left these shores. He has not kept in touch | only want a fair opportunity in order with the movement of public opinion in to grow sugar as well and cheaply as regard to this very burning question. I any part of the temperate zone. It is was very much struck with the speech of absurd to think that a region with such the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, natural advantages can, if not handiwho on the strength of a telegram on capped by artificial restrictions, fail to which he based half his speech with refer succeed. Stress has been laid upon the ence to an informal conference at Brussels, fact that the West Indies only produce told the House that the Convention would a small percentage of the sugar imrender the cartel system twice as b d as ported into this country. Whose fault it was before. The fact is, that what the is that? Time was when most of our hon. and learned Gentleman referred to sugar came from the tropics, and it is was a meeting of producers, who, having entirely owing to artificial circumstances on hand something like 1,500,000 that the present proportion is so low. I tons of sugar for which they would remind the House moreover that could not get a market, were trying to beet sugar from the earliest stages of do something to raise the value of the its existence has been subject to bountycommodity of which they had such a feeding arrangements and rose to the large stock. The hon. and learned position it now occupies entirely owing Gentleman has really only found a mare's to artificial treatment It is an interestnest, which might perhaps be worthy of ing and important fact that whether in being put before a common jury. Hon. the tropics or in Europe the production Members have harped upon the sugges- of sugar per acre, whether beet or cane, is tion that this Convention is going to about the same, and the labour is pracrecreate a monopoly. If ever there was tically the same. There is, therefore, a monopoly it exists at present, and this every reason to believe that those two Convention is, in Canning's phrase, an sources of supply will continue, under effort to call in the new world to redress proper and legitimate competition, satisthe balance of the old. No cartel, syn-factorily to supply the wants of the world. dicate, or system that is capable of being It was entirely owing to the over proformed in Europe with varying tongues duction caused by the present artificial and nationalities, can be otherwise than system that prices got to the absurd and doomed to emphatic failure when the new abnormal condition of last year. It is world and the cane-producing countries quite unfair and unbusinesslike to quote are called into their proper output, It a special artificial figure, such as that of is perfectly obvious that under the Con- last year, and say that the people of vention the produce of cane would enter England, especially the working classes, vention the produce of cane would enter will criticise any action which allows into a fair competition with the cultivation of beet; and the cane growers would the important supply of sugar to be not enter into the same conference with produced under legitimate and fair cirthe beet producers. We are told that the cumstances. Speaking for my own constiprice of sugar will go up enormously, but I tuents, whom I have known intimately desire to point out how impossible that is prepared to say that they will always be, now for seventeen years, I am perfectly when the consuming world has the tem- as they have always been, cordially when the consuming world has the temperate and tropical zones to draw upon. responsive whenever I invited them to be Another argument is that this Con- just to the colonies. We are asking for vention will do the West Indies no good. no preference, but simply that England I would ask busines; men, is it not extra-shall be just to the colonies of which ordinary that for no less than a genera- she is the trustee. Those colonies are tion the sugar productfon of the West Indies although submitted to the keenest competition still survive. What in dustry on the face of the globe could have withstood such competition for so many years and yet still be in the condition the West Indian sugar industry is now in? It is perfectly certain that the West Indies, with their natural advantages, held in the hollow of the hand of the mother country, which enjoys the benefit, with which she has no intention of parting, of the two great harbours of St. Lucia and Jamaica, which command the approach to the future Panama Canal The mother country may fairly be called upon to discharge her high duty, and although she has been tardy hitherto in recognising the claims upon her, I feel that new ideas have of late years arisen, and that the time is coming when she will not be backward in discharging the obligations of her high position. It is quite a mistake for the House to think this is a measure promoted in the interest of capitalists. If the Members of the House had been with me in Jamaica in February last and stood by when certain black workmen were informed that the cultivation of sugar was going to cease in the district where they lived, they would have recognised that it was not a question of capitalists but of the daily bread of those who are, equally with all members of the Empire, British subjects. And, it being half-past Seven of the clock, the debate stood adjourned till this Evening's Sitting. *MR. LAWRENCE: I was pointing out, however imperfectly, the conditions and circumstances under which this Bill is brought forward. So far as the West Indies are concerned, it is not demanded merely for the capitalists but for the masses of the people. The right hon. Member for Aberdeen taxed the planters with having no spirit, enterprise or machinery. If he had even for halfan-hour borne the burden and the heat of the day of carrying on the great sugar industry with which the planters are intrusted, and had had to carry on that industry with the competition and the handicap of these bounties, varying from 25s. to, in the Mr. Lawrence. case of the Argentine, I think, £7 a ton, the value of a ton of sugar varying from £5 to £10, I think even the right hon. Gentleman would have felt it was no wonder that the planters might have lost spirit and in some measure enterprise. It could hardly be expected that they could find up-to-date machinery. But whether or not in the future the present planters will be able to face the new circumstances in which they will find themselves, I appeal on behalf of the black labourers, equally our fellow subjects, that sugar shall not be allowed to go out of cultivation, and that even if planters here and there have to give way it will be a boon to the black labourers up and down the Islands that these acres There are some well meaning Unionists, should be kept in sugar cultivation. who probably never spent £5 on a speculative undertaking, who have advocated that these Islands should throw up one of the great staple industries of the world in order to undertake the speculative cultivation of fruit. I should like to know how many of those who have grown fruit would not exchange that cultivation for the great industry of sugar, upon which staple you might sit for a week or a month, and on which you are not dependent upon the special circumstances attending the growing of a perishable crop like fruit. I have but imperfect patience with those Unionists, like the right hon. Member for Cambridge, who pointed to Egypt and Java and asked why should the West Indies fail where they had succeeded. The blacks in Java, I have heard, are little better than slaves, and certainly no better than prædial serfs. The Dutch will not allow the blacks there to engage in any of the higher trades, but compel them to culti vate the soil. And as for Egypt, is that a comparison for an intelligent person to make with the West Indies; a country which, under its system of irrigation, can turn out four crops a year; which has no mountainous districts. We in the West Indies have large mountainous districts, and great droughts, and for hon. and right hon. Gentlemen to come down here and talk this colossal nonsense makes those who do know something about the subject feel righteously indignant. The hon. Member for Exeter seems to think it is unnecessary even to grant this district justice because it is so small. Is justice to be confined only to the counting of heads? Are we to measure it by what it has to cost us? Several hon. Gentlemen think that if we are to be just we must be just at the cheapest price, and the cheapest way to deal with this matter is to give doles. We know what doles in Englandare. They pauperise those who receive and they do not redound to the credit of those who give them. I repudiate such churlish justice. If you wish to keep a poor relation from you give him a dole. But these Islands are not destined by Providence to be poor relations. Give them a fair chance and they will be as they were before-jewels they will be as they were before-jewels in the British Crown. But if they are neglected and there is an utter lack of sympathy and a disregard for them in the United Kingdom, I can assure the House that, however reluctantly, their hearts will be drawn towards the United States, of which they geographically form part. They go to the United States now because they have not free access to our markets, and it is absurd to say they have when we allow a protective wall to rise up and keep them off. We are driving them to the United States. If they are not a part of the United States the time will soon come when the trade of these Islands will not be allowed to enter into the ports of the United States. Even now they only go there under a 40 per cent. duty, but with that they could compete with France under countervailing duties; but in a short time those ports will be closed, and inasmuch as these Islands form part of this great Empire, they are entitled ask for that fairness of treatment which one British subject can claim from another. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberdeen gave some faltering and im perfect excuse for the reason why he voted £250,000 last November for these Islands. What are the facts of the case? The West Indian Islands had some reason to think that in the Brussels Convention the Government would consider their interests. As a matter of fact, when the Convention met the other Governments said they could not allow this Convention to come into force until they had given their local industries twelve months notice, and His Majesty's Government sacrificed these Islands. Then they came forward and said, "As we have sacrificed you, we will give you something in order that you may hold over for a little while;" and although the dole in that way may have done some good it only added to the liability of the planters. It was loaned to the planters at 6 per cent., and money lent at such a price at best is but doubtful advantage to the borrower. passes Right hon. Gentlemen have said we must have new methods. There will be new methods, and there may be new men, but if this Bill vation of sugar which, for thirty or there will be an incentive to the cultiforty years there never has been. Some hon. Members have touched on the question as to how far this Convention is in accordance with the principles of free trade. free trade. [Loud OPPOSITION laughter.] I think we had better give up the term of Hon. Members opposite who laugh know perfectly well they never have had free trade. The hon. Member for South Shields said this was the thin end of the wedge of the abolition of free trade. I should like to know when we have had free trade, and also when we should have it. I think one hon. Member was more correct when he said this Convention was the first step to anything like free trade since the French Treaty of 1860. There never will be free trade unless by negotiation; and as this Convention produces an agreement between various countries and various classes upon the subject of the abolition of the bounties I think it is the first step towards free trade. Mr. Speaker, I have finished. I would only add that I regret that there should have been any need for this Convention whatever. I think it is an anomaly that we should have to get the European Powers in conclave and to say to them, "We intend to carry out our fiscal system, and we hope you will allow us to do so." I hope the day is rapidly coming when we shall think and act for ourselves; when we shall act entirely with regard to our own interests, independent of what foreign Powers may think of us. They will be perfectly convinced that we shall do what is just to them, and the sooner we think and act for ourselves the better it will be for the people of this country. *SIR WILLIAM HOLLAND (Yorkshire, the honour to say in November last, if a W.R., Rotherham): The right hon. man chooses to sell goods to "A" below Gentleman who has just sat down objects cost and to recoup himself by overto the kind of free trade we have because, charging "B," it is for "B" to put a stop I suppose, he does not think it goes far to the transaction rather than "A." We enough. But some of us would rather are in the position of "A" on this occahave one-sided free trade than no free sion, and the foreigner is in the position of trade at all, because under it we are at B." There may be some hard cases least able to buy in the cheapest market. amongst the sugar refiners on the one We would of course infinitely rather hand or the sugar planters on have free trade all round, but if those to other, but those cases this House would whom we sell are indifferent to the be glad I am sure to deal with and importance of being able to buy on the remedy on their merits. best terms possible, that is a matter for them to consider and not for us. The hon. Gentleman ex, ressed a decided preference for independence on the part of His Majesty's Government, and said we ought to act for ourselves; but one of the criticisms we have to make to this Convention is, that if we accept it a foreign Commission will act for us, and we shall have hardly any voice in the matter. I am against this Convention because it is a one-sided bargain. The foreigner is to have all the gain and we are to have all the loss. I do not think in these negotiations the interests of the United Kingdom have been adequately safeguarded. I know that at Brussels, when the negotiations were proceeding. the British refiners and the West Indian sugar planters were repre sented, and it was only right they should be adequately represented. But who was it that voiced the claim of the toiling millions of sugar consumers in this country? I am against this Convention because those millions are deprived of the inalienable right to buy their sugar in the cheapest market. It is It has been said that the West Indies bounties that the consumer under this convention will not be so valuable a customer for other commodities in the home market. an incontr vertible fact that cheap Whatever the amount of the increase sugar has been of great advantage in the price of sugar may be, that to this country because it has conduced to the health of the people. And I am strongly in favour of leaving the foreigner to make his own arrange ments for the abolition of these bounties. amount will be abstracted from the consumers of this pockets of the country, and pro tanto the home trade will be crippled in its purchasing power. I think he will be likely to abolish them burden, besides the particular industries In many trades this will be a heavy without our assistance or encouragement which depend on low-priced sugar. when he gets tired of paying our sugar I noticed the President of the Board bill. In the matter of sugar the foreigner's of Trade and the Secretary to interest is opposed to ours. He is the the Board of Trade both quoted seller and we are the buyers, but unfortu- in their speeches an opinion given nately his views have prevailed throughout by the firm of Keiller many years with these negotiations rather than the ago, and although it was pointed out views of this country. As I had that that opinion was contrary to a later opinion given by the same firm, both the right hon, and the hon. Gentleman seemed to consider the older opinion of this particular firm was the wiser opinion of the two. I hope they will apply the same test in another direction. I wish they would apply that test to the Colonial Secretary himself. If they considered in his case that the older opinion was the wiser one, then neither countervailing duties nor prohibition preferential duties would have shadow of a chance of acceptance, acceptance, because the right hon. Gentleman when he was President of the Board of Trade, said: nor a "To impose countervailing duties in order to neutralise the indirect sugar bounties would be to take the first step in reversing our Free Trade policy, which was adopted on the clearest ground of argument, and has conferred immense advantages on the industrial classes of this country. 66 Industrial Classes." I hope the Secretary to the Board of Trade will commend the earlier opinion of the Colonial Secretary which I have just read. I believe that what the Colonial Secretary then said is absolutely true: that in adopting a system of countervailing duties we should be taking the first step towards the reversal of the policy of free trade. That step, however, was taken a year ago at Brussels and now we are threatened with another step, viz., Preferential Tariffs and Retaliatory duties which we hold to be certainly pointing in the direction of protection. I, for one, am against a policy of protection in this country, because it confers on an individual the right to make a legal raid on the public purse to his own advantage. do not know why the Government making such a dead set on the food of the people. A tax on sugar was imposed not so long ago, which increased the price by a halfpenny a lb., and now we are to have a further tax imposed by this Convention; and, in addition, we are threatened with a heavy corn tax. But the yield of the Sugar tax imposed two years ago went into the Exchequer, whereas not a penny of this new tax will find its way there. I is It is impossible for us to estimate the far-reaching consequences and complications of the penal or prohibitive clauses of this Convention. It may be said we shall have the control of its application, but, as a matter of fact, we shall be in a very small minority in this Conven VOL. CXXVI. [FOURTH SERIES.] tion, and shall be liable to be out-voted on | every occasion. This prohibition of sugar imports from certain countries may involve us in a tariff war with Russia and the United States of America, at the bidding of this Commission, however much we may desire to maintain good relations with those countries. If there be an enemy of this country on the Commission he may force us to pick a quarrel with nations with whom we otherwise should be on friendly terms. The newspapers only this morning give us an illustration of the result of the intervention of this Convention for we read that a crisis has arisen between Austria and Hungary. Only this very day The Times says— "The situation has become sufficiently strained to necessitate the intervention of the Emperor." All because of the meddling of this Commission in Brussels; because one of these two countries does not take the same view exactly that the Brussels Commission takes. I think it is infinitely safer and wiser for us to keep the control of our own fiscal arrangements in our own hands. I think that, so far from drawing the colonies closer to the mother country, this legislation will be much more likely to have a disruptive tendency. Some time ago the late Lord Pirbright who, as we know, had the strongest possible sympathy with the sugar trade, used some very strong language in respect to this particular question. He said: nuts out of the fire for France? We give no "What business is it of ours to pull chestsurtax, and we bind ourselves on behalf of our Crown colonies never to give preferential treatment for the benefit of their sugar. Therefore the interference of our delegates, of the Cabinet, in a matter which in no way presumably with the knowledge and consent concerned then, was not only gratuitous but absurd and most dangerous." I think this blowing hot and cold with our colonies and must create in them 2 D |