The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-04-03 00:00:00

WHY LOAF SUGAR IS SO CHEAP.

(From the Daily News.)

Of the thousands of British householders who rejoice
in the low price of sugar are there many who have
inquired into the cause of its cheapness? At the
present time our grocers are selling an admirable
white, sparkling loaf sugar for fourpence per pound,
and it must be presumed making a profit on the trans-
action. The explanation of this fact which most
readily occurs is, of course, that the sugar duties
have been repealed. Mr. 'Lowe made their main-
tenance impossible by. the reductions he effected in
1873, and in the following year Sir Stafford Northcote
finished the work, and swept the tax away. This is,
indeed, a part of the story, but not the whole. It
is, we believe, among the "things not generally
known," that loaf sugar is so cheap because we have
all a great benefactor who will not let us pay the full
value of the commodity, but insists on coming forward
and making our bargains easy by advancing part of
the purchase-money to us out of his own purse. If any
consumer alleges that he cannot remember having re-
ceived any such assistance' let him have patience, and
we will convince him that he has received it, and that
he receives it still. The generous friend who acts in
this munificent manner is our excellent neighbour and
ally, France, and the payment is made in the form of
a heavy bounty on the export of refined sugar from
that country. The payment is not a new one, but
has been made in various degrees for thirteen
years, although, owing to special circumstances, its
amount has of late been considerably increased. We
have said that probably few Englishmen are aware of
what they owe'to France on this account; it may be
added with more confidence that still fewer French-
men know how liberally they are behaving towards
us. The artisan at Belleville and the peasant of
Brittany would doubtless be surprised to hear that a
portion of the taxes they pay is spent in sweeten-
mc the tea on English tables. If the-authors or ad-
vocates of these bounties were called on to defend them
before a French audience they would energetically
disclaim any partiality for English interests, and
explain that bounties on the export of refined sugar
are paid, not for our sake, but in order to encourage
the French manufacture. Englishmen on their part
may remind dissatisfied Frenchmen that they have
never asked for this remarkable gift, and do not want
outdoor relief in any form, least of all at the cost of
taxpayers so hardly pressed as are those of France.
although, so long as the present system of bounties is
maintained in that country, they cannot help the re-
duction in the price of sugar which it was intended to
bring about.

It-is proverbially ungracious to "look a gift horse
in the mouth," but there are other parties than the
French producer and the British consumer who claim
to be heard on this question. The sugar refiners of
this country, a small but wealthy and energetic class
of manufacturers, allege that they are most un-
justly affected by the system pursued in France.
They declare that the payment of a bounty on the
export of French sugar threatens to extinguish
their industry. They are ready to compete with
the French refiner in a fair field, but they can-
not make sugar to sell it at the price to which
the payment of a bounty out of the French taxes
enables their rivals to sell it in the market of the
world. To meet the foreign Producer is one thing; to
contend with him with the Treasury of a great nation
at his back is another. In these circumstances what
is to be done. The English refiners say that the
best thing would be to put an end to the payment
of bounties in France, but that they have little hope
of that remedy. A Commission of the Supreme
Council of Commerce has been sitting at Paris for
a long time, and has just presented a report, toge-
ther with resolutions to be proposed to the Assembly,
and in these the maintenance of the bounty is contem-
plated. The English refiners, therefore, present an
alternative proposal. Diplomatic means having been
tried and failed, our Government must take another
course. It is, we are told, a matter of life and death
to those interested to procure some means of com-
pelling France to do what neither solemn treaty
engagements nor repeated promises haye secured.
But, lest this consideration should not move our
Government, we are told that "it is for the interest
of us all" that the payment of these bounties on the
export of French sugar should be stopped. The
only course, we are assured, is to "counterbalance
this disturbance of the natural and free course of
trade by placing a duty on the import of the article
exactly equivalent to the bounty which it receives,"
and which in this case can be accurately determined.
This proposal, which we understand is to be urged on
the attention of Lord Derby and Sir Staffofd North.
cote shortly after Easter' is at any rate intelligible.
Its authors assume that they will have proved their
case and established a right to the measure they de-
mand if they can show that "the interests involved
are of sufficient magnitude." They will have no
difficulty in showing that theirs is a great indus-
try. The British refiners pass through their
factories in the course of a year about 650,000
tons of sugar, the value of which in its raw state
ranges according to the price of the day from fifteen
to twenty millions sterling. The number of hands
required to deal with this vast material is of course
very large, and we are told that the fixed capital
invested in the British refineries amounts to several
millions. Then behind the refiners is another class of
sufferers—the producers and importers of the raw
sugar by which their factories are supplied, for a
depreciation in the value of the manufactured article
involves a fall in price of the raw material from which
it is produced. More than one-third of all the saw
sugar brought into this country comes from the
British West Indies and Guiana, British India and
Mauritius ; and last year the quantity of sugar imported
from those possessions amounted to 242,232 tons, valued
at £5,381,801. If we like to carry the inquiry further
we may consider the interests of the colonial landed
proprietors and of the makers of the British machinery
employed in the manufacture of sugar in the colonies.
But it is unnecessary : no one doubts that the colonial
and British interests involved in the production and
manufacture of sugar are large and important.
After making this admission, however, we feel bound
to warn the sugar refiners that their appeal is one that
cannot be admitted. The fallacious policy of the
French Government has placed them in a difficult
position, and their case is one in which every manu-
facturer will sympathise. But we can hardly suppose
that they have considered their demand in all its
aspects. They want Parliament to legislate in favour
of a particular commercial interest, and to legislate to
make dearer an article of general consumption which
they think is too cheap. It is astonishing that any
body of Englishmen should be found to believe that
such proposals can be entertained at this time of
day. Parliament cannot make laws against the con-
sumer or against cheapness. How far would even our
sugar refiners be prepared to carry their principle?
Their argument assumes, just as that of the Protec-
tionists of thirty years ago did, that trades and manu-
factures and the interests founded on them are ends,
not means, and, to be logical they should be pre-
pared to contend that if the French should offer
us their sugar for nothing Parliament ought to
impose on it an import duty equal to its total
value. It is quite true that the policy pursued
hitherto by the French Government is false and
mistaken, but so were the fiscal and commer-
cial systems of most Governments when this
country adopted the policy of Free Trade and
resolved not to adjust its import duties to the errors of
its neighbours but to abide by its own well-considered
principle's. Before the sugar refiners can ask for the
imposition of an import duty on French sugar to
-countervail the bounty on its exportation they must
show what will beivery difficult—that we are in danger
of being ruined by the low prices at which we can buy
what we want. This is a view which our Government
deliberately renounced many years ago. Any vendor,
whether a shopkeeper or a nation, who instead of selling
his goods at a profit pays the customer to take them will
ruin himself if he goes on long enough ; but he will not
ruin his customer. We have nothing to do with
the reasons, be they good or bad, which induce the
French to let us have their sugar at a lower price than
it is sold for in France. It seems that there are in
that country persons who persuade themselves that it
is for the general interest to send us sugar for less than
it costs, and that these persons occasionally have the
making of the laws. We may smile at the absurdity,
but we had better not refuse to profit by it, for any
attempt to decline the advantages thrust upon us
would only the more convince its authors that the
bounties on exported sugar were a source of profit to
France and of loss to us. The errors.of Frenchmen must
be corrected by Frenchmen if they can be corrected at
all. France has statesmen who know- how unjust it is
to take the money of their industrious and thrifty
countrymen and employ it in providing bounties which
perform for French products abroad the service which
protective duties render at home. France has to-day a
Government more enlightened on economical oubjects

than any it has had since the war, and it will be
strange if the diversion of public funds to the advan-
tage of particular classes of manufacture is not put an
end to. But no good can result from our attempt to
fight the Protectionists of France with their own
weapons, even if a British Government could be found
to undertake the experiment.