LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE GOVERNMENT AND THE WEST INDIAN DEMAND.
[To TER EDITOR Of TRU " SrscrATort:]
SIR,—Most people, including the West India Royal Commis- sioners, are not aware that the idea of a duty to countervail a bounty originated with the Continental Governments who give the bounties. They have always urged at the various international Conferences which have been held with the view to a Convention for the abolition of bounties, that they could only agree to the abolition of bounties if the Convention con- tained a penal clause securing them against bounty-fed com- petition. This was a perfectly reasonable, and even necessary, condition. A duty to countervail a bounty is, as the Spectator has said on a former occasion, not only consistent with Free- trade, but positively conceived in the interests of Free-trade. There is, therefore, no objection on the score of principle to agreeing to such a clause.
The rise in price which is feared as a consequence of the abolition of bounties is an imaginary bugbear. The great fall in the price of sugar took place in 1884. The average price of sugar for the thirteen years since that date has been, according to figures supplied by the Board of Trade to the Royal Commissioners, over £17 a ton for refined, and nearly £13 a ton for unrefined. That is the price at which con- fectioners and other industries dependent on sugar have flourished. No one would maintain that the abolition of bounties would raise prices above that limit. A lower price than that would be sufficient to enable the West Indian sugar industry to flourish.
Sugar can be produced in those Colonies at about £9 per ton. Beetroot-sugar cannot be produced without bounties at that figure even in Germany, and the cost is higher in the other European countries. The quantity of sugar per acre produced in the West Indies ranges from one and a half to two tons to the acre. In Europe the quantity of beetroot- sugar produced to the acre ranges from one to one and three- quarter tons. These facts show that with Free-trade the West Indies could easily hold their own. They are quite prepared to compete with all other cane-growing countries as soon as they get rid of the artificial stimulus to over- production created by bounties.
Why should we fear a cry of "Free-trade and cheap sugar" if there is no good ground for it? A very few words from Mr. Chamberlain would silence it for ever. We once had a similar cry when the agitation for a uniform duty on all kinds of sugar was got up in 1864. Five minutes of Mr. Gladstone's Budget speech was devoted to the subject, and the cry was heard no more. I have tried to be brief, but 1 think I have met all the important points in your article. If you will refer to the Spectator of August 21st, 1880, you will find, in an article headed "Free-trade and the Sugar Bounties Committee," these words in reference to the cry which you now dread :— " It seems to us that the statement which has been made that the Report of the Committee on Sugar Industries is a formal recantation of Free-trade' is quite at variance both with the facts of the case and with the whole tenor of the argument of the Committee." The writer wonders "why the discussion of how to give effect to the most perfect Free- trade, when the principle to be adopted is already settled, and the only question it how it may best be carried out, should be treated with so much heat." We poor sugar people wondered too, and have wondered ever since. But a more wonderful thing still is that the abolition of protection to foreign producers on British markets should be deprecated merely for fear of a party cry which can be so easily • ninnasked. In those days the Spectator spoke out boldly in rfavdur of Free-trade ; I hope it will do so again.—I am, Itelr; &c.,
, LA. countervailing duty might be conceived in the interests of Free-trade and yet fail in its effect. Farther discussion Lcan,,d consideration of the matter have convinced us that the ,yrjoposed interference with the course of trade even if made with the desire to obtain freer trade would be highly dangerous to the best interests of the country. What is the use of troubling about the matter when a countervailing duty would not raise the price of sugar ?—ED. Spectator.]
Previous page
