The Westminster Gazette has a fairly strong stomach as a
rule, and will swallow almost anything done by its party without protest, but Mr. Lloyd George's speech was a little too much for it. Even its favourite statesman could not escape without a rebuke. Accordingly in its issue of Wednesday it makes a protest against Mr. Lloyd George's action, and plaintively suggests that if the sugar industry is to be helped by a State contribution "the way to do that is not by the abandonment of Free Trade principles," but by some system of bounties through the Development Commissioners. [The Development Commissioners, of course, only spend the taxpayers' money, and therefore any contribution of theirs will be a State bounty and nothing more.] We agree. We have always held that if State aid is to be given to an industry it is very much better that it should be given by means of a bouiity than by a tariff. In the case of bounties you not only know exactly what you spend, but the tendency is to reduce prices for the consumer and not to increase them.
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