The discussion concerning the countervailing duty which it is proposed
by the sugar-refiners to put on all sugar the exportation of which is promoted by bounties, like the French bounties, does not often touch the real issue. That a countervailing duty to any exporting nation's bounty, if it could strike the right article, and the right article only, from whatever port it came, world be a Free-trade, and not a Pro- tective measure, is really beyond question. The real diffi- culty is as to the possibility of distinguishing the sugar which has paid a bounty, and putting the countervailing duty on that, and that alone. Of course you could not discriminate it merely by the port it came from. The bounty-receiving sugar would take any road needful to pro- sure it a free entrance into England. You must test it by some in- trinsic test, and, so far as we know, it would hardly be possible to effect this without doing a great injustice, by taxing a good deal of sugar which had not had the advantage of any such bounty, or else letting a good deal in without payment, which had had that advantage. This is the really knotty point of the question.
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