A PROJECTOR'S BUDGET FOR 1857.

AMONG the various articles of food imported into this country, what the Americans call " breadstuffs may be placed at the head of the list, and next in importance comes sugar. Compared with other countries, Great Britain is the best customer to the sugar-producers by whom the world-market is supplied. The Frenchman, who consumes so much " eau sueree ' and who al- ways pockets the small surplus which remains after sweetening his cup in the café, does not after all take much more than an average of six pounds per annum. The Englishman, notwith- standing his large consumption of animal food, is not content with an average of less than twenty-eight pounds. The people of the United States consume a larger quantity of sugar in proportion to their numbers than we do, but nearly one-half of their consump- tion is produced at home ; so that they do not rank with us as customers for that commodity. During the last three years their consumption of foreign and domestic sugar has been respectively as follows.

Years. Foreign. Domestic. Total.

1853 pounds 446,000,000 pounds 493,000,000 pounds 939,000,000 1854 403,000,000 382,000,000 .... 785,000,000

1855 .... 440,000,000 .... 263,000,000 .... 703,000,000 These figures, which I take from a recent number of the New Orleans Crescent, are said to be compiled from official returns. If correct, they show a very remarkable decline in consumption, during the very period in which a large increase was going for- ward in this country. Taking the same three years as I have given in the above table, in each case, ending on June 30, the entries for home consumption in Great Britain were—

Years. Hundredweights.

1853 1864 7,552,362

7,981,175

1855 8,847,122

While the aggregate consumption of the United States had fallen 236,000,000 pounds, that of Great Britain had risen nearly 150,000,000 pounds. Were the comparison brought down to the middle of the present year, it would not present so favour- able a return ; the entries for last year, owing to the increase of duty and the increased price of sugar, having fallen back to 7,736,635 hundredweight, little more than they were four years ago. I am unable to give the American returns for this year, as they are not yet published. Before stating what reduction ought to take place in the Sugar-duties, and what the effect of that change is likely to be, I must lake a glance at the way in which this important ar- ticle of food has been made the subject of taxation from the reign of Charles the Second, who was content with a duty of 3s. 5d., down to the hard times of Pitt and George the Third, when it rose to 30s. per hundredweight on British Plantation and 40s. on East India sugar.

Taking the eighteenth century alone, the progressive increase in the consumption of sugar during those hundred years, may be received as a highly satisfactory proof of a considerable improve- ment in the condition of the people of Great Britain. In 1700 the total quantity taken for consumption was 22,000,000 pounds, about three pounds to each individual. In half a century later it had risen to 120,000,000 pounds, an increase of more than 500 per cent. For the next twenty or thirty years the same rate of increase con- tinued, notwithstanding a gradual advance of the duty from 38. 5d. to 6s. 8d. In 1800, even with a duty of 20s. per hundred- weight, the average consumption in Great Britain, according to Mr. Porter, was no less than 34 pounds per head per annum ; showing an increase of 1000 per cent over that of 1700. That, however, was the culminating point in the history of the sugar- trade, at least so far as regards the quantity taken for consump- tion. What with increase of duty, falling off in the supply, and consequent advance of price, the average fell to less than two- thirds of what it was per head at the beginning of this century. At one time it was little more than a half. Many persons con- tend that the reduction of the Sugar-duties to the point at which they stood in 1854, previous to the addition of the war-tax, was quite as far as relief could be granted without material injury to the revenue. This opinion, however, is not well supported by the history of the sugar trade, which furnishes abundant evidence of the tendency of consumption to increase rapidly under the influ- ence of cheapness. There can be no doubt that the lowering and equalizing of the duties would relieve the consumer to the extent of the reduction, and at the same time give such a stimulus to pro- duction all over the world as would very soon lower the price of Buconsiderably. tte Sugar-duties, as finally arranged to take place after the 5th July 1854, were—

Refined, per hundredweight 16s. White clayed 14s. Brown cloyed, not equal to white clayed 12s. Not equal to brown clayed 118.

In order to meet a portion of the war expenditure, these were afterwards raised respectively, dating from 21st April 1855, to 20s., 178., 158., and 13s. 9d. Many ingenious reasons have been Fiven at various times in favour of our present system of discriminating duties, but the general opinion is, that so far as the West Indies are concerned, they act as a bounty on slovenliness, and a tax on skill and en- terprise, while they supply an admirably-contrived apparatus to our Customhouse officials, by which they can bring the pressure of their power to bear upon the sugar-trade in a very galling and vexatious manner. I could easily give illustrations of the way in which the discriminating duties are made to act as an obstruction

to trade ; but that will, no doubt, be done on a large scale when the question comes before Parliament.

In place of the present cumbrous and mischievous system of discriminating duties, I would recommend a uniform tax of 6s. per hundredweight on all descriptions of sugar. Compared with the present scale, this would be an immense reduction on refined, which now pays 20s. The immediate loss to the revenue, how- ever, would not be so great as might be supposed at first sight. Out of the 7,736,635 hundredweight taken for consumption during the year ended 30th June 1856, only 310,820 hundred- weight was refined ; less than a twenty-fourth part of the total amount. The effect of the change would be to give an immense stimulus to the manufacture of sugar. In our own colonies es- pecially the abolition of the discriminating duties would be hailed as a Fre,at boon. The planters would then have every inducement to bring the improvements of science to bear on the cultivation of the cane and the manufacture of sugar ; and if accompanied with judicious measures for the supply of labour, the colonists might reasonably hope to partake of the prosperity enjoyed by the mother-country.

The mischievous tendency of the present system of ad ,valorem duties was placed in very strong light by Sir Henry Barkly. In a despatch which he addressed to the Duke of Newcastle, a few years ago, explanatory of the measures which had been taken by the sugar-growers of Demerara, under his government, for im- proving the quality of the produce, he says-

" The discouragement which the existing arrangement of duties offers to an improved system of manufacture will be best conceived from the follow- ing facts : first, the process of spoiling sugar—when it seems better than would be likely to pass the lowest standard—is not of unfrequent occurrence on estates where the vacuum-pan is used ; second, that a gentleman in charge of an estate, on which vast expense has been incurred for steam- elatifiers, bag and charcoal filters, vacuum-pans, and pneumatic pumps, assured me that for a further trifling outlay of about 100/. he could, were it not for the quasi prohibitive duty, ship the whole of his crop (1000 tons) of a quality equal to refined sugar, though made, bona fide, by a single process from the raw material."

When that despatch was written, the abolition of discrimi- nating duties upon sugar was viewed favourably by the Board of Trade ; at least I should infer so from the very strong expression employed by Mr. Tennent, in a letter to Mr. Merivale, that " to strike with a superior duty one pound of sugar which by a better mode' of manufacture contains more saccharine matter than another pound obtained from the same raw material, is to inflict direct discouragement upon improvement." Whether any new light has been thrown upon the subject since this very strong condemnation of the ad valorem duties was uttered, is more than I have been able to discover. If there has, we shall hear of it next session, when it is expected that the question will be brought under discussion with a view to its final settlement.

I have said nothing regarding the increase of consumption which may be expected to take place from the substitution of a moderate uniform duty on sugar in place of the present compli- cated scale. That I reserve for my concluding article ; in which I shall explain how the revenue may be made to meet the annual expenditure, during these reductions, without injury to the na- tional credit.