While fortunes were being created in the cultivation of sugar cane, orchards, orange-groves, pasturage, arable land--everything else, in short--were being either transformed or neglected, and the public generally was compelled to pay an exorbitant price for its sugar. The moment had, therefore, arrived for a reduction in the import duties, and in the price of the article. That, however, was not the view of the interested parties. "If," they said, "by any misfortune this year's harvest should prove so good as the last" a worse evil would befall. Considering that private mortgages amounted to some five million dollars and that the total indebtedness of the industry, in spite of its abnormal prosperity, was no less than twenty million, the gravity of the situation was not exaggerated. A bad harvest would be insufficient to satisfy the claims of creditors. A good harvest would cause a tremendous fall in prices and consequent disaster. It is not surprising that there was formed in 1895 the "Union Azucavera," or Sugar Trust, with the avowed object of taking over the entire production of all the refineries and determining prices for home consumption and export. Unfortunately, however, for the success of the venture, some concerns were not in the precarious state to which the majority had been reduced. By dint of better management and through other causes they still succeeded in maintaining substantial returns. These refused to enter the Trust--or Kartel more strictly--and the result was a more or less complete failure. Two combines were instituted, nevertheless, the above mentioned "Union" (in a modified form, no doubt) and a body known as the "Centro Azucarevo." These concerns devoted themselves with energy to the solution of the problem of the surplus, and, as was to be expected, the easiest seemed to be that supplied by political means, the president of the "Union" being also president of the Chamber of Deputies. So successful were their efforts that in 1897 a bounty of 12 c. per kilo was sanctioned, raised for the next year to 16 c. To pay for this bounty an Inland Revenue tax of six cents paper per kilo was declared on all sugar home or imported. As in countries nearer home, the bounty system was an attempt, a costly attempt, to market a commodity which in normal circumstances was absolutely incapable of meeting its competitors. Argentine sugar under the most favourable conditions could not, and never was expected to, compete in the open market with that of other countries. In the circumstances it must be admitted that the whole scheme was merely an organised exploitation of the public in the interests of a weak industry and certain speculative financiers. "What public interests," exclaims Mr. Pillado, "what benefit for the community could be cited to warrant a contribution from the country at large of $40,000,000 in five years as a gift to the exporters of sugar?"