THE BEET SUGAR MILLIONS
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Sia,—The Sugar Industry Enquiry Committee found that the lowest cost of producing cane sugar is from £5 to £7 per ton : of beet sugar £12 to £14 per ton. The Committee " Cannot recommend the continuance of assistance " to an industry which cannot become self-supporting, and which produces a crop which " without assistance would be value- less."
Mr. Harris in his presidential address to the Chamber of Shipping (February 28th) said : " The sugar beet subsidy has broken all British standards of decency and fair play."
It has cost our shipping a loss of from £450,000 to £500,000 in freights alone. There are, of course, other and contingent losses as well.
The amount expended in the subsidy would knock a large hole in a Is. off the Income Tax. While the subsidy commit- ments, called by various names, of the Government for the past year total another £23,000,000. No wonder no reduc- tion of Income Tax is possible. •
Meanwhile the crushing burden borne by the inarticulate middle-class taxpayer is illustrated in my case by the fact, that ever since the present Government assumed office, my house property has been assessed at so high a figure, that, except for one flat, I have had to close one house for three years : and, to avoid taxation on an income I don't possess, to keep one flat permanently vacant in the other ! Thus is Protection unjustified by her children 1—Yours faithfully, EDGAR H. S. BARNES-AUSTIN. 36 Prospect Road, Tunbridge Wells.
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