122 SUGAR 



and therefore it would be easy to countervail it by an 

 equivalent duty. The sugar would then enter our 

 markets on equal terms with its British or other com- 

 petitors. The benefit it received from its Government 

 would be put into our Exchequer for the relief of the 

 British tax-payer, and everyone would start fair. It 

 would be a tax on foreign Government bonuses, not a 

 tax on sugar. 



This was the argument, and it was met, not with 

 argument but with violent indignation and heated con- 

 troversy. The discussion got warmer the longer it 

 proceeded, but the warmth was all on the part of the 

 opponents of a countervailing duty, while its advocates 

 were quite cool and stuck to a pure economic and scien- 

 tific statement of their case. They had many suppor- 

 ters among real political economists, and a great army 

 of unreasoning opponents whose sole cry was that 

 duty should be levied for revenue purposes only. The 

 case of sugar was sufficient to show how erroneous that 

 curious dogma really was. The Select Committee saw 

 this at once, and the more the witnesses were cross- 

 examined by the dogmatic party the more clear their 

 case became. The Committee reported in favour of a 

 countervailing duty. The minority issued a report, 

 which was defeated by 7 to 5. Of the five who 

 abstained, four were probably in favour of the Com- 

 mittee's Report. The Report was agreed to without 

 a division. 



It would require many chapters to give a full history 

 of this interesting controversy which raged for many 

 years. It suffices to say that in the end many opponents 

 were converted. In 1899 the Indian Government could 

 no longer endure the serious injury to our Indian sugar 

 industry inflicted by the hundreds of thousands of tons 

 of Austrian and German refined sugar which were 



