AGRICULTURE: Gang-Up jn the Lobby

Mixed with either potash or Congressmen, sugar is a potent explosive. This week the annual Congressional blowoff made all Good Neighbobs wince and hold their ears.

Good Neighbobs want to continue the quotas of the 1937 Sugar Act—which permits Cuba to supply 29% of U.S. demand, domestic beet growers 23%, the Philippines 15%, Hawaii 14%, Puerto Rico 12%, domestic cane growers 6%.

Instead the House this week rushed through a bill which is a sugar lobbyist’s dreamboat. Often the various U.S. interests (beet growers, cane growers, Eastern refiners) snipe at each other as well as the public weal in the running fight over raw-sugar quotas. But this year they ganged up solidly on their offshore rivals. Their weapon: the House bill, introduced by South Carolina’s Hampton P. Fulmer, and a companion Senate bill introduced by beet-growing Wyoming’s Joseph C. O’Mahoney.

These bills would shift the quota percentages to give the uneconomic U.S. beet growers 65,000 more tons a year, cane growers 17,000 more tons. Cuba’s quota would be cut 50,000 tons, the Philippine quota by 27,000 tons; Puerto Rico and Hawaii would suffer minor curtailments.

For the benefit of U.S. refiners, Cuba’s quota of refined sugar would also be cut —from 375,000 to 300,000 tons.

Also in the bills is a mysterious gimmick which redefines the dividing line between liquid sugar, which comes under quotas, and edible molasses, which does not. Effect of this highly technical clause would be to classify molasses as liquid sugar, thereby putting an end to molasses imports from the British West Indies, which now supply nearly half of U.S. demand.

For the Administration this sugar lobby steal would have bitter consequences. It would sabotage U.S. reciprocal trade treaties with Cuba and Britain. It would offend Hawaii and the Philippines.

Yet the House passed the Fulmer bill without blushing or even drawing a deep breath. The House Agriculture Committee had reported it without holding hearings. The vote was taken after only a few minutes of debate. Texas Congressman Richard M. Kleberg read a letter from Secretary of State Cordell Hull blasting the scheme. Puerto Rico’s Commissioner Bolívar Pagá read a letter from President Roosevelt strongly implying opposition. The House ignored them (134-to-32). Snorted angry Richard Kleberg: “A sellout against the wishes of 130,000,000 people.” All Good Neighbors could hope for was better consideration in the Senate.