British capital will positively go out to stimulate production. Descriptions of the vent that will be given for this capital, figure as prominent arguments in all the applications with which government has been beset from parties interested in this question who are anxious for the admission of foreign sugar. It is, indeed, a strange argument justificatory of a change, to urge the destruction of capital already invested in British possessions, in order that fresh capital might be drawn from other pursuits at home, to be vested in foreign countries. But from the avowal made by parties themselves, it is manifest that that capital would go out, and that, low as sugar now is produced in foreign countries, it must soon fall still lower. In conjunction with the many advantages already possessed by the foreigner, let us fancy the effects of British machinery, steam-engine, and improved works, if introduced into Cuba or the Brazils. If cultivation now is rude and imperfect, and produces such injury to the British planter, what must it do when it becomes scientific? In order to judge of this fact, let an estimate be made of the produce raised in Demerara, in 1810, and contrasted with the quantity raised now; and it will be found that while the number of labourers has not increased, the produce has trebled, solely resulting from the introduction of British capital and machinery.

On the whole, therefore, when we consider the advantages of the British market, the assistance

that will be given by advances of money to foreign planters, and the speculation which will ensue both abroad and in England from these combined causes, it is a matter of demonstration that a prodigious increase of foreign sugar must be imported into England.

Let us contemplate the effects of that increase on the British planter.

In the first place, his protecting duty in the home market would cease to be of advantage in any one shape. From the increasing quantity of Mauritius sugar annually imported, there is no prospect of the domestic consumption absorbing the entire supply admissible at the present British plantation duty. The quantity which must be exported under the proposed measure will be enormous, and it will reduce all sugar for English consumption undeviatingly and universally to the same level with the continental prices. There will be none of those modifying and alleviating circumstances, which, at present, so often operate in favour of the planter. Competition between the refiner and the grocer will then be at an end; and the merchant will have no resource or opportunity to avail himself of their occasional eagerness to purchase as their stocks become low, by which the market for British plantation sugar is animated, to the great advantage of the sellers. Exports of a surplus taking place accidentally and transiently, and exports of a surplus taking place regularly and constantly, are

as different in their effects as can be imagined. Suppose the surplus is now 30,000 hogsheads, and that the price on the Continent is 30s.: it is quite possible for many planters to realize in England a higher price for a large portion of their crop. During part of the year, the price of sugar in England may remain stationary, at a few shillings above the prices abroad. During that interval, no exports will take place, but still a large quantity of sugar may be sold at home, on which the British planter obtained the high price. To him it is virtually realized. Of course, prices fall eventually to allow the surplus to be shipped, and that fall necessarily affects the planter selling his produce at the existing moment; but it does not take the few shillings from the individual who has skilfully watched the market and sold his produce; nor does it prevent other individuals from holding over their produce until all the surplus is removed and prices again improve. These facts show, that though the protecting duty does not give the positive advantages which other classes of British producers enjoy, still it has many redeeming points, and is of great service to the West India colonists. These advantages are effectually destroyed by the new plan. It is obvious they are all lost if the export of refined sugar be prodigiously increased, and in consequence it is taking place every day.

The second evil which will fall on the West Indians, by the proposed scale of duties, is more formidable.

When at present the supply of sugar is fully equal to the demand, what must be the effect if, through speculation and all the causes which have been enumerated, fifty to one hundred thousand hogsheads, perhaps, are added to the European market. A prodigious fall must ensue, eventually ruining the British islands, and leaving production in those countries where it can be conducted on the cheapest terms.

The surplus, which is now produced in the British colonies beyond the domestic consumption of Great Britain, must still be got rid of. Under the new measure, it will equally have to be refined, and exported to markets on the Continent, as at present. If 30,000 hogsheads be the present surplus, and 50,000 hogsheads of foreign sugar be estimated as clear increased production caused by the new excitement, the entire surplus will amount to 80,000 hogsheads, while the supply imported direct from foreign countries into the Continent continues the same as before. Whatever foreign sugar, therefore, is imported into England for the use of the refiners, will be so much clearly forced upon markets already fully supplied; and must, as a matter of necessity, according to the ordinary principles of supply and demand, occasion dreadful depreciation. As this depreciation proceeds, it will not rectify itself by checking the efforts of the new candidates for the supply of the European market; it will rectify itself by driving production out of the old-established settlements.

When Brazilian and Cuba sugar are first imported into England, in all probability they will not be sold at their proper cost of production; they will conform to the existing price, or rather fall something below it, in order that sales may be promptly effected; but, although prices descend, no difference will be made in the stimulus directed to production. The exorbitancy of profits will be lessened; but increased importations will still pour in until prices are reduced to that rate when the profit of raising sugar in foreign countries corresponds to the profit of raising cotton or other commodities. Jamaica and Barbadoes, after the struggle which will assuredly attend this state of things, must fall, and the British capital invested in them be utterly extinguished.

If it be in the least presumable that these evils will arise, and it really seems impossible to doubt them, it must surely be expected that, in the proposed plan, great countervailing advantages would be given to the West Indians, in regard to their supply of the home market. The bounty is supposed to be this advantage. If Mr. Huskisson's views can be judged of correctly, they may be thus stated:-Prices in England correspond to those of the continent. Protection under such cases can only be given to you under the shape of a bounty; that bounty you shall have; you shall draw back 5s. more than the exporter of foreign sugar, and then you will be better off than at present; or, at

Τ

3