658 Redaction of Taxes [JUNE, 



rate, we may observe that although a certain degree of relief has, since 

 the peace, been granted to almost every class of the community the 

 West Indians have in vain solicited that the war duty on their staple com- 

 modity should at least be abated ; but whether it was, that the late minis- 

 try were influenced by an anticolonial party, (by whose advice some few 

 millions of the public money have been wasted), or it now is, that the 

 present ministers have not yet discovered the difference between a sword 

 and a soup ladle no advantage has hitherto been taken of those sound 

 financial principles, which, if they had been adopted, in regard to sugar, 

 would not only have added to the comforts of the people, and insured a 

 permanent additional revenue from extended consumption of this article, 

 and a certain resource against future difficulties at home, but would also 

 have left room for an extension of foreign trade by the more free disposal 

 of our manufactures in exchange for other sugars, especially for those of 

 India, and of such foreign countries as may actually and truly abstain 

 from a continuance of the traffic in slaves. 



The absurdity of the colonial acts of 1822 and 1825, which were to have 

 given freedom to the trade of the West Indies, has now been fully de- 

 monstrated ; for, in consequence of imports being restricted to " the most 

 favoured nations," and then only allowed subject to the payment of heavy 

 duties, (fish continuing to be entirely excluded), the colonists find them- 

 selves as much bound down by the old exclusive system as ever they 

 were ; and so long as a larger quantity of sugar is brought, from our 

 own colonies, to this country than can be consumed here, the undue mo- 

 nopoly which the West Indians are alleged to possess of the home market 

 is of very little benefit to them. Because, so long as they are obliged 

 to take the whole of their supplies from home at a great enhancement 

 of price, or under heavy duties from foreigners ; and there is a large an- 

 nual surplus of sugar which must be exported to the continent, the rate 

 in these markets must always govern the price here; and, of course, 

 under this equalization of prices, their monopoly falls to the ground. 

 This surplus is annually accumulating, and markets have, in consequence, 

 declined until the planter cannot, upon three-fourths of his sugars, receive 

 any thing like a remunerating price, and under these circumstances new 

 and more efficient regulations have become essentially necessary. Inde- 

 pendent of these considerations, sugar has now become an article of such 

 moment in the trade of the world, and other nations are extending its 

 cultivation so rapidly, that it behoves a commercial nation like this to 

 lose none of the advantages derivable from dealings in so important a 

 commodity. 



Before proceeding to consider to what extent its consumption might, 

 by moderate and equitable duties, so as to induce steady low prices, 

 be carried, we would premise, that it seems to have been cultivated in 

 the eastern world during the earliest periods. It is said to have first 

 been made known in the west, by the conquests of Alexander the Great. 

 Strabo (lib. xv.) relates that Nearchus found it in India, in the 325th 

 year before Christ. Varro, who lived A. c. 68, describes it as a fluid, 

 pressed from large reeds, sweeter than honey. Dioscorides men- 

 tions it as a kind of honey called Saccharon, found in India and 

 Arabia Felix ; and describes its medicinal properties. Galen often 

 prescribed it as a medicine. Marco Polo found it abundant in 

 Bengal in 1250. Vasco de Gama (1497) mentions it as a consider- 

 able article of commerce in the kingdom of Calicut. Osbeck found 



