Trade Relations with the United States. 309 
I shall now deal with the second question, that of the 
cost to the colony for the benefits of the Treaty. Having 
already stated my estimate of the dire6t gain to the sugar 
industry to be $720,000 at least, and it being a matter of 
fact that we pay for these benefits in our Tariff concessions 
the sum of about £30,000 or $144,000, I need not say 
that I consider the balance arising from the Reciprocity 
Treaty with the United States as vastly in our favour. 
But do we pay the concessions of $144,000 or there- 
abouts in hard cash to the United States, or is it 
merely a shifting of taxation from one source to the other 
to please the susceptibilities of our American Cousins? 
In the latter case, according to all the teachings of political 
economy, we virtually pay nothing at all. If the 
duties on certain articles of import under our Treaty 
obligations are reduced, the entire community should 
proportionately be benefited, and the corresponding 
burthen on other incidents of Taxation would be 
borne again by the entire community, so that in theory 
the deficit on the one hand and the gain on the other 
would counterbalance. Ergo, to the United States directly 
we pay nothing for the benefit which the Treaty confers, 
except in the shape of a larger demand for their particular 
exports, which, rightly or wrongly, they think may arise 
from it. For my part I do not expect any but the 
natural increased demand will arise for their staple 
exports to this colony, for which we have always looked 
to them as our natural source of supply. There are 
some items of manufacture, &c, in which they may 
interest our colony to a greater extent, but then we 
are not obliged to import them from the United States, 
if we can get them cheaper from other sources. 
QQ 
