be curative, lay in a reaffirmance of the principles of free competition in trade, by which only, through forces naturally operating, prices of commodities could be maintained at a level fair, just and non-excessive.
There are no men so gifted with wisdom and prescience who can tell what future replacements will cost, what future taxes are to be or when levied, what strikes, what transportation difficulties, what idleness, what storms, what droughts, what earthquakes, what fires, what wars, what revolutions, what crop failures, and really what everything else is going to be.
As has been pointed out, the general tendency is to underestimate these things, just as the President of the United States underestimated them in the case of sugar.
The sugar refining industry affords a striking illustration of the uncertainties for which due allowance should be made in determining prices. A Refiner, having in mind the possible results of these uncertainties, inquired of the greatest Insurance Agency in the world what would be the rate of insurance against a decline from the high prices of its supplies of raw sugars, owned or under contract.
The correspondence is so interesting and instructive that it may prove of real value to those engaged in the effort to solve the same problems. The following are fac-similes of the letters, but with the name of the Refiner omitted:
Philadelphia, May 1, 1920.
Insurance on Raw Sugar Against Depreciation in Market Value.
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Referring to your recent inquiry for insurance to pay any loss which you might sustain during the policy period by reason of a fall in market value on raw sugar, held or contracted for by you, no loss to be payable unless such
