THE BEET SUGAR SUBSIDY
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—You rightly suggest in your issue of March 26th that the beet sugar subsidy demands a far more vigilant scrutiny than most of its critics and defenders have yet accorded to it. Although the sugar subsidy has now run in this country for nearly seven years, we have yet had no impartial review of its operation.
The voluminous report entitled " The Sugar Beet Industry at Home and Abroad " recently produced by the Ministry of Agriculture, was written, it is stated in the foreword, by two representatives of the induStry itself and a representative of the Ministry. Such a report can therefore hardly be called impartial.
The present protection given to British sugar- beet is equivalent to an ad valorem duty of nearly 200 per cent., or 12s. per cwt, as against a mere as.. 6d. per cwt. given to our sugar-producing colonies, who, although they can produce sugar from cane far more cheaply than we can from beet in this country, can hardly be expected to overcome such a weighting of the scales against them.—I am Sir, &n, 4 Suinnterlands Avenue, IT. 3. R. Usuma.
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