THE SUGAR SHORTAGE IN ENGLAND.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1717, 25 January 1905, Page 63

THE SUGAR SHORTAGE IN ENGLAND.

The leading opponents of fiscal reform are displaying a highly exaggerated cheerfulness (says the London correspondent of the Brisbane "Courier”) over ti e rise in the price of sugar, which they claim to be a remarkable proof of the soundness of their contention as to the danger of interfering with the present English tariff system. They almost whdly ignore the shortage of nearly 1,000,000 tons in the European supply and the effects of speculation on market prices. The best expert opinion tends to prove that neither the Brussels Convention nor the increase in the British duty has had much to do with the rapid advance in prices. Th->se who put the blame mainly on the Convention point out that it deprives Great Britain of the Russian supplies, and also discourages imports from Argentine; but Mr Czarnikow shows that neither of these countries has any surplus to export this year. There is a deficiency in the Russian crop of 250,000 tons, and any exportable surplus can be more profitably sent to Asia and the Levant than to England. For more than five years the imports of Britain from Russia, have been a comparatively small factor in the market. Evidence of how real the scared f of the raw material is has been given by the decision of several of the German mill-owners to close down until the ne ct crop has been harvested. As a nonproducing country, England has naturally’- suffered most from the market gambling to which the shortage has given rise. Prices are so abnormal that they may be expected to go down a little within the next few weeks, but it is generally agreed that sugar will remain dear until the middle of "next summer, or possibly a little later. In the meantime some relief may be given by a reduction in the English duty of 4s 2d per cwt. The confectioners are greatly concerned at the increase in prices, which they regard as monstrous. They had so long been able

ix> obtain sugar at something like 80 per i ent. below the oost of its production ■ hat they had come to regard this supply iLs normal and permanent. Such being iihe case, their disappointment was inevitable. It came sooner through the conclusion of the Brussels Convention than it might otherwise have come, but it yras bound to come in any case.