THE SUGAR CONVENTION BILL.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECT■TQR:1
Sin,—Your footnote is, perhaps, a sufficient answer to Mr. Czarnikow (Spectator, August 15th); and one certainly gets tired of following the tortuous trail of the anti-bounty agitators. One of their pleas, resorted to by Mr. Chamber- lain, Mr. Gerald Balfour, and Mr. Bonar Law, as well as by your correspondent, really constitutes a rather substantial admission, however, and deserves to be more clearly stated. In the opinion of these gentlemen, "the price of sugar in the next ten years will not average higher than during the last ten years." They always go on—it is the trick of controversy —to drop the essential words out so as to suggest to the un- instruchid hearer or reader that the price of sugar will not rise at all. Now, what does a rise to the average of the last ten years actually mean ? The "Statistical Abstract" contains a useful table of "average prices" arrived at by the simple process of dividing the declared values by the quanti- ties of imports. Supplementing this table by means of the last Board of Trade figures, and taking unrefined beet-sugar as typical of the general movement, I find that the average price has fluctuated between 14-38s. in 1893 and 7-15s. last year, the average of the period being 9•96s., per hundred- weight. Taking, not the lowest point reached last year (5e. 100.), but the year's average, as a basis, a rise to the average of the past decade means a rise of 2•81s. (2s. 9id.) per hundredweight; and, supposing this to be applicable to the whole volume of imports at last year's level, this means an extra expenditure for the same quantity of 23,300,760 a year, or 233,007,600 in the course of the coming ten years. And this is the most favourable estimate of the cost of the first step in Mr. Chamberlain's campaign.—! am, Sir, &c.,
G. H. Pizniiis.
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