276 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK 
must be kept within certain defined limits. The price of refined 
sugar was advanced to meet the new price of raw sugar. A well 
known refiner gave out a statement to the trade that “this new 
price was just about right.” 
The Commission had almost unlimited funds at its disposal 
and the planters were to be furnished the requisite credit to 
enable them to withhold their crop from the market; but, despite 
all these efforts, the price of raw sugar refused to advance. Then 
the Commission attempted to devise schemes for dumping the 
surplus on the European market and agitated for a seventy-five 
per cent curtailment of the future crop. This failed quite as 
signally and the baffled Commission retired from the field. 
In the meantime, the sugar situation righted itself, and owing 
to a good demand, prices advanced and the industry again pros- 
pered. “If,” says an authority, “the Cuban Sugar Commission 
had had its way, in place of the present prosperity, the Cuban 
planter would be facing ruin and the world would be in the 
throes of a sugar famine.” 
When, however, in 1925, sugar prices again became unfavorable 
the agitation for some action to relieve the situation was renewed. 
In 1926 a legislative act was passed providing that the grinding 
of the 1926-27 crop should be delayed until Jan. 1, 1927; and it 
was finally decreed that the Cuban sugar production should be 
cut ten per cent below that of the previous year. Production was 
to be prorated and any producer turning out more than his pro 
rata share was to be fined $20.00 for each surplus bag. 
The experiment is still in progress, but its probable outcome is 
not difficult to foresee and may be briefly stated as follows: 
Disputes, charges and counter charges fill the air, each producer 
complaining that he is a victim of discrimination. The number of 
mills grinding was larger in Jan. 1927 than at the corresponding 
time a year earlier, though the output was slightly smaller. 
Weather conditions have been, for the most part, unfavorable for 
the sugar crop the world over and Cuba has not escaped. More- 
over her prospective supply has been greatly curtailed by dis- 
astrous cane fires. Many experts insisted at the time the cut was 
made, that ten per cent was too large; and later developments 
have been borne out their contention. Indeed, at the time of this 
writing, responsible experts maintain that the falling off in pro- 
duction, working with increased consumption, have created a