2 APRIL 1864, Page 19

THE SUGAR DUTIES.

To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."

Sin,—Please let me reply briefly to Mr. Potter. The chief points he makes are (as I read his letter) :—(1) Sugars under the

present system are not charged with duty varying exactly with .quality or value. (2) The officers in [assessing decide by grain and colour only. (3) The present system is oppressive to all low sugars. (4) It also excludes the better sugars. (5) Our present consumption may well increase, and that a uniform duty will in- crease it I reply :-1. Sugars vary in quality and value infinitesimally. The duty, to vary exactly with the quality and value, must vary as much. The present scale is only an approximation to the mathe- matically true variations. It is doubtless open to improvement ; but a uniform duty is a step in exactly the opposite direction.

• (2.) Mr. Potter says that the customs "officers do decide entirely by grain and colour, apart from saccharine matter." Now

as "quality" is the word used, and the only word used, by the Legislature, it is clear that if they do as Mr. Potter says they do they just neglect their duty. Bat they do not do as Mr. Potter

says they do. It is within my own knowledge that during the last few weeks a parcel of sugar was carefully tested with the

saccharorneter by the officers before assessing the duty on it. I have before me as I write the three standards for the 12e.8d.

duty and the two standards for the 13s. 10d. duty. Let any stranger look at these five samples, and say how it would be pos- sible for an officer to assess sugars by them if "guided entirely by grain and colour." Sugar-refiners may not be disinterested, but they buy a large majority of all sugars imported, and they melt

all the sugar they buy ; therefore they know, if any one does, what saccharine is in the various sugars. If a refiner could only get hold of these remarkable sugars of Mr. Potter (fraudulently dark in colour, "but made strong (1) in saccharine") he would be a mil- lionaire in a twelvemonth. Mr. Potter, on this same subject, makes one observation which shows he is thoroughly "in the dark." I quote him carefully, and observe that the italics are my own. I quote him thus carefully because he has (I am sure unin- tentionally) neither quoted correctly nor italicized truly the only sentence he quotes from my previous letter. He says, "Mr. Fryer, a refiner, in his evidence admits that he has bought auger—it must have been coloured dark to come in at 13s. 10d. duty—con- taining 95 per cent, of crystallizable saccharine matter." Now, Sir, I can show you fifty (or five hundred) samples of 13s. 10d. sugar which only a blind man (and none are so blind as those that won't see) could call "dark."

3. Mr. Potter maintains (and to my mind shows conclusively) that the present system is oppressive to all 12s. 8d. sugars. Quite so ; and so thought the committee when they advised a lower rate of duty on the inferior portion of such sugars,—anything but a step towards "uniformity."

4. Mr. Potter truly says that the vast majority of sugars now imported are low. He says (so, at least, I understand him) it is because our present duties exclude the better. I say it is because, either physically or economically, it suits the producer best to send them low. And my proof (no new argument of my own, but one which I repeat here because it is one that has not been answered) is this :—Last year a vast number of tons of sugar were imported at the 13s. 10d. duty. Therefore it is fair to say all such sugar was, so far as it is concerned, imported at a uniform duty—of such sugar a mere fraction was the best possible at that duty. The bulk was almost the worst possible. Yet there was in Mincing Lane a constant difference in value (there has been for years) of Si. to 101. per ton between the best and the worst; why, therefore, was not all such sugar sent as good as possible, thus to realize an extra 81. or 10/. per ton ? Because of the duty? Nay, it was a uniform duty. I, Sir, can see no reason for it but the one I enunciated just now.

5. How a uniform duty would increase consumption Mr. Potter does not explain. I am sure I cannot. All I can say is, that its immediate working must be to comparatively exclude low sugars (the majority of sugar, that is to say) from consumption.

Finally, Mr. Potter shrewdly guesses with Mr. Cobden (therein, and therein only, agreeing with the "apostle of free trade ") that "when we have a low duty it will most certainly be uniform." Very possibly. What would be a crying injustice when duties average 15s. would be "only a very little one" when duties averaged 2s. 6d.—I sin, dear Sir, yours truly,