SUGAR PRICES.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XI, Issue 200, 17 August 1921, Page 4

SUGAR PRICES.

A good deal of discussion has taken place at one time and another, and is not over yet, with regard to the manner iu which the New Zealand Governernment has handled the question of sugar supplies for the people of this country. Quito recently there was more than a simmering of disapproval at the proposal to enter upon a new contract with the Colonial Sugar Company. for another season, and the rapid fall in the price of Javan sugar which followed almost immediately afterwards was eagerly used to 1 point the moral and adorn the tale. As we know, the price of the Dutch East Indian product recovered almost as rapidly as it fell, so that the deduction sought to he drawn failed Uadly. Tire difficulties that beset any attempt, during the last year or two, to forecast the price of sugar is amply illustrated by the financial result of the British Government’s efforts to keep the people of the United Kingdom provided with even the scanty ration that was allowed them. This is disclosed in the recent-ly-published report of the Royal Commission on the sugar supply, which indicates that the Exchequer will have to meet, a loss upon its operations estimated at nearly 25 millions sterling. This .loss, it is to be specially noted, is not in respect, of any war period, but is referable to the period which began with the year 1920 and ended in February last, when decontrol of sugar was declared. The London “Times,” in the course of comment on the report, says that no very full verbal explanation of the causes of this loss is given, but that the reader is left to infer, from what appears elsewhere in the report, that the decline in sugar which began a little more than a year ago completely upset the anticipations of the Commissioners when they undertook their purchases in 1920, The tables given at the end of the report show that, in 1920, some 490,000 tons of Cuban raw sugar were purchased at an average price of 65s 8d per cwt., , e.i.f., as compared with 30s 4d in 1919. 1 Early this year 100,000 tons were purchased at 24s lOd. The increase in the price paid for Java raw sugar in 1920 was also very considerable; 371,000 .tons were purchased at 78s 9d per cwt., against 24s 2d in 1919. After the signing of the Armistice, prices of sugar rose steadily, and with the decontrol of the Cuban sugar crop there was a wild outburst of speculation. In May, 1920, tin' extravagant figure of 22.) cents (lljd at par of exchange) per lb., f.0.b., Cuba, was reached. By Christmas, tile price had fallen to about 4 cents (2d) per lb. Acting upon sound advice, the Commissioners, during the height of the speculative fever, restricted their purchases to a small amount. The cost of tho last 100,000 tons purchased in January this year was 2d per lb., but, as the figures.) mentioned above indicate, the Cuban ; planters got the great bulk of the money of the Commissioners before 1 the “bottom fell out of the'market.” I The “Times',” which is leading, the Northeliffo Press in a quite savage “anti-waste” campaign against tho Lloyd George Government, cannot be suspected of trying to gloze over any . shortcomings on the part of the Com-1 missioners. Yet it candidly admits, as suggested above, that the Commission- j ors were guided by the best expert advice available to them, and that the 1 Government did no worse, if no better, i than probably would have any commer- ) cial concern., that might have under- ' taken the task of assuring a moderate supply of sugar to the. people at a reasonable and uniform price. It does, I however, seize the opportunity to point I out the risks of popular censure which I every Government must run that' in peace time attempts to control tho supply and price of any imported comniodity, a thing with which most thinking people will agree.