406 TRINIDAD. 



and will the demand for the article increase ? Surely, the first 

 question will be regarded as a burlesque ; for, it cannot be known 

 that in Trinidad it is considered more profitable to manufacture 

 bad sugar than good. Extraordinary, however, as this may 

 appear, the opinion has some foundation. For instance, I could 

 mention the case of a planter who became a loser by improving 

 the quality of his sugar, even though the article fetched a higher 

 price in the home market. How can this be? may ask some 

 inquisitive economist. Simply on account of the extra duty 

 exacted on the improved quality, and which absorbed more than 

 the profits. This is strange enough ; but what will perhaps 

 appear still more so, is the reason given by the home government 

 for exacting a higher duty on the better qualities. It is with a 

 vieiv to protecting the interests of the colonists. Who could have 

 ever imagined that, now-a-days, the British Government, in their 

 solicitude for the welfare of the West India planter, would have 

 discovered such an unobjectionable mode of affording him pro- 

 tection ? That the extra duty is intended as a protection to some 

 class, or body, may be easily proved. Under a uniform scale of 

 duty, foreign sugar of a better quality, would have the preference 

 for grocery, but not for refinery purposes; because its higher 

 price would be an objection to its being used for the latter pur- 

 poses. On the other hand, none of our inferior sugars are at 

 present bought up by grocers, but by refiners only. The so- 

 called protection, therefore, is no protection at all, since there is 

 not, there cannot be, competition between the two articles. Thus, 

 the only parties who are really protected, are the refiners at home, 

 who realise larger profits by the refining of inferior samples, 

 obtained by them at a low price, than on finer sugars at a higher 

 rate. These are, therefore, the parties who have prevailed upon 

 the government to discourage the production of superior qualities ; 

 and their influence, as a body, is more to be dreaded than courted. 

 How is it that Cuba supplies nearly all the markets of the world 

 the United States, the British colonies of the north, Russia, 

 Prussia, Italy, &c. whilst our sugars, or at least the inferior 

 kinds, are exported to Great Britain only ? Because, in America, 

 Russia, &c. even in Scotland and Ireland very little refined 

 sugar is consumed by the people, who are satisfied with the best 

 muscovado, or the clayed sugar. Not a pound of our sugar is 

 exported to the United States or the North American colonies. 



