400 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. (1 Noy., 1897. 
The Excise duty collected by the different Governments is roughly 
£20,000,000, out of which £5,000,000 is returned to the sugar-makers in the 
form of bounties for sugar exported to foreign countries. The total export 
of the three countries named is about 2,000,000 tons, while they receive in 
bounties £5,000,000, or, say, 50s. per ton for every ton exported. Now, as 
an Excise duty of nearly £6 per ton is collected upon the whole production, 
while the bounties paid upon the whole production amount to about 80s. per 
ton, it would appear at first sight that the producers paid to the Treasury 
£15,000,000 more than they received in bounties. So they do. But they take 
care to recoup themselves over and over again from the consumer. And 
this is how they manage it. The consumption of the three countries named 
is 1,470,000 tons. By a protective tariff the value of sugar is kept about 
3id. per Ib. higher in the Continental markets than in the English market. 
Now, note the result. Multiplying the total home consumption—namely, 
1,470,000 tons—by the extra value received through protection—namely, 33d. 
per lb.—we have the stupendous sum of £47,375,000, which is practically 
a gift from the consumers to the producers to enable them to carry out their 
nefarious schemes to crush the cane industry. The actual bonus, therefore, 
received by the Continental producers is equal to nearly £10 per ton on every 
ton of sugar produced. It is made up thus— 
Amount received from producers... .. £47,3875,000 
Amount received from bounties rj an 5,000,000 
£52,375,000 
Less amount paid by Excise ... nes ... 20,000,000 
Total on ay, om bri ... £82,375,000 
Received on a production of 3,585,000 tons. 
Lhaye gone to some trouble to make the position clear to the general 
public. Let them imagine a bonus of £10 per ton paid upon an article which 
sells in the open market, say, at an average of £11 per ton, and then ask 
themselves can the Queensland industry fight against such odds? Surely not. 
Tt may be taken as a fact at the present time in the largest and best-equipped 
factories here and the ruling rates for cane, it costs just about as much to 
produce the sugar as is obtained for it in the greatly protected markets of the 
colony. ‘The present is bad, but the future is infinitely more gloomy. New 
South Wales is degenerating into frectrade, and one of our largest and best 
markets is to be handed over entirely to the bounty-fed producers. This is no 
idle statement. German producers, by means of their large steamers now 
trading direct to Sydney, are now offering to land best refined sugar in Sydney 
at £12 17s. 6d. per ton. When this takes place, Queensland producers will 
be compelled to sell their refined article in the Sydney market at £2 per ton 
less than it costs to make. This is a serious matter. 
After the experience of England, where her grand sugar refineries have 
almost become things of the past through the sompetition of bounty-fed 
sugar, surely we are not going to allowa repetition . re. Your answer to this 
is perhaps that cheap sugar has established other 4 “idiary industries which 
more than make up the loss of the refineries. Just But my reply is that, 
but for the bounties, Hngland would have had her nj ng industry and the 
subsidiary industries into the bargain. 
Then, again, look what America is doing. She mports annually about 
£2,000,000 worth of Continental sugar. She is now d.termined to grow beets 
herself, and keep this money amongst. her own people. 
