THE FAllMEK AND AN EXPORT BOUNTY. 323 



tition of the bounty-aided beet-sugar countries, not only in 

 the markets of tlie United States, but even in what they consid- 

 ered tlieir rightful "lionie marlcet" — Great Britain. Improve- 

 ments in beet-sugar processes have so progressed that when 

 taken with the greater vigor inherent in the populations of 

 temperate climates, European beet-sugar countries could 

 undersell even the well-governed British colonies. A royal 

 commission visited the islands to study the matter, and as the 

 result of their investigations it is deemed the policy, even of 

 the nation whose people have most benefited by the insane 

 competition, that it siiould stop. The Government of Great 

 Britain does not desire that the inhabitants of the British 

 Islands should be able to obtain sugar at less than cost, at the 

 price of the ruin of their West Indian colonies, whose staple 

 product is sugar. As a consequence of this final cumulation 

 of difficulties, the bounty-paying nations of Europe are seeking 

 by mutual agreement to abolish the system, the only difficulty 

 being to save, when so doing, those engaged in the stimulated 

 industry from ruin.* 



All these matters are now so well understood that there is 

 no likelihood that the proposed plan of export bounties will 

 receive much further attention in the United States. The 

 system certainly has not the slightest chance of being adopted. 

 Producers of staple agricultural products, like all others, must 

 take their stand one way or another, upon the general argu- 

 ments for and against free trade and protection. 



* At the time when the above paragraph was written an International 

 Congress of the representatives of European sugar-producing countries was in 

 session in Brussels, Belgium, endeavoring to reach some plan by which all 

 could simultaneously discontinue the bounties. They could not agree, however, 

 and the conference came to nothing. In Great Britain the agitation for a 

 countervailing duty for the protection of the British West India Colonies 

 continues, and will apparently result in the levying of such a duty. 



