FALL IN SUGAR PRICES IN AMERICA.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160796, 2 November 1920, Page 7

FALL IN SUGAR PRICES IN AMERICA.

SPECULATORS’ CALCULATIONS UPSET. Steadily declining sugar prices in tho United States (says a> New York despatch of August 21) has seriously upset the calculations of speculators, who believed that Prohibition would increase tho demand for sweetened non-alcoholic beverages and .onfcAionn, and who set cut to buy up all the available supplies here and abroad regardless of cost. As a result, se/eral American sugar dealers arc facing ruin, and if prices drop much lower there will lie a rush to unload, wl ich will procipitite a crisis. Prohibition has not brought about tho expected increased demand for soft drinks and sweets, probably because liquor is still flowing freely for those who have the price, and sugar contracted for abroad at Is or more per lb is reaching a market where it is selling at fld or 9d per lb, and with expectations the price next week will decline to 7d A few months ago American housewives found it impossible to obtain sugar at any price because of artificial shortage, and they have now learned economy in the use of the staple. The groat American beet-sugar crop vill soon be available, when prices are expected to approach the pre-war level, and would-be profiteers are at their wits’ end to escape at even 25 per cent. loss.