TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 813 



Governments, has been increased in recent years so as to affect our own growth 

 injuriously. 



Foreign tariffs, it may be said, have become more effective for another 

 reason. Manufacturing industry having itself developed abroad, the same amount 

 of protection given to the foreign industry becomes more efficient than it was. 

 But this, of course, raises the question of the effect of natural foreign competition, 

 W'hich will presently be discussed. 



So much for the stimulus to foreign competition due to high tariffs. With 

 regard to bounties very little need be said. They have been the subject of much 

 discussion and agitation for various reasons, and in what I have to say I propose 

 not to touch on the practical question whether these bounties are injurious, and 

 the nature of the political remedies that may or may not be possible. I limit 

 myself strictly to the point, how far any effect which such bounties can have had 

 would account for a diminution in the rate of material growth of the country 

 generally in the last ten years as compared witli the ten years just before. Dealing 

 with the question in this strictly limited fashion, what I have to observe first is 

 that hitherto very few bounties have been complained of, except those on sugar 

 production and refining : and next that the whole industries of sugar produc- 

 tion and refining, important as they are in themselves, hardly count in a 

 question of the general industry of the United Kingdom. Even if we refined all 

 the sugar consumed in the United Kingdom and the maximum amount we have 

 ever exported, the whole income from this .source, the whole margin, would not 

 exceed about 2,000,000^. annually, not one-six-hundredth part of the income of the 

 people of the United Kingdom ; and of this 2,000,000^. at the worst we only lose 

 a portion by foreign competition, while all that is really Inst, it must be remem- 

 bered, is not the whole income which would have been gained if a certain portion 

 of our labour and capital had been employed in sugar refining, but only the 

 difference between that income and the income obtauied by the employment of the 

 same labour and capital in other directions. The loss to the empire may be greater 

 becaase our colonies are concerned in sugar production to the extent at present 

 prices of 5,000,000/. to 0,000,000/. annually, which would probably be somewhat 

 larger but for foreign competition. ]3ut it does not seem at all certain that this 

 figure would be increased if foreign bounties were taken away, while in any case 

 the amounts involved are too small to raise any question of foreign bounties having 

 checked the rate of growth of the general industry of the country. 



Per contra, of course, the extra cheapness of sugar, alleged to be due to the 

 bounties, must liave been so great an advantage to the people of the United King- 

 dom, saving them perhaps 2,000,000/. to 3,000,000/. per annum, that the stimulus 

 thereby given to other industries must app.nrently have far more than compensated 

 any loss caused by the stimulus of foreign bounties to sugar production and refining 

 abroad. But to enlarge on this point would involve the introduction of controversial 

 matter, which I am anxious to avoid. I am content to show that nothing that 

 can have resulted from sugar bounties could have affected seriously the general 

 rate of material growth in the country. 



Mutatis mutandis, the same remarks apply to other foreign bounties, of which 

 indeed the only ones that have been at all heard of are those on shipping. But as 

 yet, at least, the increase of foreign shipping has not been such as to come into 

 comparison with our own increase, while the portion of the increase that can be 

 connected with the operation of bounties is very small. It would be useless to 

 enter into figures on so small a point; but few figures are so well known or 

 accessible as those relating to shipping. 



In neither way, then, does there appear to be anything in the assertion that the 

 protectionist action of foreign Governments in recent years can have caused the 

 check alleged to the rate of growth in our industry generally, assuming such a check 

 to have occun'ed. I may be dispensed, therefore, from entering on the theoretical 

 argument, which I only notice poxu- mrmoire, that in the nature of things no 

 enhancement of foreign tariti's and uo grants of foreign bounties could really check 



See Appendix to First lieport of Royal Commiisiott, on Trade Dcjyression, p. 130. 



