The primary object of government is the protection of its people. Protection is just as vital in international economic strife as it is in the struggle of warfare. It is the fundamental principle of the historic American tariff system.

The United States is a distinct aggregate of persons, possessing common government, common laws, institutions and interests, common history and destiny. Protection is a national policy, which applies equally and equitably to the North, South, East and West, to the farm as well as to the factory, and to the employe as well as to the employer. Northern interests are Southern interests, and vice versa, for we are all Americans. If not, we should be. East cannot benefit itself by stifling the West, nor the West strengthen itself by weakening the East.

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There is invested in the Cuban sugar industry about one billion dollars of American capital. Approximately the same amount is invested in the American industry, either in cane sugar of the South or in beet sugar of the West. Now, if the Western beet sugar grower is prosperous, he

will buy more American automobile tires, which contain American cotton cords and fabrics, than will be bought by the half-breed natives of Cuba. More American cotton textiles will be used by the Southern cane sugar growers, providing they are prosperous, than can be sold to benighted Egypt.

With this sort of thing in mind, Congress placed sugar on the dutiable list, for the American sugar growers could not meet the chaotic conditions of Cuba, when the crash came in 1920, which was due to hoarding and speculation. The Western sugar grower did not share proportionally in the huge war-time profits, for practically no Western sugar, through governmental regulation, was lowed East of an imaginary line drawn from Buffalo to Pittsburgh, and the highest price allowed under this restriction was 12 1-2 cents per pound.

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The after-the-war period of inflation encouraged production of all commodities until we finally found ourselves over-produced in many lines. Under such conditions, production is curtailed, and at present there is an apparent shortage in the