It will probably be convenient for me to say a few words upon this Vote, which is proposed in accordance with the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in introducing his Budget, when he said a grant in aid would be necessary to enable the sugar industry in our West Indian Colonies to tide over the interval which must elapse before the Convention signed at Brussels comes into force. The Committee will forgive me for saying that the condition of the West Indian Colonies has been a matter of most serious consideration and anxiety to me ever since I came into my present office. In that time the condition of those islands has not been in any sense satisfactory, and at one time I was certainly under the greatest apprehension that we might have these islands thrown on our hands, and that the taxpayers of this country might be called upon to intervene with a very considerable subvention in order to prevent them relapsing into barbarism. In view of this state of things, when I came into office a Royal Commission was appointed of which Sir H. Norman was Chairman, and the right hon. Baronet the Member for Northumberland and Sir D. Barbour were members. A more competent and impartial Commission it would be impossible to secure. The Commission visited the West Indies in 1896–97, and made a most careful examination of the condition of the islands, altogether spending four months there, and they entirely confirmed the worst impressions which I have derived from the despatches of the governors as to the condition of the islands. They attributed the almost universal depression mainly to the failure of the sugar industry, and that in the unanimous opinion of the Commission was due almost entirely to the operation of sugar bounties. I should say that the Commission added in reference to the bounty system that any advantage that was pained in this country by the creation of an artificial lowness in the price of sugar was dearly purchased by the injury the system was doing to the West Indies. They further reported that, in their opinion the only complete remedy was the restoration of the sugar industry to something like its former prosperity, and that the main object of the Government should therefore be by all reasonable and proper means to secure the abolition of these bounties, which had pressed so heavily on the industry for such a considerable period. They made, however, in addition some extremely valuable suggestions as to partial remedies that might be found for the depression that existed, and I think I may say that all these suggestions, without exception, have been adopted—I am happy to say with considerable result. Of course, I am giving general deductions from the Report, but it will be understood that the condition of things varies materially in the different islands, and even at the time the Commission reported certain colonies which gave greater promise and had commerce and industry not enjoyed by others. In the case of colonies more favourably situated a good deal has been done and the situation has considerably improved. That is the case of Jamaica, which at one time was practically bankrupt, with a very heavy deficit. We have at last in the present year secured an equilibrium between revenue and expenditure, and that has been attained only by sinking expenditure in a way that I confess I did not like to carry out, for undoubtedly the expenditure in itself and on its merits was advantageous. But by economies and by some increase in revenue we have been enabled to establish a balance. We have also, following a suggestion of the Commission, established a direct service for the carriage of fruit from Jamaica, with a result that has been, on the whole, satisfactory. I do not think that up to the present time there has been any profit to the contractors, and perhaps it will involve a loss; but there has been a not unsatisfactory commencement of a new trade which it is hoped may have enormous development, and already a weekly has been substituted for a fortnightly service, and the character of the ships employed has been very much improved. A large tourist traffic has I also started, and I trust the trade thus commenced will increase to the advantage of Jamaica and the other colonies. Trinidad is in an exceptional position in that it is in possession of a resource not present in other islands. Trinidad possesses that extraordinary natural phenomenon, the pitch lake, the supply from which is well-nigh inexhaustible. There is a strong demand for the product in the United States, and a demand is growing up in this country. Coal also has been found on the island. I cannot at present say what is the quality and cost of production, but I think we may count upon its doing something to improve the condition, and I think we may say that Trinidad may be regarded as in a favourable condition. St. Lucia, one of the poorer and less fortunately situated islands, has been rescued from bankruptcy by the fact that it has become an important naval station, and. of course, considerable Imperial expenditure goes on in the island. Dominica, among the smaller islands, I may say, is prospering. It is one of the most beautiful and productive. It has a lovely climate, is most picturesque, and has many attractions for tourists. A great number of products are produced there, so that we now have a considerable surplus between the revenue and the expenditure. I should say that here also we are indebted to the Commission for their suggestions, and that, in accordance with them, a considerable sum of: money has been expended in improving the communications, which were very backward; and that cause has contributed to the possibility of disposing of the Crown lands to which I have referred. British Guiana is also in rather an exceptional position. It largely depends on sugar, although in British Guiana and Trinidad the sugar industry is conducted on the most modern and scientific principles. There has been a great deal of capital invested, and the machinery, I believe, is quite up to date, and as good as any to be found in other parts of the world. But, in addition to sugar, British Guiana has also a considerable goldfield, or goldfields, which already provide a considerable amount of the metal, and which are likely, I hope, very considerably to be extended. Lately, too, a diamond field has been discovered, not, indeed, anything to compare with the diamond fields of the Transvaal, because it is an alluvial digging, and the diamonds are exceedingly small, but still they are of very considerable commercial value, and I am hopeful that, having got all this and the gold industry, we may induce a very large diversion of capital to British Guiana, and the introduction of many other industries besides the principal one of sugar. I have finished what I have to say of the islands which are least necessitous. But I must remind the Committee that, while these other sources of revenue are of the very highest importance, if ever the sugar industry were to fail, even in these more favourably situated places, the islands would be in the greatest possible distress. An enormous number of labourers would be thrown out of employment, and the difficulties of the situation would be very great. Many of the alternative industries of one kind or another which have been suggested, although they are not without their merits, do not employ a large amount of labour. The sugar industry, both sugar farming and the attendance to the machinery for sugar crushing, employ a considerable amount of labour, and, of course, cause the circulation of a large amount of wages. Therefore, even in those islands the continuance of the sugar industry may be said to be an absolute necessity; but still more is that the case in the other islands to which I have to refer. Barbadoes, for instance, at the present moment exports 94 per cent. of its total production in the shape of sugar. Antigua, I think, is over 90, and St. Kitts is 97. St. Vincent, with these other islands, is entirely dependent on sugar, and to Montserrat it is of the very greatest importance. If the sugar industry fails in these most necessitous islands we are face to face with a great catastrophe. The whole population would then be thrown out of employment; there would be no revenue, and the ordinary organisation of a civilised administration would have to be provided at the cost of the taxpayers of this country. We should probably be face to face with discontent that might lead to disturbance, and altogether the condition of the islands would be one which would be most deplorable. It has been suggested, and the Royal Commission carefully inquired into the matter, that in some of the islands which are worst off, in which the sugar industry appears to have the least prospect of success, a large experiment in the way of peasant proprietors should be made. The Commission, although pointing out the difficulties attending an arrangement of this kind, did give it, to some extent, their countenance, and we have since endeavoured to the best of our ability to secure a considerable amount of settlement upon the land by small proprietors. But what I want to point out, as the Commission found, is that if you establish a peasant proprietary of this kind all that you do for these people is to give them the means of obtaining what is absolutely necessary for their subsistence in the shape of food. But the productions of their industry are not exportable products, and accordingly they have no balance over and above the actual food that is required for their subsistence which can be transmuted into gold or other necessaries, and no balance whatever for the provision of the ordinary administration of the island. Therefore by itself it is no remedy. It is perfectly impossible to look to any considerable extension of peasant proprietary as affording any remedy for the state of things which would occur if the sugar industry were entirely to fail. The object pressed upon us by the Commission was to secure, if possible, the abolition of bounties, and I may say that, until very recently indeed, that object has been accepted and properly promoted as a desirable object by men of all parties and of all opinions—by economists of the strictest kind, as well as by those who may be considered, in a special sense, the friends of Free Trade. I take such a well-known case as Lord Farrer. Lord Farrer's orthodoxy in regard to economics will not be denied, I venture to think, by any one who has the benefit of his acquaintance; but Lord Farrer has distinctly said, again and again, that all of us, whatever our views might be on the subject of Free Trade, should equally desire that this artificial interference with Free Trade in the shape of the bounties given by foreign countries should,]f possible, be removed, and that all reasonable arrangements with that object ought to be supported. I know that on one occasion he said that if I could accomplish a result of this kind, I should deserve well of every economist, and that he, for one. heartily wished me God-speed. I say that that was the Universal opinion until very recent times. But I have noticed one or two statements within the last year or so from persons who have gone much further than Mr. Cobden ever went, and much further than even Lord Farrer followed him, and who contend that bounties are in themselves an advantage, and that it is not to our interest to remove them, and in fact, I think they even go so far as to say that we ought to do all we can to maintain them. However, with that small minority, I do not propose to enter into controversy. We have endeavoured on many occasions to get rid of bounties, and have always failed until the other day, when at Brussels a satisfactory Convention was signed. The difficulty has always been that foreign countries have not believed, and perhaps have had reason not to believe, that we were in earnest in the steps we were prepared to take. It has always been within our power to obtain the abolition of bounties if we were willing to say that we would prohibit or countervail bounty-fed sugar. We have refused on previous occasions to give that assurance, and, accordingly, the bounties have been continued. In my opinion, we have refused that too long. In my opinion we have made a great mistake, and one result of the delay has been that the evil is now much greater than it was, and much more difficult to deal with. In the case of the sugar industry we have allowed this artificial and unfair and unjust competition not only to go on, but to increase both in its extent-and its intensity, until immense injury has already been done to the West Indies; and our great refining trade, if it has not been entirely destroyed, has been very much diminished, and its natural increase, which under ordinary circumstances, would have given employment to-tons of hundreds, if not to hundreds of thousands of people, has been entirely stopped. We, however, have to deal with the situation as we find it, and we have made arrangements which will put a stop to this unjust and unfair system. I do not think it is a popular system even abroad. It has been forced on foreign countries, one may almost say, by the competition between them. It has not been so much with any desire to injure the sugar business of the West Indies that these bounties have been given, but through the competition between the different nations for the sugar trade of the United Kingdom. This artificial competition has led to artificial disturbance of industry. A great excess of beet production has taken place, and in order to get rid of this it has been necessary to bring down prices to a ruinous level, and then the persons concerned have sought compensation in the ever-increasing bounties which foreign Governments have been induced to give them. The bounties will come to an end under the Convention, and the different parties to the Convention have agreed to a penal clause so as to make it effective. If any of the parties to the Convention should break it, or should restore the bounties which they have undertaken to abandon, then the penal clause would come into effect, and such countries would be excluded from business in all the markets of the other countries concerned, and the markets of the United Kingdom, therefore, among others. I believe that that will be effective, and that this time, at any rate, I may say, to use the words of my right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that we mean business. I fancy that this is fully understood abroad. It is perfectly understood that we will not again be put off as we have been in the past, and that the agreement which has now been come to by all the principal sugar producers must be carried out both in the spirit and in the letter. This is what the industry has asked for. All they have said to us is, "Give us fair play." They asked for nothing more. All they have said is, "Put us in the same petition as other countries and we believe that our natural advantages of climate and soil will enable us to hold our own." The great difficulty which has resulted from the sugar bounties in the past has been not merely that great advantage in competition has been given to our opponents, but that confidence has been so absolutely destroyed, that there has been none of that natural now of new energy and new capital to the West Indian Islands which every country wants if it is to maintain itself at the present lime. We have given the industry all that it has asked for with one exception. We have secured this fair play which. I think, it has a right to demand at the hands of the mother country, and I believe that to that extent we have entirely satisfied its just demand. But they asked that the arrangement made by the Convention should come into force in the year 1902. We failed to secure that. The foreign countries concerned represented that it was necessary for them to make arrangements in view of so great a change in their system, and that they could not ensure the completion of those arrangements before the autumn of 1903. We had to agree, therefore, to the later date, the result of which is that there is another interval of twelve months to be bridged over, a very critical interval, in which the industry is subject to all its previous disadvantages.

It is more than twelve months.

Twelve months over and above what was asked for. The total delay is more than my right hon, friend says, and might extend to two years, including two separate crops. Still, the representatives of the industry themselves were prepared for such a delay; but when they were told that the delay was to be extended over a second crop then it was represented to us on the highest authority—and I am perfectly convinced of the truth of the representation—that they could not possibly last during that period.

Might I ask the right hon. Gentleman to state his authority?

I should have thought the hon. Member would have been content to take it from me. The authorities are all the governors of the colonies concerned, the legislative authorities of the colonies, and the representatives of the industry, and if I wanted to go beyond that I would go back a j-ear or two to the Report of the Royal Commission. They all point to the same conclusion. At the present moment the advantage given by the bounties to other sugar, as opposed to West Indian sugar, is probably not less than £5 a ton; and at the same time the enormous over production lowers the price everywhere. It is, therefore, impossible for any ordinary sugar producers to sell sugar at the present moment without a loss. I have seen the balance sheets of some of the larger companies, but they are, owing to the fact that they employ much better machinery than the small companies, in a much better position than the smaller companies. When you come to such small islands as the Barbadoes, Antigua, and St. Kitt's, I do not hesitate to say that there is not a single estate which has not made a loss this year, and which will not make a greater loss next year. What is the natural result? It is that all these estates must be closed up unless we come to some extent to their assistance. Without some assistance of that kind the merchants and the banks have refused to make their usual financial loans on the coming produce. And it has been brought to my consideration by the Convention signed at Brussels that in a great number of islands the majority of the estates would be absolutely destroyed, or that these estates would have to be shut up unless some assistance is rendered. If that were done, the evil would not be confined to the single year during which the estates were closed, because the Committee will readily perceive that if an estate is closed the machinery is put in idleness for a period of twelve months, and a very large expenditure would be required in order to restore it to its usual powers of work. This, then, is the problem before His Majesty's Government—How are we to secure the continued cultivation of these sugar estates during the comparatively short interval between the present time and the time when the abolition of the bounties comes into force? I do not think I need further dwell upon the fact that if these estates do cease to be cultivated, if the labourers are thrown on their own resources, we shall be face to face with a demand on the British taxpayers to which the demand I am now making would be a mere fleabite. We should have the population of the whole West Indian Islands thrown upon us to support except in the case of those very exceptional colonies which can possibly get on somehow or other by the help of other industries. Well then, we have asked for £250,000. We have asked for the very smallest amount which, in our opinion, would secure the result I have indicated we have in view. We have not asked for a penny more, and it is, I can well understand, probable that we have asked for too little. But in distributing the sum we have not taken into account any idea of compensation for the losses of the planters; any idea of making up the loans to those who can afford these losses. Although I admit that the persons concerned might have something to say on the ground that their condition was brought about by an artificial state of things which we might have earlier prevented we have not taken that argument into account, and we are prepared to treat alike all those producers of sugar, whether they be well to do or poor, whether they are large or small producers, who have met with this misfortune. And we have put this grant, not as compensation to them but as a policy of state, and as the most economical policy for the country to pursue unless we wish to avoid something very like a catastrophe. Having first settled up the lump sum of £250,000, we have divided the islands into two classes—the more necessitous where sugar is the principle industry And where there is an absence of good machinery. To them we have given a much larger proportionate grant than we propose to offer to the less necessitous islands. Having decided upon this classification, and having roughly, in our own minds, allotted the amount among the separate islands, we have communicated with the local governors, and the representatives of the industry in this country, as to the method the distribution should take. And we found, as we expected, that the condition of the islands are very different, and the methods of taxation and the circumstances vary in almost every particular. Different methods have been suggested to meet the different cases. We have considered all the suggestions and have finally decided on a plan of distribution with which I will not at this stage trouble the Committee. But if any hon. Member desires information in regard to any particular island I will be ready to give it. We have tried, as far as possible, to avoid anything in the nature of a direct bounty. We have preferred rather to relieve by relaxation of taxation, or by assistance in the shape of loans, or in other ways suited to the conditions and circumstances of the case, and we have made it a condition, in every instance, of any assistance that the estate shall be continued in a state of good cultivation up to the period of the abolition of the bounties.

said he hoped the Committee would be content to give a little attention to this extraordinary Estimate. The Colonial Secretary ought to be thanked for his candour, for the Committee had been practically informed that this grant amounted to a countervailing duty.

Nothing of the kind. What I stated was that the advantage of the continental bounties was at least equal to £5 a ton, and assuming the production was 300,000 tons, a countervailing duty would amount to a million and a half.

said he did not think-that the bounty given by Germany amounted to more than £2 a ton, instead of the £5 a ton mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman. But he was not speaking of the amount of the grant, but of the principle of a grant. The right hon. Gentleman had advocated the principle of a countervailing duty, for he had told the Committee that this was a free grant to be given not to a suffering class of the population but to a definite industry. If that were so the right hon. Gentleman would be establishing a new precedent. From the long note of explanation on the Paper, it would be seen that the bounties were only expected to terminate in 1903; but suppose that Russia were to break away from the Brussels Convention Agreement, or that anything happened—as it might easily happen—to upset this fragile arrangement in regard to the abolition of the bounties, in what position would England be? Must they go on giving a grant of £250,000 every year in order to prop up a falling industry? When he asked the right hon. Gentleman who were the authorities whom he had consulted before submitting this Estimate, the right hon. Gentleman fell back on the Report of the Royal Commission. There was no such recommendation in the Report of the Royal Commission. He understood that one Member was in favour of a grant, but that the majority was against it. The right hon. Gentleman said that the governors of all the islands had recommended that this step should be taken.

said that what he had alleged was that the Report of the Royal Commission showed what would happen to the islands if the sugar industry broke down.

said he admitted that great distress would occur if the sugar industry broke down. He had read the Report of the Royal Commission very carefully, and there was this one defect in it, that it plunged too much into the question of a single industry. He admitted that the sugar industry in the West Indies was in a very precarious condition; but there were other industries also in a precarious condition; and it was a most serious thing to agree to prop up one declining industry and not another. The right hon. Gentleman had told them that he had seen the representatives of the sugar trade in this country, and that he had seen the balance sheets of some of those companies whom he was going to subsidise with this £250,000. That sum was not a trifle. He could show the right hon. Gentleman the balance sheets of companies in other industries which were equally unfavourable; but was that a reason for giving a grant of this kind? The Committee should remember that this was not the only amount that was proposed to be given to the West Indies this year. We were voting £20,000 this year to provide for the deficits of the various islands, £25,000 to subsidise a steamer, £12,400 to carry out an experiment in regard to botanical research; we had established something in the nature of a Board of Agriculture at a cost of £5,000, and another branch at a cost of £3,550. Although they were granted £65,770 this year in this irregular way, these greedy islands, not satisfied with that, came and asked and obtained the high sum of £250,000 which was embodied in this Estimate. The main ground for this Estimate was that there was a severe crisis to be tided over until these bounties were abolished. But that was not sufficient reason, because, if relief was to come in a year, the people would not allow this industry to languish during the twelve months they had to wait. The argument to which the right hon. Gentleman attached most value was that these bounties were abolished. Then why not let the relief stop there? There were two or throe reasons why this grant should not be made. In the first place, the bounties might not be abolished, and if they were the relief would come of itself. In 1898 the right hon. Gentleman said we had to deal with a temporary crisis, but he was wrong. Though the Committee voted all that was asked and all the Commission recommended, the sugar industry was not put into what the right hon. Gentleman called a good position, and therefore it was not a temporary crisis, but a business condition which everybody understood. The principle of giving the grant was unsound, and formed a bad and dangerous precedent which they ought not to adopt. The evil alleged was that the price of sugar had decreased. But was that an evil? Had not that decrease conferred a vast benefit on the people of this country, and should not that also be taken into account? The decrease in the price of sugar had not been greater than the decrease in the price of many other commodities. There was, for instance tea, which had decreased from 1s. 3d. a lb. in 1885 to 7½d. a lb. last year; in a period of seventeen years it had fallen 50 per cent. There was nothing remarkable in the decrease in the price of sugar, except in the way it was proposed to deal with the decrease. Those engaged in the tea industry had suffered very greatly by the decrease in price, but the House resolved riot to interfere. If it once went into these questions it would find the trade of the country involved in difficulties of which it had no conception. The story of the right hon. Gentleman, that the sole cause of this trouble had been the sugar bounties, had not been made good. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned four or five islands which were deeply interested in sugar, and said for these places the remedy had been sufficient. Why not let it rest there? The remaining islands mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman were the smallest islands—islands which the advantage would reach last, and he therefore asked the right hon. Gentleman to wait a year or two, when he might be able to give as good a report with regard to them as the others. Although the exports of sugar had decreased, exports of other produce had largely increased, and that would show that these islands were taking the only course, from a business point of view, by embarking in other industries. Export of sugar had decreased, but export of cocoa and lime juice had increased, and a valuable trade had grown up. These islands were having recourse to other expedients, and they should be allowed to have fair play rather than that this experiment should be made. He denied that the bounties were responsible for these islands falling into this lamentable condition, and attributed their state to I their not having adopted a good system of cultivation in the past. The Committee should not assume, therefore, that the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman were conclusive; they could not be certain that when these bounties were abolished the situation would be any better. Beet sugar might still be able to compete equally well, and then there would be no improvement in the situation. He objected strongly to the bolstering up of a particular industry by these means. It was a most dangerous experiment for the House to make, and an experiment that he did not think the Committee was justified in making. He moved the reduction of the Vote by £1,000.

contended that all the Committee was being asked to do was to complete the work which had already been begun by the steps taken to abolish the sugar bounties. The hon. Member for West Islington spoke of the great fall in the price of sugar and in the price of tea. The fall in the price of tea was a natural fall, but the state of the sugar trade was due, not to Free Trade, but to principles in direct violation of the principle of Free Trade. The fall in the price of tea was a natural fall, and all that could be done was to give that industry a fair field, and let it fight its way. But with regard to the fall in the price of sugar, was it sensible or was it right, after taking so much trouble to get rid of the sugar bounties, to allow the trade to fall into ruin before the actual abolition of the duties could be carried out? The proposal before the Committee was only that for the year that remained steps should be taken to tide over the difficulty.

said that the Vote before the Committee was not for a very large amount, and was of a temporary nature. He had not supposed the debate would take so wide a range. His only reason for speaking was that he was on the Royal Commission which inquired into the details of the condition of those islands. He wished to keep as closely as possible to the particular merits of the Vote, and he did not propose to go into the subject of countervailing duties. He was one of those who did not see their way to recommend countervailing duties. He testified to the most kindly spirit in which the Colonial Secretary had received the recommendations of the Commission, and to the encouragement which the Members had received from his attitude and from the extent to which he had adopted their recommendations. He did not think it necessary to discuss counter vailing duties. He reminded the Committee that bounties and countervailing duties were not the same tiling. People might differ as to whether countervailing duties wore the best method of getting rid of bounties, but they might be agreed that bounties themselves were very bad. He was inclined to agree with his hon. friend behind him that this country, as a whole, had derived considerable benefit from the sugar bounties given by foreign countries. But, though one might in these circumstances have a good time for a few years, or even for a considerable number of years, it did not rest on a very substantial foundation. But when his hon. friend said that bounties had conferred great benefits on us at home by giving us cheap sugar, he affirmed that bounties had artificially lowered the price. That was putting a very strong card into the hands of the sugar industry of the West Indian islands, for their contention was that they had suffered by the operation of bounties. It was not admitted by everybody, but it was their contention that the bounties had done them a great deal of harm. If it were admitted that bounties had had a great effect on the price of sugar, the West Indian sugar industry could urge with considerable force that the bounties had done them much harm. It did not, of course, follow that one was bound to give them assistance. This grant, on the face of it, was not a grant which appeared in the form which he would wish the Committee to consider a desirable one. It appeared in the form of a grant to a special industry, and he thought it should be treated, as far as possible, as a loan to be repaid. He hoped it was distinctly to be understood that the grant was not permanent, but simply to tide over an interval. Both from the point of view of its being a grant to a special industry, and from the point of view of its being a general measure of relief to these Colonies, it was brought before the Committee as an exceptional and temporary measure. What they had to ask was—was there a case to justify a temporary grant of this kind made in this way? He thought there was a case for it. His hon. friend behind him had laid down a great many general principles, with some of which he cordially agreed. He did not, as a rule, like a grant to a special industry; but the question was not that of the laying down of general principles, but of the application of them. His hon. friend had talked of the possibility of other industries being carried on, and had pointed to increases in the export of cocoa which had accompanied the decline in the sugar trade. It must be borne in mind, however, that, though the West Indies were regarded by us, at a distance, as a small group of islands lying near together and existing on much the same terms, some of them were separated from one another by enormous distances; and even in the case of islands lying close together the difference of condition was extraordinary. The hon. Member referred to the growing export of lime-juice; well, Mont Serrat supplied us with lime-juice. A few years ago that island suffered exceptionally from hurricane, and since that time the export of lime-juice from Dominica had increased. He would suggest that that increase was due to the damage caused by hurricanes in Mont Serrat, and to Dominica having got some of the Mont Serrat trade. Referring to Barbadoes he pointed out that cocoa could not be grown there. Ninety-four per cent, of the exports of Barbadoes consisted of sugar, and on this industry depended a dense population of over 1,100 persons to the square mile. If there were a sudden collapse of the sugar industry in such a place, what were we to do? Were we going to offer to the world the spectacle of that crowded population starving and in distress? That it was impossible to do in any island for the government of which we were directly or indirectly responsible. It might be that the population would have to go and the island become derelict, but in the interval we should at any rate have to go to their assistance.

No such case as my right hon. friend suggests was made out.

said that might be so, but at the same time Barbadoes was a place where there might be great destitution, owing to the amount of population that existed. The question really was whether, after all, this grant—which he did not recommend to the Committee as an agreeable or desirable grant, and which should be distinctly regarded as a temporary one—the question was whether it was not. on the whole, not only the cheapest, but the most effective way of discharging an obligation which we might, in any case, have to undertake in regard to these islands. It was not as if other things had not been tried. The Commission recommended that other industries should be developed as much as possible. In the case of Barbadoes there was no help for it, but in the case of the other islands the Commission urged that they should as little as possible depend on the sugar industry alone, and that other industries, should be encouraged so that they might have more than one resource. This was being done by the Agricultural Department, which had been established since the Commission reported. One great work of that Department had been to study the possibilities of other industries and then to instruct the population in starting them, and, at the same time, to do all in its power to try and cheapen the production of sugar, just as has been done in the case of beet-root. Another point urged by the Commission was that, to encourage new industries, there must be better means of communication with markets. That had been done also. Better means of communication had been established. He believed the House of Commons voted money for a subsidy to the steam line to Jamaica, which the Commission suggested. The Commission further recommended that, in islands like Barbadoes and Antigua, which really must grow sugar or become derelict, there should be some experiments made by giving assistance in the way of loans to enable central factories and new machinery to be established. This grant was akin to the recommendation of the Commission that something should be done to help the sugar industry to compete on equal terms with other producers through the means of better machinery. He would point out what the condition of the sugar industry had been. Those engaged in it were reproached for not having better machinery. It was said they had fallen behind because they neglected their machinery, while in the beetroot sugar industry the best and most modern methods were employed. In these days of scientific invention machinery was always improving and constantly having to be renewed; but in any business the renewals and improvements in machinery required could not be effected without credit. The industry must have credit, and to his mind the strongest argument the sugar industry had been able to put forward was that the bounties had interfered with their credit and prevented them from raising the capital which from time to time was necessary to enable them to have the best machinery. All he would say that the West Indians must not be blamed for having been behind the times in regard to machinery and at the same time be told that they ought not to complain of the bounties. Their case was, and it was undoubtedly true, that they had not the credit and had not been able to establish the best machinery except in a few cases. What was the expectation of the sugar industry in the West Indies? It had always been that if the bounties ceased it would again become a flourishing industry. That, of course, was a matter of prophecy. He would say nothing to discourage that expectation, but if his hon. friend challenged it, as he thought he did, all he could urge was that he would at any rate like to see them have a chance. If, as appeared to be the case, the state of these islands, or of the particular islands selected for help, was such that we should have to come to their assistance anyhow, then, be did think that as a temporary measure the cheapest and most effective way of coming to their assistance would be to keep the sugar industry alive as much as possible, by way of loans, until it could get that chance. He called it the most effective way for this reason. The right hon. Gentleman opposite had spoken of the patient growing weaker and weaker. As long as the patient was alive, supposing the conditions changed, he might recover and become strong again, but if he was allowed to die, whatever might happen afterwards, the patient could not revive. His hon. friend said—"Supposing when bounties disappear it is still found that the sugar industry cannot flourish in the islands? Then undoubtedly the House would have to face a very grave question; but the time had not yet come when he was prepared to say, "Let the sugar industry go." The interval was short. The industry urged that they were handicapped by lack of capital, and that the bounties had artificially lowered the price of sugar, but that they could compete on equal terms if the bounties disappeared, He was not prepared to say they could not, and he was anxious that they should have the chance. He thought it was justifiable to tide over the interval by a grant of this kind. Let any one who felt any qualms about such a Vote consider the problem we should have to face if the sugar industry should go in these islands. Some islands were safe already, and others might be come so by the development of other industries, but in some, such as Barbados, the problem we should have to face would be really—What principle was to be pursued in the case of a Crown colony which was unable to pay its way? That would be a most serious problem, and he was not anxious that the House of Commons should be brought face to face with it. If ever they were, they would be exceedingly sorry that the sugar industry had disappeared. He would ask the Committee to bear in mind that we had really very great obligations towards these islands. The population in them was our own creation, and there had been times when this country took great wealth out of those islands. One of the hardships had been that as fast as wealth was made there it was always taken out of them. If it was proved that it was impossible that they should have a nourishing industry, we should have to break the fall as much as possible, and we should have to come to their assistance with such relief as was possible. But for the time being, seeing that the abolition of the bounties was apparently imminent, and seeing that if the sugar industry disappeared in the interval the House would certainly be called upon, to vote money which they could not in honour refuse, he thought, on the whole, that a temporary grant of this kind, the method which the Government had chosen, was not only the cheapest method but also afforded the best chance of avoiding grants of a similar kind in the future—grants which, he thought, were most undesirable.

said that by disregarding all the circumstances and facts of the case it was easy to suggest that no attention should be paid to the claim made by these islands on the liberality of Parliament. Everybody who was in any degree acquainted with the West Indies knew perfectly well that while the industries so wisely promoted by the Secretary of State would be a certain advantage, they would not, to any considerable extent, provide the employment afforded by the sugar industry. The cultivation of bananas would not give employment to one person in twenty as compared with the sugar industry, while the production of cocoa, although novel and valuable, would give employment to a very small number. It was alleged that the West Indian planters had shown want of enterprise in not providing the most modern and scientific machinery. It was absurd to generalise in such a case as this. Some islands were extremely poor and utterly unable to find the necessary capital which the purchase of modern machinery would require. But that was not the case in all the islands. At the beginning of last year in Trinidad he saw capital being employed most liberally. There was an estate with 37,000 acres of cane, and sixty miles of steam tramways running through it. It could not be said that that evidenced a want of liberality in the expenditure of capital, and yet every ton of sugar produced on that estate represented a loss of £2. In the most prosperous of the West Indian Islands large estates were at present being sold because the owners could not carry them on in the face of unfair competition. No doubt sugar production was a precarious industry. So were all industries that were carried on under keen competition, but it was not precarious when conducted under fair conditions, and the West Indian producers were not compelled to fight the European producers with their hands tied. It must be well-known to the hon. Member that one of the chief reasons for the great fall in the price of tea in India and Ceylon was the large increase in the production, and therefore it was inevitable that the price should fall. The hon. Member alluded to the wants of Ireland, but he thought they did recognise in the House of Commons the wants of Ireland. [An IRISH MEMBER: How?] What about light railways. [An IRISH MEMBER: That is our own money.] He could not help it if hon. Members opposite were ungrateful for the assistance extended to Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman had defended this Vote upon grounds which were uncontrovertible because it gave one year or one and a half year's respite to the county system. He thought this was a wise measure to take on the part of this House. He wished he could think that the sum was sufficient, or that it would be effective. The Brussels Convention for the abolition of sugar bounties was signed by the Powers on 5th March, 1902. But the abolition was not to come into force until September, 1903. As the West Indian Islands reap their sugar crop between February and June, this would mean that they had to stand a loss of £2 per ton of sugar on two crops, and the loss in British Guiana would be much the same as the crop reaped there between September, 1901, and June, 1902, which showed a heavy loss, and there would be a further loss on the September, 1902, to June, 1903, crop. The amount of the grant was £250,000, which was equivalent to £1 per ton on the sugar crop of the West Indies, where as the loss on each crop would be at least £2 per ton, and if this grant was not given again next Budget, the figures would roughly work out as follows:—£2 per ton loss on two crops of 250,000 tons would mean £1,000,000, and the West Indies were to be recouped for this loss by a Vote of £250,000. This was most unfair. It was the wish of the West Indies that the Brussels Convention should have come into force at once, but the delay which was insisted on by the beet industry enabled them to ensure the West Indies losing £1,000,000 sterling. With this millstone hanging round the neck of the West Indies cane industry they were to start in September, 1903, to compete with beet. As the British Government allowed the delay till September, 1903, they ought to give besides the grant of £250,000 this year another grant next year of at least £250,000. Last year Burnley's estates producing 8,049 tons, and Cumming's estates producing 5,780 tons of sugar had to be sold, find this year Turnbull's estates were for sale producing 7,300 tons. All these were in Trinidad alone.

How much were they sold for?

said he did not know, but he was quite sure they were sold at a heavy loss, having regard to the investments of the owners. He ventured to think that this £250,000 distributed amongst a great many owners would be insufficient to maintain this industry until the time came when it might hope to compete on equal terms with the beetroot sugar of Europe. As hon. Members were aware, the Cartel system was in full force, and this Committee ought not to be indifferent to the consideration of proposals calculated to be eminently beneficial to trade. The Secretary of State for the Colonies had earned the gratitude, not only of the British colonists, but also of the people of this country, by the satisfactory treatment he had brought to bear upon Colonial policy, for he had welded together the Empire in closer and more affectionate bonds than they had ever known before. The Colonial Secretary had risen superior to such selfish considerations as had been put before the House. Insufficient as he feared this I grant was, he hoped that it would, to some extent, preserve an industry which was most valuable to this country.

said the speech of the right hon. Baronet was an instance of the great danger there was in granting these doles. His speech was mainly devoted to explaining that, because they had given £250,000 they had established the principle that they ought always to give and that this sum was not nearly enough for the clients which he so ably represented. The practical Question before the House appeared to him to be whether they should give this £250,000 to the West Indies or not. What were the West Indies? They had been a curse to England ever since they got them. For a long while there was slavery there, and people made an enormous fortune by it. They were then called upon to pay these people large indemnities for freeing those slaves. These men, instead of devoting their money to the development of their estates, had taken it elsewhere, and things had gone on from bad to worse. He could not remember a single period of experience when he had not heard of the unfortunate West Indian owner, and he had not the slightest sympathy for him, for these owners were absentees and were exceedingly stupid men. They did not keep pace with the times before the bounties were given and did not renew their machinery in accordance with modern inventions. Consequently the effect of the large increase in the production of sugar from other portions of the world had been that the West Indian planters had to compete with a reduction in the cost of production by one half of what it was before. They would have made much more money if they had simply spent what was requisite in the matter of machinery. It was not only the beet sugar, but the cane sugar with which they had to compete which had been produced under better conditions and with better machinery. Was the right hon. Gentleman not, aware that sugar was produced elsewhere even within British Colonies. Sugar was produced in India and in the Mauritius. Was it fair to give subsidies to the West Indies and not to the Mauritius and India? The whole system was radically and utterly wrong. The Colonial Secretary had said that it would be a good speculation for us to do this, because otherwise the West Indies would go from bad to worse, and they would not be able to produce enough to maintain themselves. He did not think we had any call by nature or anything else to maintain the governments of the West Indies. The fact was that there was a sugar aristocracy in the West Indies, and whenever money was to be obtained we heard these complaints. The right hon. Gentleman, referring to the case of Barbadoes, said that the sugar industry was the only industry there, and that if it did not continue the whole of the blacks would starve. If the right hon. Gentleman would inquire he would find that Barbadoea was prosperous long after the other islands were not, because the negroes were forced to work for an inadequate wage, and charged an enormous price for a little spot of ground on which they built their houses. Although the wage was very small, there was a truck system by which the negroes were obliged to spend it in a shop owned by the sugar planter—where they paid a very high price for what they wanted to meet their humble requirements. The Barbadoes negroes went in large numbers to Trinidad, but at Trinidad the planters preferred coolies, and it had been found lately that it was almost impossible for them to get work in Trinidad. On coming back to their own country they had to submit to this small wage. Obviously, so long as that continued, they were dependent upon the sugar industry. If they were allowed to go to another island they would establish negro communities, where they would be able to live and thrive. In Jamaica the negroes were allowed to squat, and they were probably by far the best of the whole population of the tropics. Now we were told that we were to give this money only for two years, and that, if we did not give it, the sugar plantations would be thrown out of cultivation. Had the right hon. Gentleman calculated what were the first charges upon the sugar plantations? The first charges were mortgages, in the second place, there was the interest paid to merchants in England for loans to carry on the sugar estates. We were told five years ago that unless we did something the sugar planters would not be able to go on. We were told that, because of the bounties, they could not carry on. Now we were told that there was an agreement to do away with these bounties, but that unless we advanced money during the thirteen months which would have to elapse before the Convention came into operation, the planters would be obliged to throw up their plantations. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North East Manchester spoke of three plantations which had been sold. If they were sold somebody had bought them, and therefore a sugar plantation still had a value. Those who were interested in the trade knew that the bounties would be done away with in thirteen months and they would advance to the planters a sufficient amount of money to enable them to carry on during that period. We would not be out of the wood so far as these gifts wore concerned by simply giving this £250,000. If when the bounties were done away with, we were not prepared to advance considerable sums of money in order to give these people roads, machinery, and refineries, he did not think they would be able to compete with, the sugar industries in other parts of the world. The truth was that we were too reckless in regard to the Colonies. What was the good of colonies unless they contributed something to the total products of the empire? If the West India Colonies did not do this let them pass to the United States. The present phase of Imperialism would not survive many of these grants. A few more would convince the country that Imperialism run on this principle—this country paying and colonists profiting— was of no advantage, and the sooner we reduced our area of Empire the better for us. With the Motion to reduce the Vote he could not agree. Let his hon. friend oppose the whole Vote and he would agree with him.

thought the hon. Gentleman had pushed the argument of the hon. Member for West Islington to its logical conclusion. He would not attempt to follow the hon. Gentleman into his interesting remarks upon the Empire, with which he professed to have no sympathy, he only wanted to say that in view of the importance of other matters to be brought before the Committee it would be well to come to a decision on the Vote.

said he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that the discussion should not be prolonged, but there were still some observations to be made, which it would be improper to omit, and he did not think they could ask those who had suggestions to make to refrain from doing so. He proposed to say very shortly what he had to say on the matter. The Vote, it would be admitted, raised a very large principle, and it would be very serious if it were to be regarded as a precedent, and if it were to be taken as a precedent for bringing the aid of the finances of this country to distressed colonies he should feel obliged to vote with his hon. friend the Member for West Islington. But as the Vote was represented as being merely a temporary and exceptional remedy, for the purpose of tiding over the particular crisis which would exist until the arrangements made under the sugar Bounties Convention came into operation, he could for the reasons stated by his right hon. friend, abstain from meeting it with that opposition which it might otherwise have been his duty to give. He hesitated to be committed to all the principles laid flown by the Colonial Secretary. He thought they should content themselves with saying that this was a grant which could only be defended for temporary reasons, and not for all the further reasons stated by the Colonial Secretary. The best way of improving the agricultural condition of the islands would be to assist in scientific and botanical researches, such as were being carried on under the supervision of Dr. Morris, and so endeavour to retrieve the cultivation of the land from the backward condition into which it had been allowed to fall. It was only of the condition of Jamaica that he could speak from personal observation, as he had recently visited that island, which was in certain respects in a more favoured position than some of the other islands. He regretted the attempt to subsidise the sugar industry of Jamaica, because he believed that, in her own interests, she would do better to throw herself into other lines of agricultural industry. She had large tracts of land which might be utilised for the production of coffee; she had an increasing trade, which might be still further increased, in bananas, and she might develop her trade in oranges and tobacco. The tobacco of Jamaica was extremely good, and he was surprised to find, that the demand for Jamaica cigars was not larger. Cuba had been suffering, as respects sugar production, quite as much as Jamaica, and was nearer to death's door than Jamaica. Yet the best authorities there united in saying that if a sugar factory were well-equipped with new machinery it could make a profit even at the present low price of sugar, and oven against the competition of bounty-aided beet sugar, and a fortiori it would produce sugar still more profitably when the bounties were gone. If that were the case, it clearly suggested, even to those who took up the position of the Colonial Secretary, caution in the granting of subsidies, and he would add that, if subsidies of this kind were to be given at all, they should be given, not in loans to individual planters, but in providing central factories where the new machinery could be made available for extracting the sugar at moderate rates. It was a trite saying, but one always apt to be forgotten, that wherever they gave help from the outside they diminished the power of self-help; and he was afraid that the planters in the West Indies had got into the habit of looking too much to outside aid, and not sufficiently relying on their own exertions and enterprise. It had been assumed that, as soon as the bounties ceased, the production of sugar in the West Indies would begin to be remunerative. He hoped it would be so; but he was not at all satisfied on the point. It was a matter open to grave doubt, and that consideration suggested another element of caution in making these grants, which the planters might again come to ask for if their present hopes were not fulfilled. The Committee should remember that sugar was becoming, more perhaps than any other food product, a drug in the markets of the world. New areas of cane production were being opened up in many regions, as, for instance, in the Philippine Isles, which might become large producers if they continued under American rule, and under a good Government the area under cane in Cuba would be enormously increased. He thought it highly probable that in the future the West Indies would have comparatively little access to the American market, and that they would have to look to Europe for a market. He believed himself that the difficulty in the West Indies was very largely a difficulty of labour, not of the quantity of labour—for there was an overflowing negro population—but of the quality. It was a vast and difficult problem. There was a singularly productive soil, a genial climate, and yet these islands, so favoured by nature, seemed to be unable to compete with Germany and the middle States of America, where the beet sugar industry had developed so enormously as in the latter case to become an important factor in American politics. This was usually ascribed to the bounty system, but he thought that the enterprise and skill of the cultivator, and the intelligent assiduity of the labourer, had at least as much to do with the result. It might be largely owing to the comparatively unintelligent and ineffective labour to be had in these tropical countries that the industrial crisis had reached its present alarming proportions, and the best hope for the future, in his opinion, lay in endeavouring to improve the quality of the intelligence and the enterprise of the people there rather than in subsidies of this kind. They could not, in the long run, fight against economic laws, and they must not contemplate the possibility that, if these evils should continue, if, after the abolition of the artificial bounty system, it should be found impossible to make sugar production remunerative in the West Indies, the mother country should consent to go on subsidising that industry. They had no right to take taxes from the working classes of this country and apply them to subsidising an industry in another country in defiance of the laws of nature. He, therefore, desired to enter an emphatic caveat on behalf of those who were attached to the principles of Free Trade and self-help against doing anything which could convey the notion that the policy of subsidies was to be regarded as permanent.

said there were one or two misgivings which he felt in regard to the Vote which was about to be given. So far as he understood it, the position of the Colonial Secretary and the Government in regard to the Estimate now before the Committee was that the West Indian Islands had been injured by artificial circumstances—which circumstances were shortly to be removed— and that this money should be voted until the removal of these unfortunate circumstances. It seemed to him that two things ought to be established. The first was that the abolition of the bounties would restore the prosperity of the West Indies, and the second was that the gain to the West Indies would not be purchased at a disproportionate loss to the people of this country. On both those points he felt very grave doubts. He was told that only a small minority of people had doubts as to the abolition of the sugar bounties. It was very true that our sugar refining industry had been injured by the bounties; but we had something in exchange. We had become the jam and biscuit makers and confectioners of the world. Even French chocolate was now made in England. There was one whole gallery in the Glasgow Exhibition devoted to the display of these goods and the machinery for making them—all called into being consequent on the cheapness of sugar. Apart from the inestimable value of cheap sugar as a food for the people, it was estimated that the profits from the trade amounted to £3,000,000 sterling. He did not wonder that the French Minister, in reply to an interpolation, said that they were getting tired of paying two-thirds of the British sugar bill. The question of the abolition of the sugar duties was one they would have most carefully to discuss, and he hoped they would have a separate and independent opportunity of looking into it in the most effective and thorough manner. He very much regretted to find himself in opposition to so many of his friends on this subject, but he thought they were entitled to ask on what principle were those grants to be made. There was distress elsewhere than in the West Indies. There was Essex, which had been ruined, or at least greatly injured, because of fiscal measures which had proved a gigantic benefit to the rest of the population. But that applied to the case of the West Indies. They had been injured by fiscal measures which had been taken by other countries, but from which we had received great benefit. But no one would ever suggest that Parliament should give a grant in aid to Essex, and still less that they should alter a fiscal system from which we ourselves had derived benefit and profit. There was great distress in India, too, owing to the famine, and in

I would remind the hon. Gentleman that India had put on a countervailing duty on sugar.

said he was not speaking of grants to India, but of the Indian famine, which was a very different thing. Those were treated as proper matters for human charity; and he objected on principle to doing by legislation what properly belonged to human good feeling and charity. It would be said that this was a narrow and selfish point of view. If it were a personal matter no doubt it might be so considered; but we were the trustees of the taxpayers of the country, and by the system of taxation now in force, by taxes like the sugar tax and the corn tax, which we found to be absolutely necessary to impose because of the height to which expenditure had at present attained—by that system we drew money from the poorest of the poor who walked or crawled about the street, and therefore it was not mean, narrow, or selfish to be close-fisted in dealing with grants of this kind. This was a step that the Committee should hesitate to take in a hurry, or without adequate consideration.

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."