99^ 
figures are correct, the beet sugar r-jndnstty, working at a commercial 
loss, r received from the taxpayers of the countries in which it is located 
which reprenented the very TAE profit of 3, nat ,0007. The 
bones being paid at so much a ton, the beet-sugar grower has every 
incitement to uma to produce so long as what may is termed his 
political gain outbalanecs his commercial loss. 
* Under such conditions of competition with regard to production the 
West Indian planter may be pardoned if he "has his moments of 
Here, again, the Continental system is against him. In Great Britain, 
where there are no duties, the consumption per head of the population 
reaches s. In Franc ce, where there is a duty of 24l. a ton, 
consumption falls to 28 lbs. per head of the population. In Germany is 
is 26 lbs. a head, in Austria it is 17 lbs. Thus, while the production is, 
on the one hand, stimulated by bounties, consumption is, on the other 
hand, restricted by duties. Supply is artificially increased, demand is 
artificially diminished, and the interference with economic law is 
complete. 
* The situation as it is offers, however, certain elements of hope. in 
the first place, the burden of the bounties on the taxpayers of the 
Continent becoming every pour more weighty, tends by that very fuct 
bring about its own cu At the present. rates of bounty a iic 
EE as that of last Je aval an annual cost in round numbers of 
almost 5,000,000/. to the bounty-giving Gov mate Every further 
fall in price Ps increases the burden, and a decrease of 17. per ton 
in the market price would mean, at present rates of production, a 
further charge of 5,000,000/. ‘The most patient taxpayers revolt 
when sueh charges for the benefit of one iudustry are piled too 
population of Great Britain the restrictions placed upon the consump- 
tion of the Continent may present a source of somewhat bitter reflection 
to the sugar grower, there is comfort in ies reflection that the powers 
of consumption of the world's markets y no means reached their 
limits, and that, if by any change of ouis the duties should at some 
future time be diminished, the demand might readily be doubled. If by 
e removal of bounties production were reduc re s natural levels 
and by the removal of duties demand w fiue od its na 
limits, there would be room for growers "of both xd and beet, and all 
might yet ve with the sugar industry. 
“ The pressing question for ‘the West Indian sugar growers is how to 
hold out till this favourable change shall take place. Representations 
of the necessity for action of some kind have poured in upon the 
Imperial Goroit in the form chiefly of petitions for relief, from 
the yen, sugar colonies, and it is perhaps not altogether unpatural 
that, foremost among the proposals of the suffering planter, is the 
request that his production of sugar also might be supported at the cost 
of the taxpayers by a system of. English bounty and the imposition of 
countervailing duties at English ports. He is so urgently in need of 
mo er that any means by which it may be obtained would be acceptable 
to hi 
= That men seeing themselves on the verge of grave disaster should 
be willing to snatch at any means in their power to avert the peril is 
