SUGAR TRUST.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 314, 15 January 1902, Page 1

SUGAR TRUST.

LONDON, Nov. 31).—The alarming state of the sugar market is laid by British manufacturers to a great secret German trust called the “ Kartell,” which tiiey have recently discovered.

They say the German “ Kartell

and bounty combined will ruin within two years the cane and beet sugar industry in other countries, notably Cuba and the other West Indies, unless checked. The overthrow of this: “ Kartell ” will be one of the chief subjects of consideration at the Brussels conference. British firms are already in correspondence with leading American sugar interests, and tables are being drawn up to show the workings of the “ Kartell ” with a view to laying them before the Government at Washington. The British Government will be urged to empower 'its representatives at Brussels to threaten retaliatory countervailing measures unless the “ Kartell ” is broken up or modified.

Germany now produces one-third of

Die world's supply of beet sugar, of which she exports no less than 1,250,009 Lons. This exportation, almost one-fifth of the world’s available supply, would mean a loss to German manufacturers hut for the “ Kartell ” and the bounty, which will enable them not only to reap a handsome profit hut also control Ihe sugar market.

The “ Kartell ” is run secretly, but confidential re]),oris show that it consists of an ironclad combination of almost all producers and refiners to keep up the price of sugar in Germany. This is done so successfully that ihe German consumer pays three times as much for sugar as the Briton does for the same article imported from Germany. The enormous profits due to these methods are pooled in the “ Kartell ” and divided upon an elaborate, ingenious scale, and the - surplus product is disposed of at a slight loss in other European and American markets —though even this deficit is often made up by the bounty.