THE SUGAR BOUNTY CONFERENCE AT BRUSSELS.
[To ma EDITOR OF THY "SPECTATOR,"] SIR,-I see in your "News of the Week" in the Spectator of June 4th you mention the appointment of Mr. Lubbock and myself as expert advisers to the British delegates at the Brussels Conference. You add that "the delegates should also have been provided with a Free-trade adviser." As every statement or argument I have ever advanced on this subject has been unassailable from the Free-trade point of view, I hope you will state definitely where I have sinned. You have kindly permitted me to explain my standpoint several times lately in your columns, and I have fortified my position by quotations from the Spectator. The points I put forward must be seriously dealt with before you can fairly assert that I am not a Free-trader.—I am, Sir, &c.,
[We do not consider a man a Free-trader if he wishes to restrict or prevent the free entry of certain goods into our markets because those goods are produced under what he con- siders unfair fiscal conditions. It is of the essence of Free- trade not to exact certificates of origin, but to open our ports on equal terms to all non-dangerous goods and all corners. Our definition of a Free-trader may of course be a bad one, but this, at any rate, is the sense in which we use the word, and think it ought to be used. We cannot pursue this controversy any further in our correspondence columns.— ED. Spectator.]
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