MR. CHAMBERLAIN AND THE WEST INDIES.
WHEN some two months ago the advocates of coun- tervailing duties on bounty-fed sugar began their campaign, and endeavoured to induce the Government to impose such duties, we ventured to predict that Ministers would find it impossible to yield to their de- mands. We felt convinced that as soon as the Cabinet came to close quarters with the question, and considered the practical aspects of the problem, they would find that the balance of good was against the imposition of coun- tervailing duties. Not only would the necessary inter- ference with our own trade and commerce present insuperable difficulties, but it was also doubtful whether the penalising of bounty-fed sugar in the English market would confer any real benefits on the West Indies. The decision arrived at by the Government, and announced by Mr. Chamberlain in a, speech to the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, directly bears out our view of the matter. 'The Government, though they mean to do what they can by means of negotiation, do not intend to propose the imposition of countervailing duties, but instead propose to help our West Indian Colonies out of their difficulties 'by direct financial assistance. Mr. Chamberlain, though he feels so strongly the distressed condition of the West Indian sugar-planters, put the matter in what seems to us an unanswerable form. Countervailing duties, he declared, would involve "a great sacrifice to a part of the people in this country." This, however, he added, would not deter him from proposing those duties if it were the only objection. But, Mr. Chamberlain pointed out, the majority of the Commissioners do not recommend countervailing duties, and, he went on, "I think Sir Henry Norman, who does, would, nevertheless, agree with his fellow-Commissioners in the doubt which they express whether that remedy would, after all, be effectual." Next, these duties might raise "questions about our most- favoured-nation clauses and the treaties with foreign Powers, upon the foundation of which moss of our foreign trade is conducted." Again, the imposition of any duty would interfere with trade and cause an expenditure on behalf of the trade altogether disproportionate to the amount of the duty. "Sugar would have to be bonded, would have to be handled, would have to be weighed, would have to be registered. The whole course of trade would be more or less disorganised, and the duty, what- ever it might be, would be very much less than the actual cost to the traders involved. But, lastly—and this, I think, is the objection which is most worthy of con- sideration—the trade which we desire to save is a trade of 260,000 tons per annum, but the importation of sugar into this country is 1,500,000 tons per annum, and it does seem rather an awkward and an unscientific way of benefiting a trade of 260,000 tons per annum by in- terfering with a trade and perhaps injuring a trade, of 1,500,000 tons per annum." Therefore, added Mr. Chamberlain, although none of these arguments are to his mind absolutely final or conclusive, yet they are deserving of the most serious consideration, and justify the Government in the conclusion at which it has arrived, "that it must exhaust every other alternative before it has recourse to so drastic a measure as this." We need not say that we agree most heartily, with every word of this statement. It appears to us that as long as the conditions stated by Mr. Chamberlain exist, and we see no likelihood of their changing, it would be the height of folly to try the dangerous and, doubtful experiment urged upon us by the advocates of countervailing duties. The. re remains over the question of how to deal with the distress prevailing in the West Indies. Mr. Chamber- lain tells us that the Government have determined on a want-in-aid, a grant which will be "very large," but still much less than "the incidental gain which the country derives from the bounties,"—about £2,000,000 a year. Mr. Chamberlain did not enter into the details of his scheme for helping our West Indian Colonies, reserving them for a statement to be made later in the House of Commons, but he inferred that his proposals would be for developing those Colonies on the lines suggested by the Royal Commission. That is the alternative which we have always favoured in lieu of countervailing duties, and we feel little doubt that Mr. Chamberlain's practical good sense, as well as commercial insight, will enable him to direct the stream of British beneficence in such a way as to really help the Colonies. Naturally enough, the first thing will be to encourage other industries besides the sugar industry in the West Indies. It is not safe for any community to de- pend solely upon one industry. Already a most promising beginning has been made in Jamaica in the cultivation of fruit, and if this and other in- dustries can be further developed immense good, social and economic, should be done to the islands. What will be the best method of achieving this end we cannot, of course, presume to say, but doubtless the subsidising of steamship lines will prove an effectual means. Roads are always the best developers of commerce, and a line of steamers is in reality a road. But though we trust that the main object will be to differentiate the industrial configuration of the West Indies, we hope that the proper cultivation and manufacture and extraction of sugar will not be forgotten. We agree with Mr. Chamberlain that a great part of our West Indian possessions are specially well adapted to the growth of sugar. We very much doubt, however, if the West Indian planters really know their business, and we should very much like to see one or two experimental and model manufactories established in which the sugar could be extracted with the maximum of chemical knowledge and technical skill. No doubt we shall be told that we are casting most monstrous aspersions on the sugar- planters of the West Indies, and we shall be reminded that the Commission did not take this view of the matter. Nevertheless, we are of opinion that the sugar industry in the West Indies is too often very ineffi.liently conducted. Here are some facts to bear out this view of the matter, taken from a little pamphlet issued by the "Confectioners' -Union," to be obtained at their offices, 150 Holborn. The pamphlet, written by the managing director of one of the great firms of jam-makers (Clarke, Nicholls, and Coombs), admittedly a statement of the case from the sugar-users' standpoint—i.e., the standpoint of those who want sugar as cheap as possible—is not a work composed with any great controversial skill, but it is full of facts of the utmost importance. The writer of the pamphlet states—we give the facts on his authority and not on our own—that in Barbadoes, "perhaps naturally the finest island under the sun for the growth of sugar, the planters for the most part persist in making it under the conditions of 200 or 300 years ago, whereby they lose 50 per cent. of the extractable sugar in the cane, and in addition produce a sugar worth .22 to £3 per ton less than sugar produced by an improved system." He goes on to say that it is "further shown in the evidence, [i.e., the evidence ten. dered to the Commission,—App., c. i., 125 and 130] that while it takes '16 tons of cane to make 1 ton of sugar in St. Kitts ; 13t tons of cane to make 1 ton of sugar in Antigua; it takes but 10 tons of cane to make I ton of sugar in Egypt; 9 tons of cane to make 1 ton of sugar in Queensland ; and but 8 tons of cane to make 1 ton of sugar in Hawaii ' ; yet, incredible to say, the Egyptian and Queensland sugars are worth £3 per ton more in the market than the Antigua article. To put it in another way—St. Kitts, which naturally can produce sugar as cheap as any other country, owing to backward cultivation and manufacture yields apparently about 1 ton of sugar per acre, to the 4 tons yielded by Hawaii, and the 5 tons per acre yielded by Cuba and Java. Yet, we are told by one of the planters that if Antigua had proper central factories, it could produce sugar at £8 per ton in ordinary seasons (App., c. iii., 204), and in fact cheaper than any other country." Again, we are told that Java and Cuba can now produce sugar at £6 per ton. The way in which the Java planters have held their own in spite of bounties is most remarkable. We gather from another source (The Sugar Cane), supplied to us by a correspondent, that " the Java planters, though heavily weighted by the low prices lately current, and by the occurrence of a new disease which has done extensive damage, continue to hold their own, being greatly assisted by the capital chemical control of their factories Rol the valuable information supplied by their experiment stations. Every possible advantage is secured to them in this manner, and their enviable position is mainly due to their intelligent utilisation of all the hints that agricultural and chemical science are continually affording them." These facts show that sugar can be grown at a. profit in spite of bounties, and also that the West Indies, or at any rate a section of them, have not marched with the times. Clearly, then, some of the grant-in-aid might and should be spent in teaching the West Indian planters how to make use of Java methods. Great care, however, must be taken that none of it should go to keeping the older and un- improved methods in existence. Some, too, will of course go in the creation of a cane-growing peasant proprietary. At present, unless we are mistaken, the sugar-maker is also the sugar-grower. It would be far better if the factory-owner had nothing to do with the growing, but bought the cane from black peasant growers and concen- trated his energies on the chemical and mechanical pro- cesses under which extraction can best be carried on.
Before we leave the subject of sugar, it is interest- ing to note that the decision of the Government not to impose countervailing duties is supported by the results of State-aided sugar-growing in the French West Indian Islands. "If any one," says the pamph- let from which we have just quoted, "will take the trouble to read French newspapers treating on the sugar industry, be will find them full of the continual wailing of the French colonial sugar-growers calling for more and more concessions. And French colonists have precisely the same protection and bounty as French beet-sugar growers in France, and the absurd &laze de distance besides, and yet they are not happy. The produc- tion of sugar in French colonies decreased from 145,000 tons in 1885 to 110,000 tons in 1894—a greater decrease than in our Colonies." Here, then, are West Indian planters who have not only countervailing duties to help them, but something much stronger—i.e., actual bounties—and yet they do not flourish. Surely this is a proof that what the West Indies is suffering from is not bounty-fed competition, but something deeper and more potent,—namely, inefficiency in the matter of production. We remember well how some fifteen years ago Bradford was said to be a ruined city. It was asserted that owing to " unfair " foreign competition Bradford was doomed unless she was placed on an equality with her rivals by a little alteration in our fiscal system. That little alteration was not made. But Bradford did not die. Instead, she put her house in order, adapted herself to the new conditions, and is now one of the most flourishing places in England. No doubt many of the Brad- ford people now believe that it was a change in fashion that helped them, but in reality it was their own energy. The history of Bradford may serve as a parable to the West Indies. If they can only adapt themselves to the times in which they live, and forget the old days when England was their "tied house," they may yet play a great part in the world. We are quite willing, however, that England should help them to put their house in order, and we shall therefore view with satisfaction any well-devised scheme for developing the resources and restoring the tone of our oldest Colonies.
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