"Saccharine"

Backed by a powerful domestic sugar-growers' lobby, the Sugar Act of 1948 was quietly ushered through Congress; until the final stages, it hardly drew a fly. But last week, just a few days before the House-approved bill was sent to the Senate,* an angry buzz was heard. Cried the Wall Street Journal: "A legal monopoly [for which] the consumer is to pay." Charged the New York Times: "A cartel! Written by the sugar industry for the sugar industry."

This belated notice of the month-old bill (TIME, July 14) had no effect on what the bill's few congressional opponents called a "saccharine blitz." It was passed. The bill extended for five years the present sales quota system for all foreign and domestic producers--but with some new discriminatory twists.

Domestic growers were unanimously pleased with it. They should have been. Their quotas were boosted a generous 20% above their average 1936-45 output. And they were promised subsidies if they were good enough to stay within their quotas. On the other hand, foreign producers in such countries as Peru got quota cuts. Though small, these cuts will put a painful crimp in their dwindling dollar balances. And Cuba, though it got an increased quota, was also saddled with a clause which, in effect, threatened revocation of her quota if she failed to settle any private claims that U.S. nationals had against her.

As sugar-growers expect a surplus in a few years, the bill tied sugar prices to the cost of living, thus extending a form of parity to sugar-growers. Sugar prices could not go down, no matter what the supply till everything else did too. Industrial users estimated that this will keep prices about 3-c- a pound higher than in an uncontrolled market. Bakers figured that it would add $30,000,000 a year to the nation's bill for cake alone.

Even worse effects will probably be felt in the realm of international trade. Said the Times: "[The bill] represents the very antithesis of the policy which the nations of the world, under the leadership of the United States, laid down at London and have been seeking to implement at Geneva." With the U.S. stand on wool (TIME, June 2) already blocking agreement at Geneva, the restrictive sugar bill was more evidence that the U.S. was all in favor of freeing world trade--as long as it did not disturb any Congressman's constituents.

*Congress also whacked $500,000 off a $710,000 appropriation for sugar rationing, causing the Department of Agriculture this week to end rationing of industrial use of sugar.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.