The largest lump of reduction provided for in the new bill came by making raw sugar free and by reducing the duty on refined sugar to one-half a cent a pound. The revenue from sugar was so great, about $55,000,000 annually in this period, that the schedule had been a favorite point of attack for years, when reduction was necessary. There were two difficulties in the way of the Republican protectionist in reducing the duty on raw sugar. The American sugar cane and American sugar beet growers under the high duty which they had been enjoying had come in 1890 to produce about one-seventh of the sugar we used. This amounted to something like 220,000 tons. Of this amount only a little over 3000 tons were made from beets and sorghum. Small as was the amount, the beet and sorghum advocates were as insistent in their demands for protection as the tin plate people. The Kansas (sorghum) and California (beet sugar) Congressmen were certain that, properly protected, these states would produce great quantities of sugar, and it is pretty certain that they were ready to fight the tin plate, wool, cotton, or any other duty if their demands were not granted. Take care of them and they would soon grow all the sugar the United States could eat, they said. Their product, small as it was, caused high protectionists like Kelley, Haskell, and McKinley to rejoice. It was proof of what they claimed—protection did diversify industry, and Kelley, at least, always carried in his pocket a sample of beet sugar raised in this country to show to the doubting. At the same time even Kelley and McKinley found it hard to defend a tax of $55,000,000 a year, to protect an industry which after a century’s experience had been able to supply no more than one-seventh of our wants. The sugar bill was really staggering when it came to be counted up for the century as one advocate of free sugar did; he estimated we had paid $1,400,000,000 in the period. To cut down this tax and at the same time to satisfy the growers, Mr. McKinley proposed that raw sugar should be free and that the sugar-growers should receive a bounty. The idea did not originate with his committee. It had been a provision of the Allison Bill to which Mr. Allison confessed he came slowly, but which he had consented to try “as an experiment.” It had been a hobby of various members for years. John Sherman had long believed in sugar bounties and had often advocated them. In 1888 Joseph Cannon of Illinois had proposed a bill providing for free sugar and bounties for growers. There were many Republicans who baulked at the idea, declaring it unconstitutional. They might not object to an indirect tax like a custom duty, being so applied as to subsidize the man’s business, but when it came to appropriating undisguisedly to this purpose funds raised by taxation they could not consent. It was a case of a distinction without a difference, however, and as they became familiar with the idea the scruples of many of them,