" J'Accuse "

The rise in sugar has become a political as well as financial sensation. Six separate government agencies are now investigating the sugar situation: the Departments of Justice, Commerce, Agriculture and Treasury, the Federal Trade Commission, the U. S. Tariff Commission. The most vigorous action so far has been the application by the first-named for an injunction against the New York Sugar Exchange. A host of local political figures are also joining in the search for the guilty parties, notably Mayor Hylan, who has urged a consumers' boycott. Several women's organizations have announced a ferocious willingness to abstain from icings on cakes and other luxuries, and promise mass meetings and other mighty events in the near future.

Many parties, first and last, are cited as responsible for the advance in sugar prices, including " the profiteers " (cf. remarks of Mayor Hylan), the Republican tariff (cf. remarks of various Democratic leaders), Mr. Hoover, the Department of Commerce, Cuban producers, the " monopoly" of sugar refiners, speculators in raw sugar on the Sugar Exchange and " supply and demand." The part in sugar's rise generally assumed to have been played by the Government has added no little heat and fury to the controversy, thereby obscuring more fundamental causes.

Meanwhile, prices for raw sugar futures have touched a new high record for this year, and the highest price since 1920, on lowered estimates for the current crop; Guma-Mejer, the Cuban authority, estimated it as low as 3,670,000 tons. Most refiners, including American Sugar Refining, Federal Sugar Refining, Arbuckle Bros., Revere, National, Warner and Pennsylvania, have not unnaturally raised their prices for refined sugar after the rise in the raw commodity.