Though he does at present not propose to have recourse
to countervailing bounties, Mr. Chamberlain, we are sorry to say, harked back to the old controversy as to whether counter- vailing duties are, or are not, contrary to Free-trade. He believes that the "authors of Free-trade" would allow countervailing duties to stop bounties. We do not care an atom whether Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright would or would not have allowed countervailing duties, and we consider not they, but common-sense and right reason to be the authors of Free-trade. The real question is whether there is sufficient reason for revoking the sound principle that, with the exceptions necessary for Revenue purposes, all men may come and sell non-injurious goods in our markets without the let and hindrance of certificates of origin and Consular declaration; or any of the other oppressive engines borrowed from Protection. Mr. Chamberlain noted the really astonishing fact to which we have several times drawn our readers' attention. If the Brussels Conference had proved a success, and if the bounties had been abolished, that abolition would actually have inflicted a severe blow on West Indian sugar. As non-bounty-fed that sugar now gets a very considerable preference in the markets of the United States. Abolish the bounties, and it will have no such preference. Though we differ so profoundly with Mr. Chamberlain on the economic issues involved in countervailing duties, we may congratulate him most heartily on the general spirit of his speech. It is profoundly satisfactory to have at last a Colonial Secretary who believes in the Empire, and who puts his heart into his work.
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