of the sulphur stove change the color of the juice to a pure water color. This juice is filtered again, then pumped to the condensing apparatus. It is first condensed in four large oval, perpendicular vacuum pans called "quadruple effects." Finally, it is pumped into a fifth vacuum pan, where it is concentrated till the resulting syrup shows the grain of sugar. The mass, now called "masse cuite," goes to the centrifugals and the remaining syrup expelled. The sugar is next dried in a granulator, after which it falls down a spout into a bag, which is automatically weighed and marked as a commercial package. The whole process requires

twelve hours.

In the process outlined above what is called wash syrup and blank melada are thrown off. The products until recently were regarded as waste, but by the osmose, strontium, Steffen's and other technical processes much sugar is now recovered. The net loss depends much upon the purity of the roots. Beets which assay fourteen per cent. sweetness and seventy-eight per cent. purity should yield eleven per cent. net in sugar. At Ames the Steffen's separation process is used. Besides all this machinery there are pumps, stills, waterpipes, flumes, coils, injectors, a tail-race, etc. There is also a laboratory from which every step is controlled and a record made of chemical actions. Water at the Ames factory is obtained from wells, and in the power plant are installed twelve boilers of 3,000 horse-power. The engines are 1,600 horse-power. About these works the company has built long rows of cottages for the use of their workmen. All the machinery, except the centrifugals, are German inventions, but they were made in this country. Indeed it is generally conceded that American-built sugar machinery gives the best satisfaction. It has all been brought to a high state of perfection. Perhaps the greatest need is for a process

of continuous diffusion and corbonatation. In Europe considerable quantities of alcohol and some vinegar have been made as by products at beet-sugar factories, but so far little of either has been produced in the United States.

As we examine the aspect of this question, presented from the standpoint of general economics, the following facts come rapidly into view: The world. consumes 8,600,000 tons of sugar a year; of this 5,600,000 tons are made from beet-roots and the balance. from cane and maple trees. Of this world-production, 2,219,000 tons is consumed in the United States. It is estimated that we shall manufacture this year 274,000 tons of cane sugar and 196,000 tons of beet sugar. The balance is imported, as already stated, at a cost of a hundred million dollars per annum. If this sugar were manufactured at home it would employ 100,000 factory hands and a still larger number of farm hands. It would intensify our agriculture and improve our cultural methods. It would help the tenant farmer and offer an opportunity to the man with small means. It would increase railroad traffic. It would employ domestic capital and retain the $100,000,000 at home which now goes to foreign merchants. It would stimulate inventions, encourage the education of sugar engineers and enlarge the fabrication of machinery. Surely that community is the most powerful which can do the most for itself. Surely civilized communities must act through organization. Institutions must be their organs. The higher the civilization the more complex become these institutions, because the more diversified become the needs of the people. The American Indian has few desires, therefore a few institutions will satisfy him. Now, the way to get institutions is to recognize their value, then promote them. The beet-sugar is an institution which benefits the four great elements in

political economy: land, labor, capital and transportation, and through them distribution. It stands upon all fours-“every foot upon the ground." It is the finest type of an “infant industry" developed in this country since the civil war. Shall this "infant industry" be sacrificed by annexing the island of Cuba or admitting Cuban sugar duty free? Here is an industry in which the raw material and the finished product are furnished by the same community. Shall it be blotted out to satisfy the avarice and the arrogance of refining companies?

As I write, it is announced that the price of cane sugar is reduced, in territory where beets flourish, one cent and a half per pound, this cut to be maintained only while beet-sugar factories are marketing their product. It is announced that sea-shore importers of Cuban raw sugar can pay the present duty and lay the product down in New York city at three and threequarter cents a pound. I opine that if the present duty is maintained beet sugar will be sold within the next twenty years in that great market at even a lower figure. Secretary Wilson recently said: "We have no more need to import sugar than we have to import wheat," and he was right.

LABOR UNIONS AND LABOR CONTRACTS

D. L. CEASE

The ability of labor organizations to observe the terms of a contract made with their employers has become very much of a public question within the past few months. Employers, too, are inquiring of labor committees, seeking contracts for their organizations, whether they are able to assume the responsibilities of an agreement and if the men whom they represent will abide by the conditions that are accepted by the committee. Unless the organization in question is pretty well balanced and its membership understands the obligations assumed by the making of an agreement, there is every danger that such assurance cannot be given truthfully; for, regardless of the honesty of the committee and their belief in the fairness of their constituents, sympathy at any time may cause the abrogation of the contract by the organization. The idea of the sympathetic strike has been so deeply instilled into the minds of the majority of trade unionists that with many of them the question of its supposed necessity takes precedence over the question of fair dealing with the employer.

It

To change this opinion will be a difficult matter, for workingmen have always been taught that "an injury to one is the concern of all," and this doctrine of standing together has been responsible for the greatest errors that can be charged to the labor movement. is not surprising that after all the years of following this practice of standing together, right or wrong, it is going to be a trying experience for any number of men, who have not studied the question except from their own point of view, to refrain from lending their

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assistance to their co-workers during a strike, because they feel that the life of the organization involved is at stake, and if it is destroyed the turn of all the others will follow as a consequence. That they have been wrong in their interpretation of the question must be admitted.

The late strike of the steel workers brought this question very prominently before the public, and showed the difference of opinion held by workingmen concerning the right to abrogate a contract. Some of the men stood to their agreements in direct violation of tradeunion ethics as they had been taught them. In so doing they demonstrated their integrity to their employers in the face of the unmeasured denunciation of their organization, and their position at that time was more trying to them than the average man ever will understand. The sentiment of the press and people had been with the strikers until the president of the amalgamated association demanded that the western men violate their contracts. When his demand became known the public immediately expressed its disapproval of the strike and its methods, and expressed its approval of the fairness of the men who determined to sacrifice, if necessary, the possible success of a strike for business fairness.

It may well be accepted as true that the stand taken by the men in favor of their compact had much to do with the attitude of the trust toward the association when the strike was ended. Instead of crushing it, as had been predicted, the trust expressed a willingness to resume its former business relations with the association.

The miners have undergone practically the same experience and have demonstrated their ability to remain at work in face of the protests of a part of their association which struck, believing that a sympathetic