Mr. Planten to Mr.
Gresham.
New
York, October 2,
1894.
Sir: It has been brought to the knowledge of
our minister of foreign affairs at The Hague and to my notice that, on
sugar imported from the Netherlands in different parts of the United
States a duty of one-tenth of a cent additional per pound had been
levied, on the supposition that the Netherlands pay an export bounty on
sugar.
In order to remove all doubts on the subject I hereby inclose a copy of a
note handed, in September, 1891, by the chief administrator of customs
to Mr. Thayer, at that time minister of the United States at The Hague,
about our sugar laws, and containing a further explanation of a note
addressed by our minister of foreign affairs, dated August 10, 1891, to
Mr. Thayer, copy of which you will also find inclosed, the result of
which was, as you are aware, that under the McKinley law the additional
duty of one-tenth of a cent per pound was not levied on Dutch sugars,
and consequently ought not to be imposed now either under the new
tariff.
Requesting you to inform the Honorable Secretary of the Treasury of the
foregoing news of my Government, I beg you to accept the assurance of my
high consideration.
[Inclosure.]
The law of the Netherlands concerning sugar.
A manufacturer of beet sugar is at liberty to choose between the
“exercice” (a tax on sugars intended for consumption without bounty,
drawback, or refund of duties when the sugar is exported) and the
system of “prise en charge” for a fixed quantity of sugar in
proportion to the quantity and the density of the juice previous to
defecation. This “prise en charge” amounts to 1.45 or 1.40 kilograms
of refined sugar per hectoliter and degree of (density of the?)
juice, according as the defecation takes
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place before or after the end of the year.
Manufacturers are required to pay an additional tax when they
subject the juices to osmosis, or to separation by the Steffen
method.
As the cultivation of beets and the beet-sugar industry have made
decided progress, while the “prise en charge” has remained unchanged
since 1867, it follows that the actual yield of sugar exceeds the
quantity which is charged to the manufacturer (for the collection of
duty thereon) and the manufacturer receives a bounty more or less
large according to the richness of the beets used and the care taken
by him in the process of manufacture.
This advantage, the only one of the kind that is granted by law to
the sugar industry, is enjoyed by all manufactured sugar products,
and, even considering as a bounty on exportation that which is
enjoyed, together with others, by sugars intended for exportation
after or before being refined, the law takes no account of this
shade of color, the drawback on raw and bastard sugars being
calculated according to their richness, as demonstrated by analysis
(i. e., as shown by the polariscope, with the coefficients 2 for
glucose and 4 for ashes).
