It should be noted that there is far more child labor in garden areas. cotton fields. and other branches of agriculture than in the beetsugar industry. (c) We come now to the crowning insult to the beetsugar industry. the charge that it is inefficient and uneconomic and marginal and a hothouse industry. That we have a tariff is true. and the industry has been built up under protection. but it requires protection only because it is called upon to compete with the lowwage labor of the Tropics. where the standard of living is so low that it would shock the most hardboiled and least socialminded if once it was seen by our people. It is true that if our farmers and contract laborers are to live on the American standard of living we must have protection. unless we can show the governing bodies of the islands in the Tropics with whom we compete that. they must raise their standards of living in line with ours or keep out of our market. Put on an equal basis as to labor costs. it is a fact that the cost of producing beet sugar in the United States is less than cane sugar in the Tropics. It is a fact that the cost of producing beet sugar is now as low as the costs for cane sugar in Hawaii and Puerto Rico. and the only reason Cuba sells at a lower price (and the only reason for a tariff against Cuba) is because of the starvation wages. low standards of living. and actual selling far below minimum cost of production even in Cuba (in order to claim an everincreasing share of this market).
Identified stereotypes
Low wage labor in the Tropics leads to a low standard of living.