SOME SUGAR PLUMS FOR CHRISTMAS.
The holiday season is close upon us. Thanksgiving Day gives the first signal for good cheer, and Christmas and New Year come rapidly after, with increasing intensity in their glee and their good things. The trade must prepare in earnest ; the largest outlays of the year must be met ; the clerks must be more active; the store must put on its best appear ince ; the stocks must be fresh and of the hes:, and as the children return from boarding schools, and kind uncles and aunts generously dispense small change to amateur cooks and candy makers, and because the main mode of observance of these days of good cheer consists of cakes, candies, pies and pastries, puddings and punches, a special demand for sugar must be expected, and the retailer must lay in an extra stock. Now, just here is where the trade gets its customary sugar plum for the holidays. Sugar goes up some seasons one cent per pound, and that means that 10 per et. more capital is required to carry the stock. The Christmas season comes and during its eon_ tinuanee an increased stock is required, and that means still more capital or an extra strain on the credit. Customers come in radiant with good will and order raisins and spices, and citron, and the grocer smiles also until the half dollars' worth of sundries is knocked down by " and ten pounds of granulated sugar." If he stops to think he mast realize that on fifty cents he made seven and a half cents, on the sugar dollar he made nothing (except a loss), and that on the total $1.50 ho has made only seven and a half cents, or jest five per cent. on his money. If he does not stop to' think he warms his heart over the profitable side of the transaction and conveniently drops the other side out of his mind.
Now, before this sugar season comes upon the trade we want to dwell on its importance, not as a season of rejoicing, hut as a sea son of sober thought. In all matters of profit or of taxation the rule has ever been that articles of luxury are the ones upon which to add the profit or the tax. This season shows us the exact re verse,for one half the sugar sold goes to make luxurious toothaches, headaches and stomach aches in the shape of sweet things ranging from the children's cakes to the egg-nog of the parents. It is a season of most general extravagance, and families who ordinarily buy sugar by the pound will take five pounds at a time. Don't put the price up this season, because the harvest is not ripe ; but think as you weigh it out, think as you tie it up, think as you enter it in your books, and think of it until you collect the account —perhaps you will be prepared to unite with the whole trade on another basis before another Christmas comes around. We pro pose to agitate the question thoroughly, and if the grocers rally around us we will finally s-cure the desired change. Nothing is more desirable than a certain, even profit on the goods a dealer sells. We grant that in a grocer's stock some variation will always
exist, but we still lipid that to start from a loss on sugars to doubled money on some trifling articles is too great a range for reasonable business. The novices in the trade are always in the clouds over the doubled money, and the established dealers are depressed to the nether regions over the low average on the entire sales, very few veterans survive the system to live comfortably in oil age. lf the existing trade do 's not reform another trade will spring up and render it unnecessary. Co operative stores will take the field here as they have done in England, and their main ground of competition will be on their refusal to touch sugars.
—The jobber proposes at least to get interest out of his invest ment in sugar. The retailer sacrifices interest on nearly half the investment in his year's purchases.
—If five hundred reliable dealers will begin July lit, 1881, to add one cent rr pound to the price of their sugars how long would it take the balance of the trade to follow suit.
—When food gets scarce in the West the saying of " Root hog, or die," has peculiar foree. Profits are now cut close by inside competition and are further threatened by the prospect of co-op erative stores. Why not start a cry of " A profit on sugars or quit." —The trade is threatened with co-operative stores; they will not sell sugar at cost The civil-service and other co-operative supply stores in England are wise enough to avoid that error.
—Sugar is an article which enjoys a general and fair demand at all times. The price has of course some effect upon it, but whether the fluctuations of price are not mainly borne by the re tailer and not by the wholesaler or his customer is a question of considerable importance to the trade. A permanent advance falls of course on the customer, but slight fluctuations are too often borne by the retail dealer who fears that if be advances too quick ly his neighbors will not go with him and his custom will be drawn away, and yet when the market deer:nee he drops at once. The wholesaler is generally wises than the retailer.
----An average family consumes half as much butter as sugar. Now, if the farmer and the market man advance butter ten cents per pound the addition to the cost of the family living is precisely the same as if the grocer added five cents per pound to the sugar. Tell your customer this and prepare his mind to pay a profit on the sugars he buys.
—We are crystallizing our sugar theories into rock candy for the holidays. We are not the first to commence the agitation of the subject. Probably it was protested against before we were born, for the error is now moss-grown in its folly. The first active protest of the grocery press came from the New England Grocer. We are like St. Paul, "born out of time," hut we do not intend to be the last in the race by a good many yards.