THE SUGAR CONVENTION BILL. [TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. "]
SIR,—A paragraph in the Spectator of August 8th about the Sugar Convention Bill contains a statement with which I agree, viz. :—" We have always challenged the wisdom of interfering with the access of sugar as of every other com- modity to these islands, and of infringing, save only for revenue purposes, the principle of the free and open market on which our commercial welfare rests."
Unfortunately, this principle has been seriously interfered with by bounties and cartels as regards sugar ; therefore your criticism of the Sugar Convention is so contrary to fact that I venture to ask for space to correct it. You state :—" The best we can hope is that the Sugar Convention will do no harm, but there seems not a little reason to fear that it will (1) make sugar dearer to consumers, (2) injure our home sugar and confectionery trades, and (3) even impair the position of certain of the West Indian islands by depriving them of the preference they now obtain in the American markets." Statement 1. The whole of the sugar experts who deal in beet and cane sugar in Mincing Lane are of opinion that the price of sugar in the next ten years will not average higher than during the last ten years, and they surely are the best source from which to obtain authoritative information on this point. Statement 2. If then sugar is no dearer, the home sugar and confectionery trades cannot be injured by the Convention. Statement 3. The West Indies have enjoyed no preference in the American market, but they have been obtaining there the Free-trade market hitherto denied to them in Free-trade England owing to the fact that bounty-fed sugar has had to drop its bounty into the United States Exchequer before entering the United States. The effect of the Convention is that the West Indies now get not only a Free-trade market in the United States, but a Free-trade market also in the United Kingdom, and have in addition, outside the Convention, a preference in Canada. I fail to see how the position of certain of our West Indian islands is im- paired.
Allow me also to refer to your leader, " Wanted : an In- dustry Ruined by Free-Trade," in which a very serious mis- statement occurs, based upon a letter from " A Sugar Merchant " in your issue of July 18th, wherein he asserts that a great deal more sugar is now refined in the United Kingdom than was the case before sugar-bounties came into force. Bounties became accentuated in the "eighties," though existing in the " sixties " ; but while in 1884 842,778 tons were refined in Great Britain, in 1897 the quantity declined to 602,000 tons, notwithstanding an increase in the consumption from 1,075,000 to 1,442,000 tons during the same period. I think these figures speak for them- selves.
[Our correspondent treats an alleged opinion of unnamed experts as a fact, and then bases an argument on it. Over such ground we do not care to follow him. He gives, we note, figures for refined sugar in 1897 but not for 1902.— ED. Spectator.]
Previous page
