BELGIUM. 



71 



compromising negative of the Prime Minister 

 made the business men of the country, whose 

 affairs were at a standstill, as indignant against 

 the Clericals as against the Socialists. The lat- 

 ter appealed to the King and announced that they 

 would bring the question of revision before the 

 Chamber until it should be considered. On April 

 19 at Louvain a mob drove the militia back into 

 their quarters, where they loaded their rifles, and 

 when again pressed hard they fired and killed and 

 wounded a number of people. The people fired 

 revolvers at another company, which replied 

 with a volley, killing 7 and wounding 18. The 

 strike was declared at an end by the council of 

 the Labor party, and on April 21 the working 

 men generally resumed l.heir occupations. The 

 Chamber voted the budget on April 25. The sum 

 of 7,000,000 francs was voted to indemnify Ostend 

 and Spa for the loss entailed by the suppression 

 of gambling. The public-works budget was also 

 passed. The session was closed on May 20. The 

 elections for renewing one-half of the Chamber 

 were held on May 25. There were 77 retiring 

 members to be replaced, and 14 additional mem- 

 bers were elected to bring up the number of Depu- 

 ties to 166, as decreed in the recent act enlarging 

 the Chamber to meet the increase in the elec- 

 torate. In conformity with the same act 7 new 

 Senators were elected. The new Chamber con- 

 sisted of 95 Catholics, 35 Liberals, 34 Socialists, 

 and 2 Christian Democrats, increasing the Cler- 

 ical majority over the united Opposition from 20 

 to 24. Of the newly created seats 8 went to 

 Catholics, 3 to Socialists, 2 to Liberals, and 1 to 

 a Christian Democrat. The new seats in the 

 Senate were divided between 4 Clericals, 2 Lib- 

 erals, and 1 Socialist. 



The Sugar Convention. Several internation- 

 al conferences have been held with the object of 

 bringing about a mutual agreement for the regu- 

 lation or abolition of the bounties given by Con- 

 tinental governments to protect the production 

 and encourage the export of beet-sugar. - These 

 bounties are accompanied by high revenue-pro- 

 ducing excise duties and a surcharge on imports 

 sufficient to shut out foreign sugar from the pro- 

 ducing countries. The effect of these duties is 

 to make sugar a luxury in countries where the 

 most sugar is grown, twice as dear or more in 

 France, Germany, or Austria as it is in England, 

 where no duties have been imposed hitherto on 

 its importation or consumption. England used 

 to import and refine cane-sugar grown mostly 

 in the West Indies. When Germany, France, 

 Austria, and Belgium began to give bounties 

 England could get sugar from the Continent for 

 less than the actual cost of production. The 

 importation of cane-sugar ceased altogether, and 

 the British refineries went out of business. On 

 the other hand, the manufacture of British jams, 

 confectionery, and biscuits, cheapened by the 

 low price of sugar, grew to enormous proportions 

 and these articles were exported to all parts of 

 the earth. Meanwhile Jamaica and other British 

 West India islands, British Guiana, Mauritius, 

 and other colonies which formerly supplied Great 

 Britain with raw sugar languished and declined 

 and the capital invested in sugar plantations was 

 to a great extent lost or withdrawn. The pov- 

 erty and distress in the island colonies and the 

 falling off of the colonial revenues reached such 

 a stage at last that the British Government 

 granted large sums in aid. On the recommenda- 

 tion of a commission experimental stations were 

 established for the purpose of developing seed 

 cane by selection of a higher saccharine content, 

 as has been done with the sugar-beet, and public 



aid was given to encourage more scientific, eco- 

 nomical, and thorough methods of extracting the 

 sugar from the cane by the use of modern ma- 

 chinery. The colonies called upon the- Imperial 

 Government to impose countervailing duties 

 upon bounty-fed sugar, as the United States Gov- 

 ernment has done for the protection of American 

 sugar-growers. In the sugar-producing countries 

 of Europe the bounties were a heavy fiscal bur- 

 den which tended constantly to increase, because 

 France or Germany or Austria at the first ap- 

 pearance of foreign competition in sugar imme- 

 diately increased the bounty or raised the duty, 

 which further reduced domestic consumption, 

 and any change made by one country was out- 

 done by the others. All these countries were 

 competing for the English market, which was 

 more valuable to them than all the other for- 

 eign markets together. Germany, the greatest 

 sugar-producing country in the world, sold more 

 sugar to England than the German people them- 

 selves consumed. Over a third of the German 

 crop went to Great Britain, and a like proportion 

 of the Austrian sugar, which found another 

 good market in British India. Just as in the 

 Continental nations the producers and refiners 

 of sugar brought powerful pressure on their 

 governments to bring about an increase in the 

 bounties and protective duties and by all means 

 to prevent a decrease, so the manufacturers of 

 England and Scotland who used sugar became 

 a strong and united interest fighting against the 

 imposition of countervailing duties, supported 

 by the general popular sentiment in favor of 

 cheap sugar. To raise the price of this necessity 

 of life by taxation was represented as a violation 

 of the principle of free trade, though the friends 

 of the colonists argued that duties equivalent 

 to the bounties were necessary to secure free 

 trade to the cane-growers. The manufacturing 

 industries using beet-sugar, which were in Great 

 Britain and were influential in Parliament and 

 in the press, had grown into a bigger business 

 than the production of cane-sugar in British col- 

 onies. The popular view was that, if the Conti- 

 nental governments chose to make a present out 

 of their public funds to the British public by 

 granting bonuses to their sugar-producers to en- 

 able the latter to sell sugar so much cheaper in 

 the English market, the British public would be 

 foolish not to accept the boon granted at the 

 cost of foreign taxpayers. The impoverishment 

 of the colonists, unable longer to pay the ex- 

 penses of the colonial administration, the dearth 

 of sugar and lessening consumption in the beet- 

 growing countries, the overproduction of sugar 

 and glutting of the foreign markets, and the 

 embarrassing charge of the bounties were, how- 

 ever, growing evils that had at some fime to be 

 faced and could not at any time be ignored by 

 publicists and statesmen. The first diplomatic 

 conference convoked to deal with these condi- 

 tions was held in London in 1888. The powers 

 invited by Great Britain to meet to consider the 

 abolition of bounties signed a convention on Aug. 

 30, 1888, in which they agreed in principle to the 

 total suppression of open or disguised bounties 

 on the exportation of sugar. They agreed to ex- 

 clude from their respective territories any sugar 

 coming from countries which continued to pay 

 bounties on manufacture or export. Germany, 

 England, Belgium, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, 

 and Russia signed the convention. France ad- 

 hered to it in principle and reserved the right of 

 signing later. Austria-Hungary promised adhe- 

 sion if all important producing and consuming 

 countries would agree to suppress bounties. The 



