Washington, Feb. 4 That New Deal leaders continue to view the sugar quota system as constitutional was indicated to-day by the fact that President Roosevelt did not propose the repeal of the Jones Costigan Sugar Control Act at the time that he recommended the repeal of the Colton, Tobacco and Potato Acts.
'A query at the White House elicited no explanation of the failure elude the Sugar Act in the recor mendations for repeal, but officials the Department of Agriculture called attention to a recent statement on the. subject by the Seretary Agriculture, Mr. Henry A. Wallace, on January 7, said that the sugar quotas would not be affected by the Supreme Court A.A.A. decision. In the opinion of Department experts, the status of Sugar remains unchanged.
Belief that the sugar quotas were legal was understood to-day to rest an the following circumstances:
The Jones-Costigan Act did not provide for the Imposition of "penalty" taxes; such as the Bankhead Cotton Control Act: and.
The Government has an unquestioned right to regulate commerce With foreign countries and the territories, with which most of the nation's sugar Trade Is transacted.
OMficais intimated that the Department of Agriculture had not abandoned hope that a further legal review by the Treasury may demonstrate the legality of processing taxes and benefit payments as applied to sugar. It was observed, in this connection, that the collection of the sugar processing taxes had been merely Suspended, but that action was not yet final—United Press.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.