against their industry in the council chambers of Paris, Berlin, and Vienna.

Puzzled and bored by the apparent intricacy of the problems. involved, the man in the street,' on whom Mr. Chamberlain now proposes to throw the responsibility of continuing or not the 'policy of non-intervention,' has taken about as much interest in sugar bounties as he has in bimetallism; editors have eschewed the subject as 'too technical;' the West Indies themselves, unrepresented in England save by the still small voice' of the West India Committee, have been powerless to command a hearing outside their own circle; and these questions of the West Indies and their staple industry, of Beet and Bounties, of Cane and Countervailing Duties, have been left as nuts for the experts of Mincing Lane and the Cobden Club to crack their teeth over.

6

To these experts the report of the Royal Commissioners, which, I understand, is to be ready this month, will present little that is

new.

In fact, judging from the mass of evidence given before them in the West Indies, there is little new to be said on the subject which has not already appeared in some shape or other, either in Government despatches and planters' petitions, or the sugar-trade papers. It is not so much the facts which are in dispute as the nature of the, remedy to be applied, and Mr. Chamberlain would appear, from the wording of the letter of the 9th of November, to have found time inthe intervals of leisure left him by Messrs. Rhodes and Kruger not only to master the facts, and to read and dictate West Indian despatches for himself ('very different from those we have been used to receiving from the Colonial Office'-I was told more than once by: those in authority in the West Indies), but also to make up his mind. pretty clearly that nothing but a straightforward policy of active intervention can save the situation.

That this is the only possible solution of the question, and is! dictated alike by considerations of justice and expediency, whether it. be looked at from the Imperial or West Indian point of view, I shall› endeavour to show by a series of propositions, summing up the facts as they presented themselves to me during a recent tour through the West Indies, premising that no two of the West Indian colonies exactly resemble one another in the aggregate of their social, climatic, and industrial conditions, and that particular exceptions may: consequently be found to all broad generalisations referring to the whole.

(1) By natural process of evolution, the cultivation of the cane and the manufacture of sugar have been proved to be the natural industry of the West Indies, by having supplanted and survived all others as the staple industry for over two centuries.

(2) On the stability of this natural staple industry are dependent

to

the very existence of several of the colonies as civilised communities, and the future prosperity, directly or indirectly, of all. Without a sound industrial and economic basis and a prosperous exchequer to work upon, the colonial Governments will be forced to abandon the task, already well begun, of raising the teeming black populations in the social scale. Bankruptcy, with its sure corollary, a reversion of the negroes to barbarism and a vegetable existence of squalid squatting, is even now confronting more than one Executive.

(3) No other industry can be regarded as a satisfactory alternative to or substitute for sugar. The cultivation of other tropical produce is possible and profitable in certain localities where the climatic conditions or accessibility to a suitable market, or both combined, permit it (as with fruit and oranges in Jamaica, limes in Montserrat, and cocoa in Trinidad and Grenada). But, acre for acre, such cultivation implies not one tenth the circulation of capital or employment of labour (and therefore trade and revenue) involved in the production of sugar, which not only necessitates field work almost throughout the year, but also combines a manufacturing with an agricultural industry. The substitution of cocoa, coffee, &c., for the sugar cane, even on the few sugar lands where such substitution is possible, would be a step backward, not forward, almost comparable to the substitution of damsons and blackberries for corn and roots on a farm in England. The best guarantee for the development of these appropriately called 'minor industries,' and, thereby, of a yeoman class of peasant proprietors, lies in the stability of the staple major industry.

(4) This staple industry is threatened with extinction in the immediate future (though it is true that a few exceptionally situated estates can even at present prices pay their way), not because cane cannot hold its own with beet, not because cane sugar cannot be produced in the West Indies as cheaply as beet sugar in France and Germany, but because the bounty, or rather bounty-cum-protection, system of foreign Governments, by simultaneously stimulating production and checking consumption in their own countries, enables the continental producers, after clearing their profits on their home sales, to unload their surplus stock on the open market (viz. England), and sell them there with the help of the bounty, if need be, under cost price. That the action of the foreign Government is dictated as much by the necessities of continental militarism, in the desire to foster the beet and cattle industries, and so prevent the depopulation of their rural districts, their best recruiting ground, as by the principles of an aggressive commercial policy is beside the point. We have to deal not with the causes but with effects, which, to illustrate the case by a specific instance, work out briefly thus. Sugar made in Germany is enabled by the aid of German taxes to oust sugar grown in British colonies from British markets.

And yet, till now, British statesmen have not dared to appeal to

the English at home on behalf of the English in the West Indies' for fear they should cry, 'Périssent les colonies plutôt que le sucre bon-marché !' If only the German Emperor had sent a telegram on the subject!

That the extinction of the sugar industry is due to imperfect and obsolete processes of manufacture is a charge often levelled in English newspapers against the West Indian planters. As a matter of fact, one finds exemplified in the West Indies almost every phase of development, from that of the tiny windmill-driven factory of a hundred acre estate in Barbados, content to produce its hundred tons of low grade Muscovado in the year, to that of the immense Demerara and Trinidad usines,' equipped with finest machinery that Science and Capital can furnish, handling their thousands of tons of cane, and turning out their hundreds of tons of high grade crystals in the week. The conditions of manufacture are found to vary, as in every other industry under the sun, inversely with the natural advantages incidental to the industry in each locality.

The planters of Barbados and Antigua know well that they are behind the times. They know well also the obvious remedy. But with their industry at the mercy of the action of foreign Governments what is the inducement and where is the credit to effect the necessary improvements? Again, we find the bounty system at the root of the whole matter, the primary cause of the paralysis to-day, as it is of the threatened extinction to-morrow, of the whole industry under whatever conditions it may be carried on.

So much for the facts and arguments from the standpoint of England's high Imperial responsibilities and West Indian necessities. They point clearly enough in one direction, and one direction only, viz. the necessity for a forward policy of active intervention.

There is still a last-but not the least-argument in favour of the same course. It is that, whichever alternative be adopted, whether active intervention against, or passive acquiescence in, the operation of the bounty system, some form of expenditure has to be faced by the British taxpayer.

An approximate estimate of the liabilities which would be thrown on the Imperial Exchequer in the event of a failure of the sugar industry—and what must follow as the night the day-the bankruptcy of the sugar colonies, is being prepared by the Royal Commissioners, and I found that they laid special stress in sifting the evidence given before them on this point in all their inquiries throughout the various colonies.

Three inevitable items of expenditure must be met: (1) the extra cost of maintaining law and order among an ignorant and excitable population of unemployed, (2) the repatriation of coolie immigrants indentured under contracts which entitle them to a return passage to India, and (3) the transplanting of the surplus negro population

from the most densely inhabited islands to those where Crown lands are still available for settlement.

Not the least interesting part of the Commissioners' Report will be that section dealing with this estimate of claims for Imperial expenditure which it will not be possible to resist.'

That the policy of passive acquiescence' will be a costly one may be gauged from the fact that the legal liability, under contract, for the repatriation of the coolie immigrants in British Guiana alone exceeds a million sterling. But, however carefully the estimate is prepared, a wide margin must be left for contingencies. In estimating the cost of a policy of 'active intervention' we are on surer ground..

So far, to use an expressive colloquialism, John Bull has made a 'rattling good thing' out of these bounties. Even taking into account the damage inflicted in his trade and shipping by the decay of important colonies, the net results of the system must have been to leave him many millions in pocket thereby. Besides allowing him as consumer to revel in cheap sugar at his breakfast table, it has enabled him, as manufacturer, to command the markets of the world in all the many industries where sugar is largely used as raw material. His twopence buys as much as does a half franc or half mark in France or Germany, and his imports for the year now reach 1,600,000 tons.

To reduce these advantages to actual £ s. d. is a difficult matter, seeing that the fall in the price of sugar is partly due to natural causes. The amount by which the price has been artificially lowered by the direct action of the foreign bounty-cum-protection system in favour of the British consumer, and to the undoing of British colonies, is commonly accepted as about one farthing per pound, or, approximately, 21. per ton. Let us assume, for purposes of argument, this estimate to be correct (and this is one of the few points on which the experts on either side apparently do not agree to differ).

'Counteract, by a corresponding countervailing duty of one farthing per pound, this artificial interference with the natural laws of supply and demand,' cry out the planters, 'restore to us the conditions of true Free Trade, by which the prices of all the other commodities you import find their natural level, and we guarantee to hold our own in fair competition against the world.'

To which, in reply, their opponents of the 'maxims-of-the-Counter' school make answer: that this suggestion of a countervailing duty, to begin with, is by implication an avowal that the cash benefit to the United Kingdom from the operation of the bounty system is not less than three million sterling per annum; that it is impossible for the teeming population of our crowded islands, who depend on cheap food and cheap raw material as the very breath of life, to forego such a splendid windfall; that the vexations and costly additions to our

Customs machinery implied by the imposition of a preferential sugar duty, and the probability of counter retaliations by the Powers against whom it is aimed, are in themselves a sufficient bar to such a proposal; that the claims for Imperial expenditure' consequent on the ruin of the sugar colonies are not likely to exceed the present cash benefit accruing to the mother country; that the greatest good of the greatest number must prevail, and in the meantime the West Indies must carry on as best they can with their 'minor

industries.'

At first sight there would appear to be no compromise possible between two such opposing schools of thought. And yet on closer analysis there seems to be a middle course open by which at once the future of the West Indian colonies may be safeguarded, and the inevitable call on the British taxpayer's pocket reduced to a minimum. The key to a possible solution of the problem is to be found in the relative insignificance of West Indian exports compared with British imports of sugar. The West Indies export roughly 300,000 tons of sugar a year, the United Kingdom imports roughly 1,600,000 tons. The West Indies and Mauritius together can only supply us with about one-fourth of our requirements.

If, on the farthing per pound basis, the net cash profits per annum to the mother country from the bounty system amounts to 3,000,000%. per annum, the net loss to the sugar colonies from the operation of the same causes may, by a converse calculation, be set down as 750,000%. per annum. Treating the Empire as a whole, then, and subtracting losses from profits, there is still a handsome margin of 2,250,000l. The problem looked at from this point of view takes another aspect, and is seen to be rather a question of how best to secure the proportional distribution of profits than how best to equalise the pressure of losses.

There is no need for the mother country to be sacrificed for the good of the colonies, or for the colonies to be sacrificed in the interests of the mother country; there is no need for any rearrangements of our fiscal system. Let a committee of experts work out the actual direct cash effect of the foreign bounties on prices, and, so long as the bounty system holds, let the British colonial producers be reimbursed in a corresponding amount per ton from the Imperial Exchequer. Let the exporter from Demerara be put on the same footing as the exporter from Havre or Hamburg. I have, of course, only taken the farthing per pound and the 21. per ton as the commonly accepted estimate for the purposes of argument and illustration. The actual amount may be more or less, and will vary from time to time with the rise and fall in the amount of the bounties or other direct or indirect aids given by foreign Governments. But, whatever the amount, the proportional distribution of profits as between Great Britain and her sugar colonies will remain constant. Great Britain