, 1880-09-04

sugar exported, but this contention has disap.
peareG in the crucible of 8 Parliamentary
inquiry, and the bounty has been shown not to
exceed Is. Cd. per cwt. Such a bounty is too
small to have any effect on refining in this
country for the home market; but whatever
its effect may he, the new Bill, it is plain, will
practically destroy it. 1t reduces the duty, 10
round figures, from sos. to lis. Sd. per cwt.;
and, as he bounty is obtained by SO much
excess sugar passing into France duty free,
the reduction of duty will practically involve
o proportionate reduction of the bounty. From
Is. Cd. per cwt.. which IL the outside estimate
it will practically be reduced by this means
alone to less than 1s. per cwt. Other provl-
sions of the Bill will still further limit the
bounty. The legal estimate Of the yield of
raw sugar is to be raised in such a way that
the excess yield will itself be diminished by
one-half. The bounty then will not even be
Is. but probably 3d., or less, at the very most
"a SUN which is p~alpably insufficient to
enable the French reiner to compete in our
home markets. as he has a difference of nearly
three times that amount in cost of transit and
other charges against him. All this, besides,
is on the superstition that the bounty is a pure
gain to the French refner, whereas the fact is
that sugar-making is diverted from its natural
PENSNSo ~ OioN SltO hAh " N'tNO'
for his manipulation, and the cost of this
diversion must count for some thing. For all
practical purposes, then, the new Bill may be the
complete destruction of the French bounty.
Nothing will be left which orght to damage
our ~refners in the home market, and there will
ne nothing consequently to countervail. We
may congratulate Parliament, therefore, on the
disappearance to a large extent Of the main
o"use of the Sugar Industries Committee.
Before that Committee reports this Bill will be
before them as an Act, and Parliament will
hardly have risen when French refining will be
carried on under the new system.
All is we'll that ends well. That the agita-
tion fails is subject for congratulation, what
ever may he the cause. But it is not credita-
BILE to Parliament, or our system of government
by party, that the agitation has gone so far
and that both sides have shared in the hypOcri-
sy of appointing a select committee of inquiry.
AS they might have anticipated beforeb and
from a long experience Of proteotionist de-
mandS, the agitators have had no case even
as regards the subject of their complaints.
The distress in the sugar trade is found to
have been no greater than in many others,
much less than in coal, iron, cotton, and agri-
culture, which are all of infinitely greater i'm
p0rtance and that distress, such as it is, has
not bean shown TO be exclusively, or even
largely, due to the b~ounties. On the contrary
the facts come out that the business Of refining
10 the United Kingdom has been extending,
and If there is distress it is du to the excess
OF capital in the trade and TO the progress Of
science, which has caus ed new and improved
refneries to be substituted for the old, to the
prejudice of the weaker manufacturers. The
business of growing cane sugar has also bsen
extending 10 the Ease of the bounties on beet,
and, although there is quite a chorus from the
West Indies AID else where that the planter
is being ruined, yet the cry of "wolf" has been
heard so often in times past that We may we'll
be deaf to 1t until we see some Indications of
statistical evidence to prove it.. A result like
this, as We have said, might have been surmis-
ed beforehand, aud the party leaders on both
sides were most ill.advised in anticipating any
other conclusion, especially as no such conclu-
sion could have led to any action 10 pursuance
of it. The objections 10 a countervailing duty
are, indeed, manifold. It is to protect the home
trade against Interference by foreign bounties {;
hut other nome trades are interfered with as
we'll az sugar., and the claims for interference
would soon be endless. The question would
also arise why the manufacturer for the nome
market is alone to be protected. The manu-
~facturer for foreign countries would be certain
to point out that the protective duties which
foreign countries impose are az much an injury
to him as the bOunties are to bic neighbours,
and be would be satisfied by no nice distinc-
tions demonstrating that protection to him was
inconsistent with free trade aud protection to
bis neighbour was not. When the matter is ex-
nuniDob q ;l;nD Irfu o0afrof a for.i~n