom should not receive the sanction of the United States Senate. The capacity of the Islands to produce sugar has not been sufficiently explained. Undoubtedly authorities state positively that the Islands are capable of producing annually not less than 150,000,000 pounds, or 80,000,000 pounds more than the entire yearly consumption of the Pacific coast, including all the States and Terri- tories west of the Rocky Mountains. Under the action of reciprocity, this vast amount of sugar would find its way to San Francico, and completely shut out imports from all other producing countries. Of the 150,000,000 pounds the Islands would furnish yearly, this coast would probably not take more than 30,000,000 pounds for domestic consumption, and the balance would find its way east, where it would materially in- terfere with the interests of Eastern refiners, and those of the Southern planters, com- ing in direct competition with them, duty free. The average duty now paid on Hawaiian sugars is 2^, cents per pound, equal to .$3,750,000 per year, which, under the present financial condition, is more than the Government can properly sacrifice for the benefit of a foreign people, particularly as that amount would have to be made good by the imposition of taxes on our people. Sugar can grow with great luxuriance at an altitude of 3,000 feet in the Sandwich Islands, and it is an indigenous plant. If the whole area susceptible of being culti- vated with sugar cane were laid under contribution for that purpose, and, in the event of reciprocity, such would be the result, the annual yield would considerably surpass 150,000,000 pounds. Even now the Island planters produce and send to our market sugars ranging from seventeen to twenty-two Dutch standard, which are as good as our own second grade refined sugars, and, although they are not filtered through charcoal, are so superior that we cannot compete with them except by means of our higher grades. It has been the policy of our Government to furnish a reason- able degree of protection to domestic industries, manufacturing, products of the soil. 19 beet sugar, &c., and we trust the sugar interest of the country will not be made an exception. It is evident that the introduction of sugar, duty free, a greater portion of which would be forced on the Eastern market, could not fail to work injuriously against the interests of Eastern refiners and Southern planters, as well as those of the Pacific coast refiners. Should the consideration of overshadowing national requirements render it politic to sanction reciprocity, we earnestly trust the treaty will be so framed as to exclude from importation, duty free, all sugars of higher grades than thirteen, Dutch standard, especially as such interdict could not work prejudicially to planters of Hawaii. It is obvious to us that the adoption of the Reciprocity Treaty without such restrictions would destroy the most important interests of this coast, and at the East, which represent millions of capital, and give employment to thousands of skilled workmen, an event which would prove a serious impediment to such industries. Hawaiian producers would have us completely at their mercy, and the great body of American consumers would be compelled to pay more for an article of absolute necessity. Trusting that this presentation of facts will receive the attention they merit at your honorable hands, we are most respectfully your obedient servants, C. Spreckels, President California Sugar Refinery; N. LuNiXG, President Pacific Sugar Refinery; M. EnRMAX, Manager Golden Gate Sugar Refinery; Herman Meese, President Bay Sugar Refinery. Notice the inevitable sequence of admitting Hawaiian sugars duty free, in its relation to the above protest ; the leading signer of the protest of 1875 against a Treaty of Reciprocity with Hawaii, has become tVie leading advocate of its continuance, and is producing Hawaiian sugars to be admitted to his San Francisco refineries duty free; his capital, brains, ettbrts, and skill, are lavishly expended iu forcing the sugar producing powers of the Sandwich Islands for such purpose. N"o sooner was the treaty ratified in 1876, than Mr. Claus Spreckels, the leading protester against the Reciprocity Treaty, went to the Hawaiian Islands and bought and leased 26,000 acres of land in the Island of Maui, sent to England for 750 tons of boiler plate iron, made it into pipes, and brought water 40 miles for irri- gation, at a cost of a million of dollars; the protest was an over- sight; utilizing the treaty was sharp practice. Spreckels' treaty venture produced 500 acres of sugar cane in 1879; 2,750 acres in 1880 ; and the area planted in cane has been extended in 1881 to about 4,750 acres; the first yield from the Spreckels' plantation cane, averaged five tons of sugar to the acre ; clearly this enterprising protester intends to make good the words of his protest, in regard to Eastern refiners and Louisiana planters, while oppressing Pacific coast consumers. Again, the leading signer of the above protest, who, in 1875, de- clared that the treaty could not fail to injure Eastern refiners and Southern planters, is now working injury to consumers of sugar on the Pacific coast. Eastern refiners. Southern planters, and rev- enue interests, to subserve the interests of the powerful monopoly, established by consolidating Pacific coast refineries with the im- mense sugar plantations and sugar making establishments acquired by Spreckels & Company for such purpose, in the treaty favored islands of Hawaii. 20 Thus the leading signer of the above protest against the ad- mission of Hawaiian sugars duty free has, with others, taken advan- tage of its pernicious provisions, and become the leader of gigantic operations in sugar food, which, in addition to depriving the nation of revenue without rendering any equivalent, place consumers of sugars on the Pacific coast under tribute, rendered obligatory by prohibiting Eastern refined sugars. American capitalists and extensive refiners of sugar in California, in co-operation with Hawaiian producers of sugar, control the sugar trade of Hawaii, and through this control of free sugars, also reg- ulate prices of refined sugars to consumers on the Pacific coast, keeping them as high as possible without admitting refined sugars from the Atlantic States in quantities sufiicient for successful com- petition against free sugars refined in California. Monied influences have coerced and subsidized the carrying trade of California, until the freight on sugar from the Eastern States has been raised to prohibitory rates, thus giving the Pacific and Hawaiian sugar monopolists at least $2.50 per 100 lbs. duty saved, and $2.00 per 100 lbs. freight from the Atlantic coast to California, or $4.50 per 100 lbs. advantage over Louisiana planters and East- ern importers and refiners of dutiable sugars; of which enormous profits, not a fraction goes to cheapen sugar or benefit consumers of sugars on the Pacific coast. While every available acre of land in the Hawaiian Islands is being planted with cane, and gigantic sugar factories fitted with the best modern machinery, including vacuum pans and cen- trifugals, have been and are being erected under the benign pro- tectorate of the Reciprocity Treaty, the United States have not even supplied the machinery for Hawaiian plantations; England and Scotland have furnished the machinery for which this country footed the bills. Pacific coast monopolists alone are enriched under the treaty. Tables 1, 2, and 3 in this exhibit show the sum of sugar duty lost and the shallowness of the reciprocity pretense from 1876 to June 30, 1880. The exhibit for the year ended June 30, 1881, is still worse. For the fiscal year ended June 30, 1881, compared with 1880, in regard to the quantity and value of Hawaiian sugars en- tered for consumption, duty thereon lost at 62.50 per cent, ad val- orem, and the total value of domestic merchandise exported to the Hawaiian Islands under the treaty in the same time, the exhibit is as follows : Year. Hawaiian sugars consumed. . 1880 61,556,324 lbs. 1881 76,909,207 lbs. Total 138,465,531 lbs. Foreign Duty lost 1 per Domestic Value. cent, ad val. Exports to Hawaii. $4,135,486 $2,574,678 $1,985,506 4,927,021 3,079,388 2,694,583 19,062,507 $5,654,066 $4,680,089 21 Average loreifijn cost of Hawaii sugars per 100 pounds, 1880, 16.72; 1881, $6.40. The classitication of Hawaiian sugars in 1880, 1881, were as fol- lows : Class, Dutch Standard. 1880. 1881. Above No. 7 not above No. 10 7,793,-349 lbs. 5,873,005 lbs. "10 " " No. 13 28.-1 16,596 lbs. 28,486,-589 " " "13 " " No. 16 28,868,886 lbs. 43,049,613 '• " "16 " " No. 20 1,477,493 lbs. Total Hawaiian sugars 61,5-56,324 lbs. 76,909,207 " Summing up for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1881, we find that the United States purchased Hawaiian sugars valued in Hawaii at $4,927,021, and admitted them free of duty, at a loss of 62.50 per cent, ad valorem thereon of customs revenue, or $3,079,388 of duty thrown away, and only managed to sell $2,694,583, total value of domestic merchandise exported to the Hawaiian Islands in the same year, or $384,805 less than the loss of sugar duty alone. Further, we also see that the sugars thus exempted from duty are mostly semi-refined grades which average, according to the ofli- cial classifications in 1881, above No. 13 to not above No. 16 D. S. in color, and that we paid $6.40 per 100 lbs. for sugars in Hawaii, while the average cost of sugars entered for consumption from all other sugar producing countries was only $4.42 per 100 lbs. in the same fiscal year. The abolition of duty on Hawaiian sugars has, in five years, de- prived us of more than ten millions of dollars of customs revenue, and enormously advanced the foreign cost of the sugars we exempt from duty ; the treaty also deprives us raw material, which is ad- vanced to high grades in Hawaii at the expense of Ainerican indus- tries; the grades of sugar now imported from Hawaii, are equal in quality to and cost in Hawaii more than the best Cuban and Dem- erara vacuum-pan crystals testing 95 to 99.5° in purity, while they average above No. 13 1). S. in color in 1881, as seen above. Riipid strides are making in Hawaiian sugar production, and in the manufacture of high grades of sugars, under the auspices of the Reciprocity Treaty, in striking contrast to the otherwise backward industrial condition of the Kingdom of Hawaii. The increased influx of free sugars from Hawaii has been as follows : 30,368,328 lbs. entered into consumption in the year ending June 30, 1878, 41,693,069 lbs. in 1879, 61,556,324 lbs. in 1880, and 76,909,207 lbs. in 1881 ; at least 100,000,000 of lbs. will enter duty free in 1882 ; with a loss of duty thereon of $4,000,000. Eastern refiners, Louisiana planters, and projectors of beet and Borghum sugar industries may well view the extent of the injuries inflicted upon their legitimate industries by the Hawaiian Treaty with consternation ; having already shut out Eastern and Southern 22 competition in sugars from the Pacific coast, it will not be long be- fore the rapidly increasing sugar product of the Hawaiian Islands will crowd the Eastern markets with duty free sugars, to unsettle the prices of sugar food and check consumption and home produc- tion effectually. Instance the following comparative exhibit for 1881 of dutiable sugars versus Hawaiian free sugars ; there entered into consump- tion in the fiscal year ended June 30, 1881 : Dutiable dry sugars, 1,869,173,897 lbs., foreign average cost per 100 lbs $4.42 Hawaiian free sugars 76,909,207 " " " " " " " 6.40 Duty received from dutiable sugars in 1881 $45,933,045 Duty lost on Hawaiian sugars in 1881 3,079,388 While levying duty upon the great volume of cheaper sugars received from all other sugar producing countries, there is nothing rational in thus exempting the higher priced sugars of Hawaii from duty. Consumers of sugars on the Pacific coast are simply swindled by the Hawaiian Treaty ; merchants in San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, and other places on the Pacific coast were compelled to pay an average of 12| cents per lb. for crushed sugars, from January to December, 1881, while the same refined outturn from Hawaii sugars was being sold to merchants in Denver, Santa Fe, and Kansas City at 9J cents per lb. for crushed sugars, and lower grades pro rata ; that is. Pacific Coast consumers pay 3 cents per lb. more for Spreckels' duty free sugars than Spreckels sells the same sugars for to more Eastern cities reached by Louisiana planters and Eastern refiners. Furthermore, the price of crushed sugars refined from Hawaiian duty free sugars in San Francisco was 12| cents per lb. November 5 last, while the price of crushed sugars refined from dutiable sugars in the East was 10|- to 10| cents per lb. in New York on the same date; the price of Golden C sugars refined from duty free sugar in San Francisco was 10| cents per lb. November 5, while similar grades sold in New York on the same day at 8| to 8f cents per lb.; what avails this to Pacific coast consumers, when the freight on sugar from Louisiana and the East to San Francisco, which was twenty dollars per ton in 1880, has been raised to forty dollars per ton in 1881. Instead of cheapening refined sugars on the Pacific coast, or even conforming to Eastern prices of similar refined outturn from dutia- ble sugars, the Spreckels free sugar dynasty have prohibited gro- cer's sugars, and advanced prices of refined grades to consumers in California two cents per pound beyond the Eastern market, main- taining exorbitant prices by prohibitory rates of freight on sugars from the East, buying and coercing Pacific railroad freight agents to double the California rates of frei.2:ht on Eastern sugars in a single year, as already shown. 'to' 23 What more reliable evidence of the rascally abuses of the Ha- waiian Treaty is required than the fact that at this writino^, Janu- ary, 1882, there is a Glaus, Spreckels & Co. "ring" of interested leaders and employes in Washington, having unlimited means, who are seeking to prevent the abrogation of this Hawaiian treaty monstrosity, failing in which they are instructed to push annex- ation of the Hawaiian Islands to this country, as a means of perpet- uating the outrages now perpetrated upon consumers of sugar on the Pacitic coast and upon American sugar industries simply to en- rich the " ring." Should this Spreckels " ring" succeed as a precedent, this Nation would soon become a general hospital for the support of semi-de- funct countries and petty kingdoms, and reciprocit}' with such would be forced upon the people of this country with terrors of an- nexation staring them in the face whenever a " ring " of interested capitalists see their way clear to enrich themselves by the method of robbing the people and destroying American industries, now practised and sought to be perpetrated by the Claus, Spreckels dynast^'. What better than reciprocity with Hawaii, is annexation with Hawaii? Of the two dread evils the present treaty is least. Why should the senseless and unprofitable treaty burden alread}' borne by the United States and constantly increasing, at a cost of millions of dollars per annum of direct loss to the revenues of this nation, and of millions of dollars per annum more to the industries of this country, be saddled upon the American people forever by annex- ation, only to enrich a dozen speculators. The Hawaiian Islands do not and can never repay the current cost of their support by this Government; individuals only will be enriched in an}^ event. This nation now sustains the so-called king- dom of Hawaii under the guise of reciprocity of trade, the results and costs of which are set forth in the .tables in this exhibit. This condition we can escape by abrogation or by terminating the treaty by due notice. Experience and wisdom teach this nation to beware of annexation with its countless evils and burdens, which we can- not escape. Annexation would bankrupt the native Hawaiian sugar planters, to whom Spreckels & Co. have made large cash advances upon plantation and machinery mortgages, and agreements with Spreckels that he should handle their crops. Hawaiian planters predicated such transactions upon high prices of sugar under a continuance of the treaty, abrogation of which would still leave them in possession ; but annexation and the application of United States laws would open upon the Hawaiian Islanders the jaws of destruction, by fore- closures and the influx of Spreckel's "ring" capitalists. The Hawaiian Reciprocity Treaty cannot be abrogated too soon ; far better and cheaper for this nation to donate a trifle to the Ha- 24 waiian Islands as a matter of charity, and levy duty on their sugars, than to continue in any form or manner the annual payment of the enormous sugar bounty tribute now levied upon American con- sumers, sugar industries and revenue, by said treaty, simply for the support of the kingdom of Hawaii, and the enrichment of the Spreckels dynasty. Taking the sums total of Hawaiian merchandise entered for con- sumption in this country, exports of domestic merchandise to the kingdom of Hawaii, the proportion in value of sugars entered for consumption, and the loss of duty on sugars alone, at 62.50 per cent, ad valorem, under the treaty in the live fiscal years ended June 30, 1877, to June 30, 1881, inclusive, the exhibit is as follows, sugar constituting 90.81 per cent, of the total consumption of Hawaiian merchandise : Total Imports Total Exports Total Sugars Loss of Duty consumption. dom. mdse. consumed. on sugar alone. $17,905,365. $9,761,142. $16,260,399. $10,162,749. Such are some of the evil results of the Hawaiian Reciprocity .Treaty that demand its ending ; they assimilate the evils projected in the Carlisle sugar bill, the mixed duty or Boston plan, and all other uniform duty to 13 or 16 D. S. plans, which, by favoring centrifugals and prohibiting raw sugars, subtly provide extraordi- nary facilities for building up Cuban and other foreign vacuum-pan crystal making, coloring, and refining industries, to the detriment of American consumers and taxpayers, and upon the ruins of American sugar productive and refining industries. The Hawaiian Treaty continues seven years from September, 1876, '* and lurther until the expiration of twelve months after either of the high contracting parties shall give notice to the other of its wish to terminate the same," but inasmuch as the terms of the Treaty as regards sugar, have been continually violated, and for other potent reasons. Congress should not hesitate to cancel the Treaty and pre- vent annexation. The Treaty of 1875 with Hawaii exempts only, "muscovado, brown, and all other unrefined sugar, meaning thereby the grades of sugar heretofore commonly imported from the Hawaiian Islands, and now (1875) known in the markets of San Francisco as Sandwich Island sugars; " but the treaty does not exempt the Hawaiian semi- refined high-grade vacuum-pan sugars, which now claim free entry as raw sugars. Every pound of foreign sugars imported into this country should be made dutiable, and pay duty pro rata to the intrinsic color, grade, quality, and foreign value thereof, accurately determined by grinding, polarization, and the Dutch standard, and by compari- sons with trade valuations in the foreign market and in the home 25 market, a[)plying impartially any or all of these tests as occasion may demand. With the above named adjuncts to the Dutch standard in opera- tion on all sugars, including Hawaiian, and a simple amendment to the present sugar tariff hereinafter subjoined, false classifications and evasions of duty would abate, the rights of American con- sumers of sugar would be respected, and home productive and refin- ing industries and revenue interests would be efficiently protected. SECTION THIRD. Comparative Sugar Tariff Analyses ; Carlisle's Sugar Bill ; Uniform Duty Plans ; Present Sugar Tariff; Ad valorem and Compound Equivalents ; Canadian Sugar Tariff Ex- amples ; Classifications Improved ; Refining in Bond ; Tariff Defects ; Amendment and Remedies. The within estimates of the average foreign cost of sugars, are approximate deductions from private and official information cur- rently received from sugar producing countries by the writer, and from prices current in 1880 and 1881, in contiguous and remote sugar producing countries; as a basis of average foreign market values, they are applied alike to the present sugar tariff, the Carlisle bill, the uniform duty to No. 16 D. S. plan, and the whole tabular exhibit, and are, therefore, correctly equitable. The following table exhibits the animus of the Carlisle sugar bill, and the uniform duty to 16 D. S. plan. Estimated average cost and duty on 100 pounds : Table 1. >> 002 o D cS • (^jO bli fi > 'd. «5 ^CO Class Average, D. S. OS P5 n3 < > '^3 l6 1- 1^ OJ > SS eS c < H < P^ o ^^^ $2.4oto N0.13 Melada $2.50 62 to 70 $1.87^ 75.0 96.0 per ct. 80.0 per ct. Sugar not above 7 D. S.- 3.50 70 to 85 2.18!! 62.5 68.6 " 57.0 " Above 7, not above 10 4 AW, 85 to 92 2.50 54.0 51.9 43.2 " Above 10, not above 13-_ 5.25 88 to 98 2.811 53.5 45.7 " $2.'j£to No.jb 38.0 " Above 13, not above 16.. 6.12^ 92 to 99 3.433 56.1 44.9 per ct. $4 above No. tb 32.6 " $4 above No, 16 Above 16, not above 20_- 6.50 93 to 99 4.06] 62.5 61.5 per ct. 61.5 per ct. Soft above 20 . 7.50 94 to 99 5.00 66.6 53 3 " 53.3 " Hard above '20 8.50 !)5 to 99.5 5.00 68.8 47.0 47.0 " 26 Uniform duty of one cent per pound, would present the ad valo- rem unfairness contained in the two cents per pound phm as seen above ; for instance, one cent per pound would be an ad valorem rate of 40 per cent, on Melada, 28^ per cent, on class not above 7 D. S., 21.6 per cent, on class not above 10 D. S., 19 per cent, on class not above 13 D. S., and 16.3 per cent, on class not above 16 D. S.; while such a wholesale reduction of duty would be a blunder de- structive to every American industry and interest connected with sugar food, as will be proven hereinafter. Sugar bills, imposing a uniform duty on all sugar not above No. 13 D. S., have the appearance of, and claim to be, artless means of settling the sugar question and simplifying the collection of sugar duty; in reality they are subtle artifices for the prohibition of raw sugar material ; for the protection of foreign producers of refined sugar crystals decolorized outwardly to not above No. 13 D. S., in color; for the encouragement of sugar refining in producing coun- tries, and especially for the enrichment of their projectors at public cost. Table No. 1 presented above, exhibits the animus of both the Carlisle bill and the uniform duty on all sugar to No. 16 plan; by comparing the ad valorem rates of the present tariff with the ad valorem rates projected in the Carlisle bill and uniform duty plans, it will be seen that the present average ad valorem rates of duty on melada and on all sugars not above No. 7 D. S., are heavily in- creased, in uniform duty plans, to prevent their importation, and the present average ad valorem rates on sugars above No. 7 not above No. 13 D. S. are heavily decreased in uniform duty plans, to protect foreign vacuum pan colored cr^'stals. Again, it will be seen in the same table (1) that the present aver- age ad valorem rate of duty on sugars above No. 13 not above No. 16 D. S. is also heavily reduced by the uniform duty plans, for the protection of refined crystals manufactured of a bright yellow color, and imported as raw sugar but intended to be sold as refined sugars for consumption, at large profits enhanced by duty evaded and by the aid of foreign coolie and slave labor. Furthermore, Table No. 1 shows that the present average ad val- orem duty on foreign white soft and hard refined sugars is heavily reduced in the Carlisle Sugar bill and uniform duty plans, and ren- dered entirely inadequate for the protection of Louisiana sugars and our enormous refining industries against foreign producers of such sugars, besides inviting the bount3'-fed refined beet sugar product of Europe to control our market and destroy our sugar industries, and having done so, to enhance the cost of sugar to American con- sumers at pleasure. The Carlisle Sugar bill and uniform duty plans reverse the ra- tional order of levying duty. It will be seen in Table 1 that the higher the color, grade, quality, and foreign cost of imported 27 sugars, the lower the rate of duty levied under uniform duty plans, in order to protect foreign retined centrifugal crystals; and the lower the color, grade, quality, and foreign cost ot imported sugars, including melada, the higher the rates of duty projected in said plans in order to prohibit raw sugar material and curtail American sugar producing and refining industries. Under the uniform duty plans Cuban and Demerara centrifugal crystals, manufactured from refined syrup, and discolored to not above 13 D. S. in the process of graining in the finishing or vacuum pans, as elsewhere described, averaging |5.25 per 100 pounds, foreign cost, (see Table 1,) would pay the same duty, $2.40, as melada and the lowest grades of raw sugar material ; only 45.7 per cent, ad valorem duty is levied on refined, but discolored, centrifugal crj'stals, 95 to 99° in purity, while 96 per cent, ad valorem duty is levied on raw sugar material containing 25 to 32 per cent, impuri- ties by the Carlisle bill, and 80 per cent, by the No. 16 D. S. plan. Further, the Carlisle bill proposes to admit semi-refined crystals above 13, not above 16 T>. S., costing on the average $6.12| per 100 pounds (see Table 1) in the country of production, at $2.75 per 100 pounds duty, and levies $2.40 per 100 pounds duty on melada and the lowest grades of raw sugar below No. 7 D. S.; that is, the foreign refined crystals are to come in at 44.9 per cent, duty for their protection, and raw material must pay 96 per cent, duty, which means prohibition thereof by overtax and by consumption in making colored crystals in producing countries for this market. Instead of simplifying the collection of sugar duty, the uniform duty plans further complicate the collection thereof by totally ignoring classification checks and safeguards for the proper execu- tion of the revenue laws; they propose the admission of dutiable sugars virtually without examination by tlie only methods that would detect, check, or hinder fraudulent practices, and by the constant application of which all transactions in raw and refined sugars are now conducted in the great sugar marts and principal Bugar producing countries. Again reverting attention to Table No. 1, the subtle elements of the Carlisle bill appear in an equally dangerous form, under the artless disguise of uniform duty of one to tvvo cents per pound on all sugars not above Nos. 13 or 16 D. S.; the purposes of these plans are precisely those of the Carlisle bill, with an additional turn of the foreign screw, in favor of dutiable centrifugal sugars above 13 not above 16 D. S. in color, and against American producers and re- finers of cane, beet, and sorghum sugars, and equally against con- sumers. Uniform duty to 13 or 16 D. S. has never possessed a single merit beyond that of catering to ofiicial incapacity in levying duty. "When suggested to the Government in 1877 by the writer, the in- tent was to protect the revenue in the absence of radical reforraa- 28 tion needed in executing tariff laws; the plan might have been tried at that time with ftiir hopes of correcting false sampling, but has since become impracticable, owing to rapid advancement in making and coloring refined crystals to imitate raw sugar in producing countries, and outgrowing dangers to American commerce and in- dustries. Reverting to Table 1, for comparison, it will be seen that the uni- form duty to 16 D. S. artifice, purposes to admit centrifugal cr3'8tal8 and other foreign sugars refined to not above 16 D. S. in color, at 32.6 per cent, dut}^ advalorem, and levies 80 per cent, duty on me- lada, and 57 per cent, duty on all raw sugar material not above 7 D. S. in color, in order to protect the foreign manufacture of refined crystals and prohibit raw material by duiy discrimination. Uniform duty on sugar plans, reverse rational methods of levying dut}" by reducing the rate of duty on sugars as their grade, quality, and foreign cost increase, until the duty on 100 pounds of Melada containing 60 to 70 per cent, crystals and 30 to 40 per cent, of im- purities and water, will admit 100 pounds of foreign refined dry crystals testing 99° in purity, but colored to not above 13 or 16 D. S., as the case may be, to evade proper duty; and uniform duty plans rapidly increase the rate of duty on sugars as the grade, quality, and foreign value thereof decrease, which prohibits raw material. Beyond the No. 16 D. S. point, the uniform duty to 16 plan and the Carlisle bill are identical ; all uniform duty plans furnish wea- pons to Cuban and West India manufacturers of colored crystals, and to European refiners of cane and beet sugars, for the destruction of American sugar producing and refining industries, and would cripple our growing commerce with remote sugar producing coun- tries whose raw sugars would, if prohibited to us, find their way to Cuban vacuum-pans to be turned into crystals colored to the tarifi[" limit, to escape duty. Louisiana planters and American refiners are deeply, 3^es, vitally, interested in this matter. They may well look with concern upon this just exhibit of Cuban and West India plans for the destruction of their industries, put forth under the apparently artless pretense of simplifying the collection of duty on sugar, and settling the sugar question. Uniform duty on sugar would utterly destroy our beet and sorghum sugar enterprises, which, like all embryotic American industries, naturally and properly demand protection against underhand foreign encroachments. Fifty years' history of tariff" laws for levying duty on sugars in this and other great sugar consuming countries, dependent u[)on foreign sugars for consumption, evidences that every attempt to ap- proach uniform duty on sugars has proved disastrous or impractica- ble and been abandoned, even when foreign raw sugars were not, as they now are, advanced in producing countries by refining the syrup and manufacturing and coloring crystals in vacuum-pans to victimize this people. 29 Still more dans^erous, even suicidal, would uniform duty on sugars be, under existing circumstances, when it is clearly the pur- pose of such plans to reverse the natural order of refining sugars in this country for the adequate supply of cheap pure sugars to the poor and costly grades to the rich. Upwards of two thousand millions of pounds of refined sugars are consumed annually by the people of this country, seventy (70) per cent, of which must be re- fined from actual raw sugar material, in its normal condition, test- ing from 65° to below 92° in crystals, in order to produce pure but cheap refined cane sugars for the masses, or middling and poorer classes. Admitting foreign refined crystals 95 to 99 per cent, in purity, but colored in vacuum pans to not above 13 or 16 D. S., at less than half the aji valorem rate of duty levied on actual raw material, (see table No. 1) would compel refiners to employ only high grade sugars for refining, and superinduce glucose adulteration ; under such a regime, centrifugals of great purity would constitute the bulk of sugar imports; thus heavily reducing importations and revenue, enhancing the cost of sugars to consumers, and crippling our grow- ing commerce with remote sugar producing countries. Clayed sugars above No. 20 Dutch standard in color, pay duty as refined sugars, while the Carlisle sugar bill and uniform duty plans admit at the lowest rate of duty, centrifugals containing nine-nine (99) per cent, of refined crystals outwardly colored to No. 13 Dutch standard, but when ground producing sugar above No. 20 Dutch standard in color, equal to or better than No. 20 Dutch standard Java clayed sugars. Clearly the admission of such sugars at the lowest rate of duty must prohibit the importation of raw sugars. Besides, the Carlisle sugar bill and uniform plans would in no wise correct abuses or adjust antagonisms between the Treasury Department and sugar merchants — dififerences which are almost in- variably created by attempts to enter discolored centrifugal sugars as raw sugars, nefarious practices which the Carlisle bill and all uniform duty plans are fashioned to sanction, but which can and should be suppressed altogether. Carlisle's sugar bill ofiers only a pretense of protection. It is a fact that in the fiscal year ended June 30, 1879, only §2.33 per 100 lbs. duty was collected on all dutiable sugars entered for consump- tion, and Carlisle's sugar bill off"ers a duty of $2.40 per 100 lbs. on all sugars not above No. 13 D. S. in color; but the $2.33 per 100 lbs. duty, was the result of false classifications of Cuban and Demerara colored crystals of great purity, as raw sugars, by which means duty was evaded. Keference to the classification tables in these exhibits, will show that the writer's exposures in 1879 and since, in regard to coloring crystals to evade duty, quickly advanced classificatio'ns and increased the average duty collected from sugars consumed in 1880 to $2.45 30 per 100 lbs., and in 1881 to $2.46 per 100 lbs.; but the average for- eign cost of dutiable sugars in 1881 was $4.42 per 100 lbs.; showing that false classifications still exist, and that we should have received at least $2.76 duty per 100 lbs. under the present tariff. Evidently the sugar industries of the country are entitled to $2.76 duty per 100 lbs. protection on sugars under the present tariff, while the Carlisle bill accords only $2.40 per 100 lbs. on all sugars not above 13 D. S. in color, above which class only 1,298,158 lbs. were entered for consumption in the year ended June 30, 1881, out of a total of 1,869,173.897 lbs. of dry sugars entered for consumption in the fiscal year named. Worse than this, the Carlisle bill reduces the dutj'' on class No. 10 to 13 D. S. from 2.81^ to 2.40 cents per lb.; this class covers the beautiful foreign semi-refined crystals now manufactured in Cuba, Demerara, &c., in vacuum pans to test from 95 to 99.5 per cent, in pure crystals, but outwardly colored to not above No. 13 D. S., in order to enter at 2.40 cents per lb. duty, while melada and other actual raw sugar material intrinsically low in grade, test, and color, must pay 2.40 cents duty per pound, or be prohibited. These foreign refined vacuum pan colored crj'stals, over which the Carlisle bill and the 1 cent, per lb. plan propose to establish a tariff protectorate, as I have already shown in section first of these exhibits, are intrinsically sugars that should class above No. 13 D. S. in color, and pay 3.43| cents per lb. duty ; while a large propor- tion of such sugars are found intrinsicall}' above No. 16 D. S. in color, and should pay 4.06J cents per lb. duty, instead of 2.40 cents per lb. as raw sugars; it is foreign vacuum pan crystals colored to evade duty, and not the tarifi, that prohibits the importation of Grocer's Sugars. Glucose adulteration of cane sugar is also cordially encouraged and invited in the Carlisle bill and uniform duty to No. 13 or 16 J). S. plans, which would deprive us of melada and raw sugar ma- terial, and induce refiners to reduce Cuban crystals with glucose, in order to supply the demands of the middle and poorer classes who cannot afford to buy the rich man's sugar. Corn glucose and Cuban crystal mixtures would be a poor substitute for the numerous cheap grades of pure refined cane sugar, which can only be obtained from low grades of raw sugar material. Regarding the plan of one cent per pound duty on sugar to No. 13 or 16 D. S., or even on all sugars, while possessed of all the de- fects of the Carlisle bill it also reduces the revenue from sugar nearly three-fifths; that is, in the fiscal 3-ear ended June 30, 1881, dutiable sugars entered for consumption, exclusive of melada, paid an averaged $2.46 per 100 pounds duty on 1,869,173,897 pounds, $45,933,045 ; while one cent per pound would have produced onlj $18,691,739 revenue from sugar in the fiscal year 1881. That even a respectable moiety of this enormous deficit could Act 31 be made up by increased consumption, is evidenced by England's recent experience. In 1874 Great Britain abolished duty on sugars, with an annual consumption of 59.40 pounds per capita, an act she now regrets. Great Britain consumed only 56.66 pounds per capita in 1877, and in 1880 only 62.25 pounds per capita. Under existing circumstances this country would lose enormously, and could gain nothing by any wholesale reduction of duty on sugars. The increased production and use of corn glucose, cannot be checked by reducing duty on sugar or by abolishing duty, because the cost of producing corn glucose has reached its maximum, and competition is rapidly cheapening it; corn will yield 70 per cent, of starch, or 60 per cent, of purest glucose, which can be sold at half the average foreign cost of cane sugars in 1881; glucose will inevi- tabl}' be emploN'ed in vast quantities in preference to cane sugars, for table syrup, for brewing, and for certain candies; legitimate uses to which it should be confined. JSTeither can"any wholesale reduction of duty cheapen imported sugars, simply because we are at present dependent upon Cuba and Spanish possesions for more than four-fifths of our annual supply of foreign sugars, and Spain not only invariably discriminates against American commerce, but is bound by her records, to in- crease the export tax on sugar as we lower the duty thereon ; there- fore sugar cannot be cheapened by a one cent duty. Nearly three-fourths of Cuban sugars are vacuum-pan made crys- tals intended to evade the Dutch standard ; hence the average foreign cost of sugars entered into consumption in the year ended June 30, 1881, was $4.42 per 100 lbs., and we are already, comparatively, de- prived of raw material from Cuba ; as we concede duty, Spain will add export tax, and thus maintain high prices. Uniform duty on sugar to 13 D. S. would admit foreign serai- refined crystals, testing 95 to 99 in purity, at the lowest rate of duty, from which refiners must turn out the rich man's sugar in -excess and deprivQ,«sA^ people at large of the cheaper grades of refined sugars for lack of raw sugar material. Under a uniform sugar tariti:" refiners could obtain drawback on exports to the full amount of duty paid and still retain a large part of their out-turn from centrifugal cr3^stals for home consumption. Having briefly disclosed the conspicuously greedy pretenses of the Cuban or uniform duty to 13 or 16 D. S. sugar tarifi plans and the shortsightedness of the one cent per pound duty plan, I now present practical remedies for existing sugar tariff abuses and defects, with brief explanations premised by a comparative sugar tarifi-" exhibit of present duty — 50 percent, ad valorem duty, and an equitable compound duty, calculating foreign cost and duty upon 100 pounds for convenience. The following exhibit also shows the general equity ot the present tariff for protection and revenue. Its enforcement by an 32 amendment hereinafter subjoined will correct existing abuses and remedy the defects of the Dutch standard : Table 2. Class average, D. S., per 100 pounds. a > < a) a OS ft IS < "3 > 6 * Compound Sugar Tariff'. $2.50 3.50 4.6234 5.25 " 6.12}^ 6.50 7.50 8.50 62 to 70° 70 to 85 85 to 92 88 to 98 92 to 99 93 to 99 94 to 99 95 to 99.5 $1.87U 2.18^ 2.50 2.81K 3.43% 4.O6I4 5.00 5.00 75 62.5 54 53.5 56.1 62.5 66.6 58.8 Sl.25 1.75 2.3114 2.(!2U 3.06i<| 10 p. c. extra. 3.90 10 p. c. extra. 4.50 10 p. c. extra. 5.10 Sl.OO @25 p. c, $1.62U 1.00 @25 p. c, 1.87t| 1.12i^@25 p. c, 2.28U 1.25 @25 p. c, 2.5614 2.00 @25 p. C, 3.531^ 2.50 @.25 p. c, 4.12}^ 3.00 @25 p. c, 4.873^ 3.00 @25 p. c, 5.1234 Above No. 10, not above 13 Above No. 13, not above 16 Above No. 16, not above 20 * Specific and ad valorem. Xatural, or honest, classifications of sugars, according to their intrinsic color, quality, and foreign market value, form the basis of the foregoing tabular exhibits; all sugars made from cane-juice by the open-pan process and finished by natural draining and clay- ing, can be accurately classed by the Dutch standard alone, from melada and the purest manilla sugars, testing 60 to 75 in crystal, to the white clayed sugars of Java or Dutch celebrity, testing 99.5 per cent, in crystal purity, but the Dutch standard was never designed to class Cuban crystals or vacuum pan centrifugal sugars. The foreign vacuum pan process of inspissating, graining, and coloring crystals formed from classified syrup of cane juice, as ex- plained in detail elsewhere, produces manufactured crystals many times larger than Dutch standard or raw sugar crystals, equal in quality to the best hard refined sugar, but discolored outwardly to imitate the natural color of raw sugars made by the old process, and known as melada and natural drained muscovado and molasses sugars throughout the world ; crushing and polarization are required to aid the Dutch standard in classing these colored crystals for duty. While the right of foreign producers to make or finish sugars from cane syrup by the vacuum pan process, and to make crystals of any size they see fit, is unquestioned, the discoloration of sugar crystals while forming and when formed in the vacuum pan, is an accessory of projected fraud in the entry and classification of superior sugars, intrinsically of the highest degree of purity and value, as raw sugars of low grades to evade duty; these practices can only be prevented by combining grinding and polarization with the Dutch standard for levying duty on sugars. Such being the case, Congress must deal with facts as they now 33 exist, and not as they existed in 1870 when the present sugar tariff was adopted and Cuban crystal coloring was unknown, in order to successfully counteract and prevent false classifications, which now circumvent the Dutch color standard and subvert the intent of our tariff laws; practices which the Carlisle bill and uniform duty plans are designed to legalize, as clearly appears in these exhibits. Sugar tariff legislation intended to benefit 50,000,000 of Amer- ican consumers, produce revenue, and protect home industries, should be based on the natural current demands for home consump- tion, industrial protection, and revenue. Were there but one kind of sugar known, the demands for consumption would be speedily determined, as in the case of corn or wheat, but different sugar producing countries offer many distinct grades or varieties of cane sugar material for our selection. Formerly only melada, raw drained sugars, and a sprinkling of clayed sugars, from gray to white in color, were to be obtained from producing countries ; hence the growth of refining industries in this country, as the tastes and demands for and capacity to buy lux- uries increased with our national growth and prosperity. There is nothing rational in legislative attempts to relegate this industrial outgrowth of American advancement to foreign control, neither would consumers of Louisiana crystals and American refined .sugars, take kindly to raw muscovadoes and colored centrifugals, or to the enhanced prices that would follow the control of our market by foreign refiners and producers. Hence the demands for consumption in this country, are for all grades of concentrated raw sugar material, from the lowest to the highest grades thereof, but in varied quantites for refining purposes, in order that the refined outturn may be proportioned in cost to the necessities of the poor, as well as to the demands of the rich ; this requires that seventy per cent, or more of all refined sugars, shall consist of refined grades corresponding relatively in cost to the lower grades of the classifications of raw sugar material, which form the basis of our present sugar tariff. There is no demand from consumers, for foreign raw white clayed and foreign refined sugars for immediate food consumption; all im- ported sugars are now refined in the United States; even Cuban and Demerara refined colored crystals 99.5 per cent, in purity, are passed through the American refinery at a nominal cost, to remove the outer film of color and change the grain, hence the demand for foreign raw material from which to obtain, pro rata as to cost, the varied outturn needed to meet the varied wants of consumers. On this equitable and rational classification or ad valorem basis, sugar tariff legislation should be founded, and the rates of duty be fixed to conform to the demands of home industrial protection and revenue requirements; the present tariff already favors the higher grades of sugar ; there is therefore not the shadow of excuse for re- 34 ducing the present rates of duty on high grades not above 13 or 16 D. S. in color, and increasing the present rates to prohibition, on nielada and sugars not above No. 7 D. S., by a uniform rate to No. 13 or 16 D. S. Honest color classifications of sugar for duty are, however, no longer the order of the day, and owing to foreign crystal coloring artifices, it is no longer possible, by the Dutch standard alone, to accurately determine the intrinsic color, quality, and market value of foreign vacuum pan manufactured centrifugal crystals, 95° to 99.5° in purity, discolored in the finish to be entered as raw sugars of low grade, but onlj- sembling thereto in outward color. Grinding and polarization must henceforth be employed as ad- juncts to the Dutch standard, in order to accurately determine the actual intrinsic color, quality, and foreign value of dutiable sugarg and levy duty thereon correctly, just as these agents are now em- ployed by foreign vacuum pan and centrifugal sugar producers, and by all sugar merchants and refiners in this country and Europe, to determine the market value of sugars, and govern their transac- tions. The evils of any uniform specific rate on all sugars to 13 or 16 D. S. even though bolstered by an ad valorem clause, are equally damaging to American interests, while to extend uniform duty to all sugars would be to surrender American sugar industries, as we have surrendered our carrying trade to foreign control. Compound duties are mostly the outgrowth of irrational attempts to compromise between wholly specific and wholly ad valorem rates for levying duty, which should not be applied to sugars, of which there entered for consumption in the fiscal year ended June 30, 1881, in- cluding Hawaiian sugars and melada, no less than 1,966,617,950 pounds, valued at $88,463,464, duty collected thereon $46,318,073. As such a plan is known to be in embryo, an exhibit of an equita- ble compound sugar tariff is given in Table 2, which reveals the complexity of such a tarifl^", and the fact that any uniform duty on all sugars would destroy all equity, even in a compound sugar tarifif. Compound or mixed sugar taritt plans cannot equitably be based upon a uniform specific duty on all sugars, whether the rate be one cent or less or more per pound; what sense or justice would there be in levying a specific duty equal to 16| per cent, ad valorem on semi-refined sugars that cost 6 cents per pound, and 33^ per cent on raw sugars that cost 3 cents per pound, or 40 per cent, on me- lada and lowest grade sugars, and plastering the whole with 25 per cent, more ad valorem ; it only ends in levying 65 per cent, ad valorem on the poorest raw sugars, 58| per cent, on the next grade of raw material, and admits semi-refined Cuban colored crystals at 41| per cent, ad valorem, to destroy the industries of American sugar producers and refiners, and complicate the collection of duty. Canada furnishes palpable evidence of the necessity of maiutain- r 35 ing a classification sugar tariff, and of the advantages secured by levying duty on each class of sugar pro rata to their foreign mar- ket value. Mark the immediate" benefit of the slight but important changes made in 1879, in the Canadian sugar tariff of 1877, which admitted American refined sugars at prices that speedily closed Canadian refineries, Suo-ar Tariff of the Dominion of Canada, 1877-1878 : Melada and concentrated, &c., per lb. |c. and 25 per cent, ad valorem. Svrups, all kinds cane juice, «&c., " |c. " 25 " " Siigars below No. 9 D. S., " |c. " 25 " " Equal to 9 not above No. 13 D. S. " |c. " 25 All sugars above 13 D. S., " Ic. " 25 " " Under the above tariff, refined sugars could and, with the aid of American drawback, did enter Canada and undersell Canadian re- finers, thus destroying their refining industry and shutting out raw sugars, without the slightest advantage to Canadian consumers. Present sugar tariff of Canada enacted in 1879. Melada and concentrated, &c., per lb. |c. and 30 per cent, ad valorem. Syrups all kinds, cane juice, &c. " |c. " 30 " " Sugars below No. 9 D. S. " ^c. " 30 " '• Equal to 9 not above 14 D. S. " |e. " 30 " " All sugars above No. 14 D. S, " Ic. " 35 " " Simply levying five per cent, extra duty on sugar above No. 14 T). S., refined sugars in fact, and levying duty on the American market value thereof, shut out American refined sugars from Canada, and not only started Canadian refineries, but tempted French capitalists to undertake numerous beet sugar enterprises in Canada, and virtually changed the sugar imports of Canada from refined sugars, to raw sugars for refining, in a single year as follows: Dutiable sugars entered for consumption in the Dominion of Canada in the fiscal years ending June 30, 1879, 1880, 1881 : ' 1879. Classifications. 1880. 1881. JDutch Standard. 1 Pounds. i Value. Pounds. Value. Pounds. Value. Sugars above 13, and from Marchl 15. 1879, above No 14 91,828,152 Equal to 9, not above 1.3, and from March 15. 1879, n. a. 14 19,390,746 Sugar below No. 9 D. S 1,844,818 $4,680,310 768,637 64,722 18,885,150 56,403,251 30,690,925 $824,827 1,847,205 958,364 15,858,005 53,459,146 58,964,513 $756,186 2,117,515 2,003,539 Melada ! 1,650,215 i 846,446 7,639,332 $180,635 6,844,512 $192,800 Refined sugars exported to Canada from the United States : 1879. 53,717,659 lbs. $4,235,348. 1880. 731,909 lbs. $66,921. 1881. 369,557 lbs. $30,301. This country has immense sugar refining and sugar producing in- dustries to protect against foreign refining and colored crystal mak- 3t) ing iudustries, which are raiding upon them under false classifica- tions of vacuum-pan centrifugal sugars, discolored outwardly to imitate raw sugar material and entered as such, to evade duty on their actual value. Stealthily have two great foreign food monopolies invaded our continent ; the one protected by the Reciprocity Treaty w'ith Hawaii flourishes upon our credulity at public cost, the other conducted by foreign chicanery now seeks protection from Congress through the Carlisle bill, and similar uniform sugar duty enactments. The les- sons of experience and the demand of consumers, home industries, and revenue, teach that these stupendous interloping foreign sugar food monopolies should henceforth serve our National interests, or be destroyed. There exists but two rational plans for a sugar tariif in this coun- try; the present classification tariff" amended and enforced by grinding and polarization in addition to the Dutch standard, or an actual ad valorem tariff" with the same appliances for its enforce- ment, and radical reform in the execution of our tariff' laws, which is also of infinitely greater importance than tariff" tinkering, as a means of enabling Congress to reach a rational basis for tariff" re- vision. Actual ad valorem rates upon dutiable sugars (see Table 2) involves the necessity of adding ten per cent, extra on all sugars above 16 D. S. in color, including refined sugars, for the reasonable protec- tion of American producers and refiners, and for the benefit of consumers; otherwise foreign bounty fed refined beet sugars, and pure Cuban and Demerara vacuum-pan crystals of natural color would be favored, which would speedily destroy American com- petition therewith, and place consumers of sugars wholly in depen- dence upon foreign refiners who would enhance prices accordingly. Evidence of the gigantic strides already made by Cuba and other near sugar producing countries, in exhausting their raw material to make semi-refined vacuum pan crystals of highest purity therefrom, disguised by coloration as raw sugars, will be found in the follow- ing table, which exhibits the potency of the writer's exposures of coloration devices in the extensive reversal in 1880-1881 of the false classifications in previous years — 1878-1879 for example. Classification by the Dutch standard. 1«78. Quantity. Sampled and claused for duty. Pound». All not above No. 7 Dutch standard ' 860,287,182 All aboye No. 7 and not above No. 10 D. 8 1 618',019',87t3 All above No. 10 and not above No. 13 D. 8 72'.'U(v'i74 All above No. 13 and not above No. 16 D. S , 1,474^118 All above No. 16 and not above No. 20 D. S 'ftfil|o(i8 All above No. 20, loaf, and other refined 2161294 Total dry sugar 1,552,875,112 •- ^^i Value. $41 ,.516,497 33,232,883 4,110,502 73,831 35,491 10,866 78,986,070 Duty. 818,818,784 16,4.'J0,497 2,033,904 50,673 22.793 10,814 36,387,465 37 Classification by the Dutch standard. 1879. Quantity. Value. Duty. Sampled and classed for duty. Pounds. 890,801,182 671.574,592 35,556,456 483,110 20,221 16,425 §36,627,477 27,614.075 1,649,309 25,627 1,160 1,283 819,486,JT« All above No. 7 and not above No. 10 D. 8 10,789,365 1,000,307 16,607 821 All above No. 20, loaf, and othor refined „ 821 1,598,461,986 65,918,931 37,294,197 1S80. Classifications by the Dutch standard. Quantity. Value. Duty. Sampled and classed for duty. Pounds. 299,298,496 1,222,747,078 811,394,541 52,407,812 86.547.154 30,568,677 1,904,796 80,905 4,817 All above No 13 and not above No 16 D S 2,353,604 \ 118,229 118.582 8,453 18,119 1,502 All above No. 16 and not above No. 20 D. S All above No. 20, loaf, and other refined 1,592,261,957 867,015,831 839,107,256 1881. Classification by the Dutch standard. Quantity. Value. Duty. Sampled and classed for duty. All not above No. 7 Dutch standard Pounds. 401,626,484 1,323,451,981 142,797,277 1,267,215 12,241 18,699 815,395,744 60,216,407 7,044,675 62,123 538 1,599 $8,785,579 33,086,300 4,016,173 43,561 497 935 All above No. 7 and not above No. 10 D. S...„ All above No. 10 and not above No. 13 D. S All above No. 13 and not above No. 16 D. S All above No. 16 and not above No. 20 D. S All above No. 20, loaf, and other refined Total dry sugar 1,869,173,897 882,721,086 845,933,045 Average duty, per lb., 1878, 2.34e.; 1879, 2.33c.; 1880, 2.45c.; 1881, 2.46c. Ad valorem rate, per cent., 1878, 46.06; 1879, 56.57 ; 1880, 58.35 ; 1881, .55.52. Cuban crystals increased the foreign cost of dutiable dry sugars consumed by us in 1881 to an average of $4.42 per 100 lbs.; the average invoice value of Cuban sugars only, for 1881, being $4.85 per 100 lbs., or including Spanish possessions, $4.60 per 100 lbs., as against $3.84 per 100 lbs., the average invoice value of dutiable sugars from all other countries in 1881, showing the disadvantages and absurdity of depending longer upon Cuba and Spanish posses- sions for raw sugar material, which they now semi-reline at the ex- pense of American consumers, industries, and revenue. Regarding the use of the polariscope as an adjunct to the Dutch standard, private and official information, currently received by the writer from sugar producing countries near and remote, establishes the fact that, in countries where sugar is made by open pan methods 38 and natural evaporation, inspissation, and drainage only, the color test remains an accepted standard of absolute market value, and the polariscope is virtually unknown for such purpose. Contrariwise, in Cuba, Demerara, and contiguous sugar produc- ing countries, where raw sugars and cane syrups are advanced above their normal condition, by vacuum pan methods of making or finish- ing sugar, and also in all the great sugar marts of this country and Europe, the polariscope is invariably employed, as an auxilliary aid to the Dutch standard, for determining value ; without this com- bination of detective forces, trade transactions in sugar are no longer sate. Treasury and customs officials are appointed to collect the revenue according to law, unfortunately no tenure of office exists, conse- quently tarift' laws are too often lost sight of; fear of the headsman induces officials to comply with Treasury Department decisions and anomalous instructions, prepared by subordinates having au- thority at their discretion, and bearing the sanction of Executive commands, in the formal signature of the Secretary of the Treasur3^ Congress must be well aware that tariff changes are fraught with momentous results, broader, deeper, grander than the mere matter of simplifying and lightening the well paid laborer of collecting and disbursing customs revenue ; therefore what may be recom- mended to that assemblage as acceptable to officials or necessary for their comfort, should be considered ^^ cum. grano salis," as not always being conducive to the commercial, industrial and revenue interests of this progressive nation. Pending legislation, the Secretary of the Treasury should no longer permit the drying of cargo samples before testing the same or classing the sugars for dut}'. Fully recognizing the foreign devices that now render official classifications of sugar for duty more difficult than in 1870, I know that there is no necessity for drying cargo samples, — thus changing the intrinsic texture of the sugar, — before testing and classifying the same for duty. Simply grinding cargo samples of Cuban and Demerara crystals or centrifugal sugars, until they assimilate in grain the Dutch standard examples employed for comparing color, reveals their in- trinsic or natural color effectually ; whereas, grinding leaves the color of raw sugar material or drained sugar virtually unchanged ; the polariscope should be applied to properly drawn cargo samples, in their normal condition as drawn from cargoes, including mois- ture contained therein when taken from the cargo. Refining sugar in bond under official surveillance, should also re- ceive the early sanction of law ; the practice would simplify the collection of revenue from sugar, and enable importers and refiners to largely extend their operations, and thus by cheapening sugars stimulate consumption ; cane sugars refined in bond for home con- sumption, would necessarily be pure, because duty would have to be paid upon the full outturn from bonded sugars. 39 Refining in bond would also encourage the production of refined sugars for export to foreign countries, and thus advantage American commerce and home industries; with the privilege of refining sugars in bond, and the advantage of drawback correctly adjusted to "the outturn of product pro rata to the duty paid upon the raw material employed in refining, American refiners can successfully compete with the refiners of Europe, for their own and other markets of the world. Refining in bond doubly protects the interests of the Government, inasmuch as sugars bonded for refining would be constantly under oflScial surveillance, at the expense of refiners, from their arrival in port until the refined outturn was entered out of bond for home consumption or export; sugars entered for refining in bond would on arrival be sampled, tested, weighed, classed for duty, and sent direct to bonded refineries, the refiners giving satisfactory bonds in double the amount of duty levied on the bonded sugar for pay- ment thereof when the refined product which, less loss in refining must coincide with the bonded sugar, was entered out for consump- tion or export. Congress should also practically recognize our cane beet and sorghum sugar industries as available and powerful factors in de- livering this country speedily from its abnormal dependence upon Cuba and Spanish possessions for sugar food. These industries should be protected by judicious legislation which gives no undue advantages to foreign producers and refiners; thus considered and encouraged, the capacity of Louisiana and other States for pro- ducing cane, beet, and sorghum sugars is simply measureless. One of the most eminent and skillful sugar refiners of the age says: "The foreign producer has manipulated the natural color of the product of the plantation, and thus destroyed the equity of the Dutch standard; the refiners suti:er with the Government, and therefore earnestly advocate the introduction of the polariscope as a detective." The same authority states that natural raw sugars range entirely below 92° in the polariscope, and centrifugals above 92° ; centrifugals, or vacuum pan crystals, can be lowered in color and maintain the test from 92 to 99° in purity, and also their excep- tionally high value. Official analyses in France, numbering more than 7,000, give the following results : Average polariscope test of raw sugars not above No. 9, D. S. in color, below 92 degrees ; sugars intrinsically No. 10 to No. 14 D. S. in color, average test above 91.25 to 94,55 degrees, and sugars intrinsically No. 15 to No. 18 D. S. in color, average test above 94.55 to 97.36 degrees, showing that sugars testing 92 degrees and above are advanced beyond the normal condition of raw sugars, in intrinsic color, quality, and value. The results of many thousands of tests of cargo samples of dutiable sugars examined by the writer and in his possession, also establish the fact that raw sugar material ranges below 92 degrees in the polariscope, and that foreign vacuum-pan centrifugals or 40 Cuban crystals, range 92 to 99 degrees in purity, and assimilate re- fined sugars. The following amendment to the present sugar tariff" will correct its only defects, — authorize the use of necessary adjuncts to the Dutch Standard for classing and levying duty on sugar, — adequately protect the revenue and American sugar industries against foreign devices of disguising semi-refined sugar crystals as raw materal, — and speedily increase our commerce with remote sugar producin countries. More radical changes in the sugar tariff:' may safely be postpone- until, in connection with other important commercial, industn-j and revenue interests, such can properly be adjusted in the gen* tariff" revision now demanded hy our commercial and industrial vancement. Before working into the hands of interested " free traders, who mistakingly or purposely would plague and hinder the vancement of our industries and laboring classes, — by radical ductions of duties on imports. Congress should relieve the pec le from direct taxation, still perched upon the Escutcheon of O'lr Union, like some fowl bird of pre3^ Consuming as we do annually nine-tenths {j\) of our own aggre- gate productions, we can only export one-tenth (Jo) ; 'instead of having a surplus, there is a constantly increasing foreign demand for our productions ; the American people are in no mood to take free-trade lessons from England, which country collects relatively more revenue from tobacco than this country collects on sugar, and has, for example, been badly bitten by France while attempting to deal in duty-free sugars. Common sense and experience in the matter of coffee and tea teaches that any radical reduction of duty on sugar will at once be offset by enhanced prices of raw material abroad and increased profits to dealers at home, while consumers would gain nothing by such legislation. Enable the Government to first collect the full revenue from sugar by the following amendment, then a reasonable and permanent reduction of duty thereon can be made by Congress understandingly : Amendment: All sugars not above No. 10 D. S. in color, testing 92 degrees and above in the polariscope, shall pay duty as above No. 10 and not above No, 13 D. S. in color, and duty shall be levied on sugar by testing the cargo samples thereof as drawn from the cargo, including moisture therein contained, Henry A. Brown, Saxonville, Mass. N. B. — Recognizing with pleasure the valuable assistance cur- rently afforded me by correspondents and officials in foreign sugar- producing countries and in this country, to each of whom this pamphlet will be sent, I avail myself of this opportunity to convey to them my thanks. Henry A. Brown. y«? I •M' a!a 001120^^^ 7