The Hon. Wm. Wilson, of the committee of Congress investigating trusts in 1888, and the framer of the tariff bill of 1893, in a public communication quoted figures showing that this Trust had a surplus of $10,000,000 at the end of 1888, after paying its 10 per cent. dividend. The profits for the next five and a half months were $13,000,000. This surplus of one year and net profits of less than half a year together amount to $23,000,000, nearly half the then nominal capital, and several times more than the real value of all the concerns, as given above. These profits so conservative a paper as the New York _Daily Commercial Bulletin_ called "plunder," and it reaffirmed that epithet when called to account. Stock was issued for this "fabulous valuation" of $50,000,000, put on this $7,000,000 of original value, and was made one of the specialties of the stock market. "There has been an enormous and widespread speculation in the certificates of the trust," says the report of the New York Senate. "It was plainly one of the chief purposes of the trust to provide for the issue of these certificates, affording thereby an opportunity for great speculation in them, obviously to the advantage of the persons managing the trust. The issue of $50,000,000 certificates was amply sufficient for a speculation of many hundreds of millions of dollars."[31] Since this investigation by the New York Legislature, the Sugar Trust has been reorganized into a single corporation. The capital of this is $75,000,000, all "water," since the value of the plants is fully covered by the bonds to the amount of $10,000,000. The actual value of the refineries in the Trust, excluding those which have been closed or dismantled, was investigated by the New York _World_, January 8, 1894, and put at $7,740,000. On this actual value of $7,740,000 in operation the Trust paid in regular and extra dividends in 1893 no less than $10,875,000, and acknowledged that there was in addition a surplus of $5,000,000 in the treasury. This was in addition to the interest on the $10,000,000 of bonds.