For many a week, reports had sifted through that 1929 would see the lifting of Cuban restrictions on production of sugar cane. Producers had made calculations, had figured that Cuba's sugar crop, now over 4,000,000 tons, without restriction would reach 4,500,000, perhaps 5,000,000. Yet U. S. sugar men frowned, last week, when the conservative Journal of Commerce (N. Y.) reported the word "determined" as issuing from the Presidential mouth of Cuba's Gen. Gerardo Machado y Morales. Still frowning, sugarmen considered an appeal to Congress to boost tariff rates, another appeal to Cuban producers to conclude a "Gentleman's Agreement."
It would have been permissible for sugarmen to frown, last week, at nearly every piece of news which concerned their industry. Profound is the depression in the sugar business. Raw sugar has fallen from 5.09¢ a pound in Jan., 1927, to 1.91¢ last fortnight, the lowest price on record. Over the same period, refined sugar has slipped from 6.36¢ a pound to 5.10¢ , last week's figure.
It was natural, therefore, that sugarmen should look forward to 1929 with misgivings. Facing the certainty of huge Javanese production, the probability of an unlimited Cuban supply, sugarmen saw little reason to hope for high price levels. They could cling to no solid, saving spar. But they could clutch, if they liked, at either of two straws:
First Straw. As everyone knows, cane sugar producers in Louisiana must fight diseases, blights. Untiringly, U. S. government experts have sought hardier, sturdier varieties of cane. And last week the Department of Agriculture announced results of an 11,100-mile tour of exploration through Papua and New Guinea, by air plane, canoe, foot. Explorer E. W. Brandes had discovered 167 varieties of sugar cane.
Last Straw. There are two ways of relating supply to demand. One is to cut down the supply. The other is to increase the demand. At the paternal Sugar Institute, last week, plans were on foot to assemble an army of researchers. To their official attention had been called a fact and a question. The fact : Sugar, a hydro carbon (C12H22O11) is the only organic chemical which is manufactured chemically pure on a tonnage basis. Hydrocarbons are easily broken down. Atoms of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, may be taken from them, forming new and different hydrocarbons. Possible uses of sugar are in the manufacture of shoe polish, soap, explosives, fuel, essential oils. Conceivably a vast industrial opportunity lies behind the purity of sugar. The question: Why doesn't industrial chemistry find for sugar other factories than the stomach?
Appropriately the official attention-caller was revealed as Rudolph Spreckels. As all Californians know, the fame of the sugar family Spreckels rests on sugar pioneering. And the bright, particular fame of Rudolph Spreckels emerged from the succor he gave an ailing sugar business exactly 30 years ago.
Spreckels. All Californians know the history of the Sugar Family Spreckels. Father Claus, immigrant grocery boy, had left Germany in 1848 to avoid the revolutionary fighting. By 1856, Father Claus had imported a German bride and settled in San Francisco. From this time on, he lived in a state of perpetual warfare.