Can the Government state in what order Report of Supply will be taken on Monday, and has the right hon. Gentleman any other information to give with regard to the course of business?

I do not propose to take anything after the Committee stage of the Sugar Convention Bill to-night, which will, or ought to, involve long discussion; but there are certain formal stages which should be taken. The order of the Report of Supply on Monday will greatly depend on how far we proceed with Supply on Thursday. I shall be glad to consult those interested in the matter, so that we mar turn to the very best account the hours the Standing Order gives us on the last day of Supply. In consequence of the absence of my noble friend the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who is ill and unable to be in his place, it will not be possible to take the Foreign Vote on Thursday.

Has not some communication been made to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury with regard to the order of Supply on Thursday? We all regret the absence of the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

explained the order of Supply to be taken on Thursday would be the Irish Estimates, and Class 1, Vote 12, would immediately succeed the Irish Votes. The hon. and gallant Gentleman added that the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs expected to be back in his place on Monday, in which case the Foreign Office Vote would then come on.

I had hoped it might be possible to take the Irish Land Bill on Monday.

I do not think it would be possible to get the Bill printed with the Lords' Amendments in time for Monday. In addition to that it is necessary to take Supply on Monday if the session is to be wound up at the time fixed, and I hope that the arrangement will not be disturbed.

moved the omission of the word "foreign" from line 15. He was astonished at having to make such a Motion. He could not but think that the word had crept in by mistake. It the right hon. Gentleman would at once accept the Amendment he would not develop his argument; otherwise there might be a long discussion on the point. Let the House realise the position. They were providing that direct and indirect bounties should be abolished; and under this section, by the use of the word "foreign," they were fixing the penalties which should be imposed by this country on any country which granted a bounty—direct or indirect. Let the Government remember the grounds on which the bounties had been abolished. They had been told that the bounties were immoral and subversive of free trade, and that every good principle of sound economics demanded their abolition. Yet they were forcing through the House that which allowed these nefarious practices to be carried on in the British Empire. That was the meaning, of the clause. We had a world-wide Empire, and sugar was one of its most prominent products. As the Bill stood we abolished a bad practice in foreign countries. We swept Germany, France, and Holland clean, but in every colony and every British possession bounties—direct and indirect—were to be allowed to continue. That was the meaning of the clause unless the Amendment was accepted, and it was monstrous that such a proposal should ever have been submitted to the House of Commons. If bounties were bad for trade, if they were unfair, they ought to be struck out, so as to secure their abolition everywhere—wherever they existed. There was a curious history connected with the inclusion of the word "foreign" in the Bill. The noble Lord the Member for Greenwich on the previous night pressed the right hon. Gentleman to say why the policy of countervailing duties originally presented to Parliament had been abandoned. The right hon. Gentleman gave no answer.

It has not been abandoned.

said that assertion placed the right hon. Gentleman in still another difficulty. The right hon. Gentleman had given no satisfactory explanation of the mystery, but he would now explain it. When the Bill was first brought in countervailing duties were put forward as a cure for bounties, But after that the Colonial Secretary came on the scene, and the noble Lord who represented the Foreign Office in the House stated that the countervailing duty would not be applied to the ease of any British colony. But when the Bill was actually presented it was seen that the countervailing duties had entirely disappeared. That succession of events explained a great deal. They all remembered how again and again in the spring it was promised that no difficulties should be put in the way of any British colony or possession, and it was in order to carry out that policy that the word "foreign" had been introduced. If that were retained he feared we should get into difficulties with foreign Powers. Under Article 10 of the Convention it was clear that the colonies were included. They came under all the provisions of the-Convention except those of Article 8, which only referred to transit, and foreign Powers would naturally expect us to fulfil the Convention, not only in our own case, but also in regard to our colonies. Remembering that we had attached a final protocol in which we announced that we would not countervail against our colonies, it was clear that the Government were plunged into a difficulty. The Powers would think that the Convention would not only apply to Great Britain, in which no sugar was produced, but that it would also apply to the British colonies in which sugar was produced. If there was to be an honest fulfilment of the agreement, the Powers must feel that it should apply to the colonies as well as to the mother country. According to the White Paper it was announced that at the last session of the Conference the system obtaining in the British colonies and in India was not inquired into, and that made it pretty clear that there would be such an inquiry at the next session. If we restricted our action under this Convention we should be guilty of a breach of faith towards the other Powers which had entered into it. Although a great point had been made that the colonies were not going to be affected, the Convention still did strike a serious blow at them, as for five years we were bound to give no preference to our colonies Was it to be said that no bounties existed in any of our colonies? It could not, because there were already six bounty systems existent in the colonies and two in the mother country, and we were going to retain those systems while asking foreign countries to abolish theirs. Canada paid a bounty on steel, and under it the exports of steel to this country were rapidly increasing. Canada also had a sugar bounty. Could they compel her to abandon it?

No, you cannot, for Canada has full right to make her own fiscal arrangements,

said lie agreed with that, but he would ask—Was it fair play to ask other countries to abolish bounties while these continued? Queensland, too, had a sugar bounty, while the shipping grants, railway facilities and capital expenditure in the West India Islands were also of the nature of bounties. Again, at home the sugar refiners enjoyed a bounty under the sugar duty scale, and under the Revenue Bill now before the House, a bounty was to be given on molasses. It was almost a scandal for us to claim to build up this bounty system at home and in our colonies and yet claim that foreign countries should abolish their bounty systems. It might be said that although bounties existed in Canada and Queensland we did not get any sugar nom those countries. But the House could not proceed on that basis. The right hon. Gentleman had said that we had not abandoned countervailing duties. Did he still think then of resorting to them?

Under certain circumstances.

said that if we did, the smallest duty imposed would be £7 per ton, which had already been suggested in the case of Russia, and if such a duty were imposed on Russian sugar, within three months we should be receiving large quantities of sugar from Canada and Queensland, and there were hundreds of merchants in London who would be willing to acquire sugar estates in those colonies, and thereby rapidly make a fortune. This clause accomplished a complete reversal of our commercial system. It substituted protection and colonial preference for free trade—and colonial preference of the very worst character. If we were honest in our objection to bounties, we would abolish our own while calling on foreign countries to get rid of theirs.

said the hon. Member who had expected him to jump up and accept his Amendment even before he had stated his reasons for proposing it, had evidently quite forgotten the declaration made on behalf of this country as a condition of our ratification of the Convention. He would remind him that His Majesty's Minister was instructed to declare at the time of ratification that "it is necessary to place on record that the Government of His Britannic Majesty will not consent under any circumstances to be bound to penalise bounty-fed sugar imported into the United Kingdom from any of the self-governing British colonies," and that the British Government were not prepared to accept any reference of this question to the permanent Commission to be established under Article VII. and that His Majesty's ratification of the Convention was deposited under that explicit declaration. With the words of that declaration before the Committee, the hon. Member had chosen to assume that the Government would accept an Amendment directly in contradiction of the special instructions given to His Majesty's Minister in Brussels. Of course they could do no such thing. All the Powers understood that this declaration would be made a condition of ratification by His Majesty's Government, and therefore it was impossible to contend that there was any sort of breach of faith. It was quite true that Germany and Austria reserved liberty of action in view of that declaration.

And Holland.

No, not Holland. Every other Power ratified it unconditionally and with full knowledge of the declaration. There was consequently no question of a breach of faith.

said the speech of the right hon. Gentleman had disclosed a still more serious aspect of the question. One of the functions of the permanent Commission was to deliver an opinion on contested questions, and in view of the fact that Germany and Austria contested our reservation in favour of the self-governing colonies, that would be a contested question on which the Commission might be called upon to pronounce an opinion. In his opinion, the Convention required us to impose countervailing duties or prohibition on all bounty-fed sugar coming from our colonies as well as from foreign countries. Ours was the only conditional ratification, and an acceptance of an offer subject to a condition did not result in a contract at all. Therefore it came to this—that there was no Convention, for how could there be a Convention accepted under a condition by one of the parties unless it could be shown that that condition was accepted by all the other parties? He contended that the sensible thing to do would be to withdraw the Bill, and to set up a new Conference in order to get a new Convention to which all parties would agree.

said that the Colonial Office policy in this matter had cut across the Board of Trade policy, and the result was that this Bill was now going to do exactly what Lord Herschell and his colleague, when law officers, told the Government they could not do. Did the present law officers take a different view? With regard to the declaration accompanying our ratification, that dealt solely with the case of the self-governing British colonies. But we had virtually in our power India and the Crown colonies—and possibly our protectorates. How were they affected? He did not believe the Bill had ever been thought out. The Government did not know what they were doing in using the word "foreign." What meaning did they attach to it? Did it apply to the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands, which were separate fiscal entities? Did it apply to a protectorate like Zanzibar? The decisions of the Courts of law on the definition of the word "foreign" had not been very illuminating. In one great case lit was held that a foreign country was a country inhabited by foreigners. Zanzibar was certainly not inhabited by British subjects. Was it then a foreign country? In Hall's "International Law there was a most excellent passage on the subject.

said he quite agreed with the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. This question had been inadequately thought out. However that might be, the Government had reached a stage at which they had decided not to prohibit bounty-fed imports from the self-governing colonies. That was clear. The Government bound themselves not to permit any bounties to be placed upon exports from the Crown colonies. That, also, was clear. But tins clause neither specified self-governing colonies nor Crown colonies. It used a phrase which had very different significations, and which created a confusion in definition which might involve the greatest difficulty. That ought to be cleared up, because in this clause the phrase used was "foreign country." Of course, they did get some help towards a definition of that expression by the negative term that neither a Crown colony nor a self-governing colony was to be a foreign country. There was a whole class of countries which might or might not be foreign, having regard to the standard by which one judged their international position. So far as the law was concerned Scotland was foreign to the English jurisdiction. The Isle of Man was a foreign country quo ad England. What was to be our position in regard to those Dependencies of the Crown which were not Crown colonies and which were not self-governing colonies? The right hon. Gentleman had referred to Zanzibar. Was that a "foreign country?" It was foreign for many purposes, because it had very large powers of local jurisdiction; and from a legal and international standpoint it was clearly a "foreign country." But it owed some sort of allegiance to the British Crown. Was this clause to be applied to Zanzibar and to other spheres of influence in the Continent of Africa? Was it to apply to Egypt? Egypt was not a Crown colony nor a self-governing colony. Was it to apply to the Soudan? Undoubtedly from some points of view Egypt was a Dependency of the British Crown, subject to very large powers which made it, from these points of view, not a "foreign country." He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to give the Committee some canon of construction. He did not think there was any clause which defined the phrase "foreign country"—a phrase of enormous difficulty and complexity of shades of meaning. As the matter stood at present they did not know whether "foreign country" was used in a legal sense, a diplomatic sense, or a common sense.

said he was not prepared himself to support any Amendment to the Bill which would interfere with the fiscal freedom of the self-governing colonies, to which he attached the greatest possible importance. But the Amendment under discussion was not intended to interfere with that fiscal freedom. It was quite clear that there was very great difficulty and complexity in regard to this question of the definition of what was a "foreign country"; and he did not think that it was treating the House of Commons fairly that the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General were not present to advise the right hon. Gentleman. He noticed that the Solicitor-General had just cone into the House, and he hoped that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would be able to answer some, at least, of the questions that had been raised during the, debate by his hon. and learned friend behind him. Although he was not himself prepared to interfere with the fiscal relations between this country and the colonies, he could not understand the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to bounties. If bounties were so worked as to be injurious to the manufacturing industries of this country surely the Government ought to endeavour by negotiation to get rid of them in the colonies as well as in foreign countries. He understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that, from beginning to end, there had been no ambiguity as to the position of the Government in regard to the self-governing colonies. As a matter of fact the question of the Government giving away the position of the self-governing colonies had been raised by the hon. Member for Kings Lynn, and it was only an afterthought that the Government had put in a reservation in the Protocol in order to save the situation. It was true that something was said by the British representative at an earlier stage of the proceedings, but that was not pressed, and nothing was said on the point at the time of the drawing up of the Convention. The German Government, and the other Governments concerned, were entitled to complain in regard to this matter. At any rate it was not made clear before the Convention was ratified. What the German Government said in answer to the circular paper of this Government was that "they consider they cannot attach any importance to this declaration, seeing that it was made at a time when no draft of a Convention existed, and when many remarks were made, which, in the end, have found no expression in the Convention, and are not in harmony with it. Later, however, and in fact in the final and concluding negotiations, the British delegates did not recur to that reservation." As a matter of fact it was only an afterthought that the Government made that declaration. But there was the question of the Crown colonies over which the Government have absolute and complete control; and what he wanted to know was, if the word "foreign" was left in, how that would affect the position of the Crown colonies? The Government had pledged themselves, in regard to the West Indies, to give no bounties, direct or indirect, and what was the reason for putting in "foreign" here, if the Government were going to carry out their pledges?

The self-governing colonies.

said that the self-governing colonies were entirely protected by the declaration, and therefore those words were not required. The Crown colonies were excluded from the purview of the Bill, and the Government pledged themselves to allow no bounties to be given in these colonies. He was perfectly sure that there would be great difficulties between the British Government and the Permanent Commission as to whether or not they were giving bounties, especially in regard to the West Indies. There were questions of bounties in regard to giving shipping subventions and grants to the central sugar factories. The right hon. Gentleman said that in case of such disputes he would be bound to accept the decisions of the Permanent Commission.

We will be bound to take them into consideration.

The Government would take them into consideration, but if they did not carry out these decisions the Convention would come to an end. The question was raised by the right hon. baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean, as to what was actually a "foreign country." He would ask the right hon. the Solicitor-General if he would lie kind enough to give the Committee the benefit of his advice on this very specific question. If these words were left in would they include such sugar-producing countries as Egypt, and protectorates like Zanzibar and the Soudan? What was the advantage of having these words in at all? The Government had pledged themselves to penalise any country giving a direct or indirect bounty. Did that cover all cases? He could see no advantage in leaving in those words, as they were likely to lead to very serious displeasure and friction between this and foreign countries. As they were anxious that this Convention, bad as it was, should work smoothly, he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would accept the Amendment of his right hon. friend.

said that they would have a right to call for another Convention in regard to the contracting parties, but not with regard to the non-contracting parties. The matter all depended on the interpretation which the Solicitor-General would put on the word "foreign." For instance, a man who settled in Uganda would not become a British subject as he would in a Crown colony or a self-governing colony after five years residence. Therefore Uganda was technically a foreign country. The Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs suggested that cane growing was a great possibility in Uganda. Let it be supposed that the railway which was being built by English money in Uganda carried the cane to the coast free of charge; that would be a bounty; but under the Convention the contracting parties could in that case call on this country to prohibit the importation of sugar from Uganda. Judging by the attitude of the Solicitor-General, his support of this Bill was like his support of the Irish Land Bill—exceedingly remote; but they were entitled to ask what his views were as to what the word "foreign" meant. They could not have a special interpretation of the word ad hoc, so to speak, for the purposes of the Convention. Did the Solicitor-General consider Uganda a foreign country? Any sort of indirect benefit given by this country to the producers of sugar in any part of the Empire might conceivably come within the meaning of the word "foreign," and would be prohibited. Apparently the colonies were to he kept by a kind of bounty-fed loyalty; but the Committee should be informed what meaning the Government attached to the word "foreign."

said that the Committee were being treated most discourteously. They were being asked to legislate without being given the slightest idea of what the result of legislation would be. It was quite impossible that the Government had not an answer. Surely they had considered the questions which must arise from this Convention. If the President of the Board of Trade would not reply, he hoped the Solicitor-General would respond to the request made to him. What the Committee should know was what they were making themselves responsible for. Austria and Germany distinctly reserved to themselves, in the amplest manner, liberty to ask the, permanent Commission to declare that this country was not carrying out the provisions of the Convention if any exemptions-were made in favour of the colonies. In addition to the countries which had been already mentioned, he wished to add Cyprus and the Malay States, which were practically under the control of this country. Would these countries he regarded as foreign? No doubt, no one could give subsidies in Cyprus, Egypt, Zanzibar, or the Malay States against the will of this country. The Committee should be informed what they were in good faith bound to do as regarded the. different countries under the control of the British Crown; and they ought to be told what case could be brought up against this country before the permanent Commission. The Committee ought to know the area to which the Convention was to apply. The speeches which had been delivered, and especially the silence of the Government, convinced him that questions of the very gravest importance were being opened up, and unless some satisfactory explanation were given he would feel bound to vote for the Amendment as a protest against the methods of concealment adopted by the Government.

said the right hon. Gentleman had referred to the real and substantial difficulties which had arisen. To his mind the only difficulties which had been raised were entirely lawyer difficulties. None of the countries mentioned by hon. Gentlemen opposite, as to which they expressed doubt as to whether the word "foreign" would apply, were likely to export sugar to this country. The matter was not one which, from the practical point of view, it was now necessary to consider. If any such difficulty arose it would be time enough to consider it when the permanent Commission had expressed an opinion in the sense indicated by hon. Gentlemen opposite. He did not, however, believe that any such question would arise.

said the whole sanction behind the enforcement of this clause was a legal sanction and nothing more. The right hon. Gentleman was seeking a right to prohibit the landing of goods in a British port. How were they to test whether the order of prohibition was lawful? It could only be tested in a Court of law. Its validity could only be examined from a legal standpoint. Yet the right hon. Gentleman made light of legal difficulties. Under this section it was possible to prohibit the landing of a cargo of sugar in a British port, but unless it could be shown that the port at which the ship loaded was a port of a foreign country, the prohibition would be bad, and the immediate result would be an action against the agents of the Government. There were scores of precedents for such a suit in other Departments dealing with shipping, involving the Departments in heavy expenditure. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to have hidden his head in the sands or in sugar, for he had said he thought the difficulties apprehended in some quarters were not likely to arise because these various places, which were neither Crown colonies nor self - governing colonies, which were not foreign countries but protected states, were not producers of sugar. Was the right hon. Gentleman going to take on himself the mantle of prophecy? Was he going to predict that, under the possible stimulus given to the cultivation of sugar by improving markets, sugar was not coming from those countries?

said what he said was that it was extremely improbable that sugar would come from those countries under a bounty.

said he did not know. He believed in Egypt at that moment very large areas were being laid down for the cultivation of sugar. Was this experience likely to benefit Egypt? Indiarubber was now being grown in every quarter of the globe, whereas a few years ago it was grown in a very small area. If this legislation was intended to be operative the right hon. Gentleman must recognise the necessity.

protested against the refusal of the Law Officers of the Crown to give assistance to the Committee on the point at issue. It was very unsatisfactory that these gentlemen, who were paid large salaries, did riot assist, and that neither the Prime Minister nor the Colonial Secretary were present to render help. Unless they could get further answers from the Government, consideration of this matter should be postponed. He moved to report Progress.

said he should like, in one word, to say that in the question of Egypt this difficulty was not unlikely to arise. There was an enormous amount of sugar grown there under international administrations, not under our control.

expressed the opinion that it was positively discourteous to the House that when a number of men asked the Law Officers of the Crown for their opinion upon this particular question, which was relevant to the discussion, they should not respond. The question was, were these protectorates foreign within the meaning of the section? Was Egypt a foreign country? Was Uganda a foreign country? What about the Malay States and Sarawak? The President of the Board of Trade did not contest the point they made. All he said was, "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof," and that when these questions arose, they could be dealt with, but-everything could not be dealt with in that way. The Committee was entitled to an answer from the Law Officers of the Crown.

pointed out that it was not impossible that this difficulty would arise very shortly in Uganda, where sugar grew wild everywhere, and where the rate of carriage down to the coast by the railway was unremunerative. If, after this Bill was passed, it was still carried at unremunerative rates, that might be held to be an indirect bounty. Again, in East Africa sugar could be grown with great ease. It had been proposed to give subsidies to ships trading with Mombasa. If that were done, and sugar were to be imported into this country by those ships, would that be held to be an indirect bounty? Because, if so, it became of great importance to know whether East Africa were a foreign country or not. Then there was the case of the Soudan, which was partly under the ægis of Egypt and partly under the ægis of England. Egypt, they had been told, in answer to a Question in that House, was a State under the suzerainty of the Turkish Empire, in British military occupation. Was that State a foreign State? and was the Soudan a foreign State? Would the Government be obliged to penalise sugar coming from the Soudan as sugar coming from a foreign country? The protected Malay States had been given as another example. In the Trade Returns those States were classed as foreign countries, and in the statistics of Singapore imports from them were regarded as foreign imports. It was surely better to settle this question at once, and the House earnestly appealed to the Solicitor-General to give his advice upon the matter.

said it was not from any desire to be discourteous that he had not intervened earlier in the debate. The President of the Board of Trade had stated that the questions concerning all these countries to which reference had been made could not possibly arise for some time—until after certain judgments had been given by the tribunal set up by the Bill. As the questions were questions of the future, and depended on the view taken by the Commission, it occurred to him that in many respects it would he wiser not to express an opinion upon matters, which, if they arose in a practical form, must subsequently come before the Law Officers. However, as the Committee desired it, he would give his opinion, although, of course, it would not be binding upon either himself or anybody else, as nobody could at present foresee the circumstances or the manner in which the question would arise before the tribunal. The view he took was that the word "foreign" did include all the countries which had been mentioned. He should think there was no doubt whatever as regarded Egypt, which was still part of the Ottoman dominions. Although we had certain defined rights and other rights undefined within that country, he did not think it could be for a moment contended—taking the Convention and the Bill—that there was any intention whatsoever to treat Egypt as other than a foreign country. The same remark applied to the Soudan. As regarded Zanzibar, the same considerations applied, because, although we had certain protectorate rights, Zanzibar was in no sense a part of His Majesty's dominions, and could not be treated in these matters otherwise than as a foreign country. As the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean, had observed, protectorates were always one of our difficulties. There were various kinds of protectorates, with different methods of government and ill-defined rights. The complexity of the question was increased by the fact that Germany took an entirely different view with regard to protectorates from that held by this country. Germany treated her protectorates as part of the German Empire, whereas we as persistently, for reasons it was not necessary to give to the Committee, had refused to regard them as part of the British dominions. While his opinion was that these protectorates would be considered as foreign countries within the meaning of this Act and under the Convention, there was at the same time this observation to be made—that in many of these protectorates we exercised absolute rights of legislation, and his own view, for whatever it was worth, was that, taking the spirit and purport of the Convention, His Majesty's Government would be bound, so far as they were able, to prevent bounties being given in those protectorates. If he was right in that view, no question as regarded prohibition would or could arise between the protectorates and this country, because if the country was prepared to prohibit and was in a position to prevent bounties being given, it would of course exercise its discretion in preventing bounties rather than in raising the question of prohibition.

thought the Committee were much indebted to the Solicitor-General, whose speech formed an agreeable contrast to everything they had previously had from the Treasury Bench. The hon. and learned Member had said that these questions would arise only when a case came before the tribunal. But that was not so. These questions would arise immediately the Bill was passed. Merchants in London would be offered 10,000 tons of sugar in some of the countries referred to, and what were they to do? How were they to know whether or not it was safe to buy? It was very necessary that these matters should be made perfectly clear. The

said the Amendment he wished to move was intended to bring the language of the Bill into harmony with the declared intention of the Government. The words of the Bill were—

"Where it is reported by the permanent Commission that any direct or indirect bounty is granted in any foreign country on the production or export of sugars, His Majesty may, by Order in Council, make a prohibition order, that is to say, an order prohibiting sugar from that foreign country to be imported or brought, into the United Kingdom."

said there was one case which made it undesirable to insert those words. It was true that they would not be called upon to apply the penal clause to any of the contracting States in the first instance. Of course there would have to be a conference, and what might follow upon such conference it was difficult to say. It was conceivable that the result of the conference would he that they might be called upon to levy a countervailing duty. Although he agreed that the case was extremely unlikely to arise he thought it was undesirable to tie their hands in this respect.

pointed out that this Bill did not follow closely the language of the Convention. Instead of following that language they had put in the words "direct or indirect." He understood that it would be in the power and that it would he the duty of the Government to impose prohibition against any of the contracting parties who might give bounties.

It might be.

said what was doubtful was what the procedure would be by which they were going to penalise the contracting If a contracting. State imposed a bounty a conference would be called, but the right hon. Gentleman would say that the Convention did not leave it in doubt what the conference was to do. It was imperative that the conference should take the decision. There was only one decision which it could take if one of the contracting States imposed a bounty, direct or indirect, if they passed a Bill absolutely prohibiting sugar from any foreign State that gave a bounty The permanent Commission could do only one thing, and that was to declare that such sugar must be excluded from this country. The circumstances did not leave it open to the permanent Commission to give any other decision, which would be absolutely ridiculous in the face of this Bill, which included all sugar which was bounty-fed in any foreign State. Unless the words suggested were added the Committee might take it as absolutely certain that the Act would apply to all the contracting parties.

said the duty of the Convention with regard to the contracting States was merely limited to making a Report which would necessitate the calling together of a new Convention. He found nothing in the Bill to sanction this. If the Amendment were put in then they would have an end of the dispute, and he appealed to the right hon. Gentleman upon this point. They would get on quicker with the Bill if he met them a little more, and he might take at least some of their recommendations. If he rejected this Amendment they would have to fall back on Article VII of the Convention, which provided:—

"This Commission shall be composed of delegates of the several contracting States, and a permanent bureau shall be attached to it.

"The duties of the delegates will be:

"(a) To pronounce whether in the contracting States no direct or indirect bounty is granted on the production or on the exportation of sugar."

"(c) To pronounce whether bounties exist in the non-signatory States, and to estimate the amount thereof for the purposes of Article IV."

said that Article VII contained these words—

"The duty of the Commission shall be limited to findings and investigations.

"The findings and calculations referred to under letters (b) and (c) must, however be acted on by the contracting States."

said he was much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. In the paragraph he had read no distinction was drawn between the contracting and the non-contracting State. So far as that went it applied to both. Sections (b) and (c) stood in a slightly different position. This paragraph gave directions as to what was to be done in the case of (b) and (c), but it did not say that (a) was excluded.

said it was excluded by implication.

agreed that the duties were limited to findings, investigations, and reports, because "calculations" did not occur until the last paragraph. The paragraph did not at all limit the duties of the permanent Commission with regard to paragraph (a). It simply described what they should do with regard to (b) and (c). Surely he might suggest that it was not satisfactory that the important category corning under (a) should be left to be settled by implication. The last paragraph left it open for him to conclude that the directions were just as wide with regard to (a) as to (b) and (c). Let the Government make it clear. The right hon. Gentleman was far too scrupulous in regard to this Bill. He was going too far to please foreign Powers. Let him accept this Amendment, and they would know where they were.

said the right hon. Gentleman told them last night more than once most distinctly that it was out of their power to insist upon sugar from non-contracting States being penalised. He had stated that the Commission might or might not have the power of penalising the sugar of one of the contracting States. That put the matter in a different position from what the right hon. Gentleman stated last night, and raised one of the most dangerous points in connection with the Convention. The whole of the sugar trade

said that on a point of order he wished to ask the Chairman to reconsider his decision that the Amendment he had put on the paper in regard to a "Surtax set up against the import" was out of order. His object was to show that a surtax was the most effective form of bounty which could be set up. If, therefore, they were getting rid of bounties, they ought to get rid of the surtax. He wanted to show by his Amendment that this provision was hostile to the general principle of the Convention itself.

If the hon. Member will look at Article I of the Convention he will find amongst the definitions of what are, and what are not bounties.—

"Advantage derived from any surtax in excess of the rate fixed by Article III."

asked if it would not be in order to raise the point that a certain surtax allowed by the Convention was the most noxious form of bounty that existed.

What the hon. Member proposes to do is to turn the Convention upside down and make the Convention his own. He must start with the assumption that the House has accepted the Convention, and that we are now engaged in carrying that Convention through.

asked if the Committee were to understand that all things in the nature of a definition, to be found in the Convention, were practically imported into the Bill, and that the Bill was to be interpreted by what was in the Convention.

I think that is so. The object of this Bill is simply to carry out the Convention, and if there is a definition in the Convention the Committee must accept that definition.

asked if there ought not to be a means of ascertaining what was the meaning attached by the Government to the terms of the Convention which were open to question?

The Committee has accepted the Convention, and has taken it with all its imperfections on its head. It is impossible now to go back and say that we do not approve of it because it is not sufficiently definite. We ought to take it or leave it.

said that what he meant was that they should be at liberty to move any Amendment which would not contravene any part of the Convention, but that they should get at the meaning of the Government in regard to the Convention. They were making the Convention part of the law of England, and they ought to have some means of knowing what the Convention really implied.

If the proposed Amendment simply carries out what is contained in the Convention, then it is unnecessary; but if it implies a definition leading to a different conclusion than that in the Convention, it is outside the scope of the Bill.

said he wished to propose an Amendment on Clause 1, page 1, line 16, to insert after "sugars" the words "or sugared goods." On the previous night they on that side of the House had put forward the case that if the Bill were to be a complete Bill it ought to incorporate the Convention itself. That was declined although no argument was given. The first part of the sub-section stated that if any direct or indirect bounty was granted in any foreign country for the production or export of sugars, something was to take place. As the Bill stood it dealt with sugar, and sugar only; but, as the House knew, sugar products —that was to say, goods which contained a large or small percentage of sugar—would not be excluded from importation from bounty-giving countries. That would have an effect on our manufacturers. We should be excluding the raw materials on which our industries had been built up, and on the other hand we should be allowing to enter into competition with those articles foreign manufactured articles, bounty-fed. Was that the intention of the right hon. Gentleman? The Convention, according to Article I, stated that the high contracting parties engaged to suppress direct and indirect bounties by which the production or exportation of sugar might profit, and not to establish bounties of such a kind during the whole continuance of the Convention. For the appplication of this provision sugar-sweetened products, such as preserves, chocolates, biscuits, condensed milk, and all other analogous products containing in a notable proportion artificially incorporated sugar, were assimilated to sugar. He therefore maintained that the Bill as it stood was against the expressed provision of Article I of the Convention. Unless the words he moved were inserted in the Bill our manufacturers would be at a considerable disadvantage in the open markets of the world. He begged to move.

said that to accept these words was to go beyond the provisions of the Convention. The hon. Member had referred to Article I, and he quoted the words at the end of the first paragraph of that article; but he would call attention to the fact that these words were expressly confined to the provisions of Article I. They did not apply to Article IV nor to Art cle VIII, both of which only referred to sugar and not to sugar products. If he were to accept this Amendment and insert "sugared goods" he should be absolutely going beyond the provisions of the Convention.

said that the right hon. Gentleman was beginning to alarm him. This was the most confused Convention that ever a set of mad diplomatists ever made, and this was the most confused Bill ever submitted to this House. He never dreamt, before the right hon. Gentleman spoke, but that he was going to say that the word "sugar" included sugar products." Now it seemed that the discrimination between sugar and sugar products was deliberate and intentional, and the effect would be that the bounty-fed sugar which had given to the manufacturers of this country such an advantage would be excluded, and that the same sugar would be put into the protected manufactures in bounty-giving countries which would come over here and drive our manufactures out of t he market most effectually. He maintained that that was perfectly monstrous. The Colonial Secretary jeered about jam and pickles. [GOVERNMENT Cries of "Hear, hear."] At all events the jam and pickle interest of the Empire was stronger than that of the sugar-refining interest, and that was the interest at which they were dealing a blow. He regretted more than ever that the Committee was not able to enforce on the Government the Amendment compelling them to put the Convention as a schedule into the Bill which they were now seeking to pass as the law of the land. They were in this difficulty—that the Chairman had ruled that any Amendment was out of order which did not carry into effect the Convention. He thought that that ruling should apply to both sides. He disputed altogether the interpretation which the right hon. Gentleman had put on the provisions of the Convention. Article I, which was the governing provision, and which applied to the whole Bill, said that there was to be a suppression of all bounties, direct and indirect. Would it be stated in any Bill passed through this House that the word "sugar" included sugar products?

asked what meaning the President of the Board of Trade attached to the words "assimilated to sugar"?

said he would refer the right hon. Gentleman to a passage on page 184 of the picaès verbal, from which it appeared, not only from the text of the Convention but also from what passed during the discussion, that the assimilation of sugar products applied to Article I, and to Article I only.

said that in that case the meaning of the Bill was that bounties were to be stopped not only in connection with sugar but also in connection with sugar-sweetened products. The paragraph to which the right hon. Gentleman had referred the Committee did not impress him as improving the right hon. Gentleman's point. He would, however, assume it did, and all he would say about it was that this monstrous Convention and this monstrous Bill were worse than the House supposed on the Second Reading.

said he felt sure that the right hon. Gentleman must yield at last to the importunities addressed to him to introduce some explicitness into the vague proposals of the Bill. He confessed that he had not previously noticed the somewhat extraordinary language in the preamble of the Bill. It was now clear, although it had not been previously clear, that the Convention was incorporated in the Bill. The preamble stated that His Majesty had entered into a Convention; and it was to be enacted that it was expedient to give effect to it by legislation. The whole of the provisions of the Bill must therefore be construed as being subordinate to the terms of the Convention. If the Committee were to pass the clause they were now discussing, which gave the Government power to prohibit the importation of sugar, the question arose in what sense the word "sugar" was to be interpreted. Article I contemplated this very difficulty; and indicated in perfectly clear language that sugar was to be taken not merely as sugar in a raw state, but sugar which had entered into the composition of other articles. It was perfectly clear that the policy contemplated was not to be limited to the discontinuance by each country of the practice of feeding the manufacture of sugar by means of bounties; it was also to prevent the importation by other countries of bounty-fed sugar. In other words, the policy was that the contracting countries should not only not give bounties themselves but should suppress bounties in other countries, either by prohibition or countervailing duties. It might possibly be contended that the word "sugar" should be differently construed in Article I., and in Articles IV. and VIII., and if a Court of law had to construe the Act, it would be limited to the words of the Convention itself.

said that if any question of doubt arose, reference might be made to the procès verbal.

said he did not agree. This was to be an Act of Parliament which the Courts would have to construe, and on the interpretation of which important private rights depended; and he said, without the smallest fear of contradiction from any lawyer in the House, that if the Act came up for interpretation by any Court of law, regard would be had only to the terms of the Act itself construed in connection with the language of the Convention. In Article I. they got the clearest possible indication not only of what sugar was but of the policy to which effect was to be given by the Convention. That policy was to crush the system of feeding sugar by bounties, and not only sugar itself but sugar which was embodied in other products. For the purposes of this provision sugar included products of which sugar formed a notable proportion. Tile right hon. Gentleman did not give a single argument to show why a distinction should be drawn between sugar to be exported as such and sugar which was to be used in the manufacture of biscuits, chocolates, and other commodities. Certainly the Convention drew no such distinction. The right hon. Gentleman said that the word "sugar" in Articles IV. and VIII. did not mean sugar sweetened articles; but in construing Articles IV. and VIII. it would be necessary to look back on Article I., which stated that sugar was to be taken as including sugar products. As the Bill stood it would he certain to lead to the greatest confusion, because it embraced two distinct definitions of the commodity to which it referred. In such a state of confusion a case for a definition clause had been amply made out. If ever there was a Bill which was ambiguous it was the measure now before the Committee, and surely a clause was required to remove ambiguity and to throw light on its dark places. There were two or three distinct views as to what the word "sugar" meant; and the Committee ought to have some authoritative opinion on the subject.

said he wished to express the hope that his right hon. friend would see his way to modify the wording of the Bill in order that the difficulty referred to might be removed. He confessed he himself, as one who had taken a great interest in the matter, had been puzzled by the wording of the Convention. He looked very carefully at the phraseology; and it conveyed to him that sugar did include sugar-sweetened products, and that that Convention did not merely refer to the production of sugar itself. He had supported this Bill because as a very strong free trader he was opposed to bounties of every kind. He thought this Bill was going to stop bounties, but if there was this uncertainty about thin point that would not be the result of the Convention, because these sugar-sweetened commodities would come in free. For instance, the greater proportion of chocolate was sugar, and in bounty-giving countries they might think it would pay them better to manufacture their sugar into chocolate. He expressed the hope that this matter might be made quite clear. It must be made clear that if they were to penalise those countries that gave bounties on sugar they would not allow them to enter into free competition with the manufacturers of this country, with these sugar sweetened commodities of which sugar-formed the chief part.

said they had often heard complaints of the obscurity of the statutes of this country and the vagueness of their drafting, but the worst drawn statute ever passed by the House was lucidity itself as compared with this Bill As he understood, the view of the Government was that Article I. was to be read in such a way that the term sugar was to mean sweetmeats, chocolates, biscuits, condensed milk and all analogous products, but that that definition was to be strictly confined to Article I. and did not apply to the other Articles of the Convention. Article IV. applied to sugar alone. There were two ways of stopping bounties, one by preventing the importation of goods into the country, and the other by imposing countervailing duties on bounty-fed sugars. This was not a Bill for the suppression of sugar bounties at all. It was a Bill for changing the form in which bounties were to be given. The bounty on sugar was to be turned into a bounty on sugar-sweetened goods which might still be bounty-fed. Nothing in the Convention prevented it. When they had to deal with any of the contracting States they relieved them from the only kind of pressure that could be applied, and as regards the non-contracting States the Convention was not worth the paper it was written upon. With regard to the non-contracting States Article IV. was of no effect at all. This Bill took the bounty from a branch of industry which did not affect Great Britain, and put it on a branch of industry that did affect Great Britain very largely, by bringing into competition with the manufacturers of this country, who would have to buy dear raw material, articles similar to those which they manufactured which might be bounty-fed. He was astonished at the number of faults that obtruded themselves in every line of this Convention, and he was astonished that the Government did not share in the demand that it should at least be intelligent.

said he could hardly believe the right hon. Gentleman had contemplated the evil that was being done. He believed the intention of all those who were present at the Convention was that these sugar-sweetened articles should be included in the definition of the word "sugar." The Convention was fearfully and wonderfully made. It was a Convention to benefit France at English expense. He was told that the profit on a pound of sugar manufactured into preserve was equal to the profit of fifty pounds of sugar dealt with in the sugar refineries. Sugar refineries in this country only employed 2,500 men, and under the Convention they might employ another 1,000, but those employed in other industries affected by this Convention, excluding the manufacturing of biscuits, were nearly 100,000. It was almost incredible that such a project should be seriously placed before the House of Commons for acceptance. This was a Bill, not for the suppression of bounties, but for the encouragement of foreign industries and the discouragement of British industries. It was the first example, out of a bulk, of the great new fiscal policy by which the drooping British industries were to be regenerated. The only thing to be introduced was glucose—that went into beer and was to be encouraged. The new policy, therefore, was one of cheap beer and dear jam. It was hardly to be believed that the Government had contemplated the possibility of these things happening. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the proposals applied only to non-contracting States. But some of the contracting parties were guilty of giving bounties, and they would help each other to evade the Convention. The effect of the Convention would be to exclude raw material which would be useful to us, and to allow bounties to be given upon manufactures which would shut out our products and make it difficult for us to compete in neutral markets. It was almost inconceivable that any Govern went in its senses could have done anything of the sort. The Government had been advised by only two experts, of whom one was engaged in sugar refining and the other in West Indian cane; they had been taken in by everybody; they had exercised no judgment, discretion, or knowledge; and they had shown a simplicity beyond belief. The position of the Government was that they had accepted the Convention, and could therefore do nothing. He suggested that they should allow the House of Commons to impose its will upon them; they would then be relieved of responsibility, and no blame could be placed upon theta by the other contracting parties.

said the whole of the Convention rested on the basis of sugar products being included under the denomination of "sugar." It was easy to see how the Government had got into their present mess. They first of all got into a difficulty over the self-governing colonies, and got out of it by a repudiation before the Convention was ratified The mess they now in was that if they were to carry out the Convention they would have to include all products into which sugar entered, which, according to our Customs tariff, would mean the inclusion of blacking, rose petals, violet leaves, and Angostura bitters. Surely, since the Bill was a violation of the Convention, it ought to be withdrawn. With regard to indirect bounties the Government proposed to carry out the Convention, and, no matter how remote, given a direct payment, the bounty might be, prohibition was to be applied. The right hon. Gentleman has stated that this unfortunate state of affairs could arise only in regard to non-contracting States. But that did not make it any the more just; it made it the more supremely ridiculous. if a non-contracting State gave a bounty on sugar or chocolate or biscuits, nothing short of prohibition would suffice, whereas if all the sugar was put into biscuits it could be imported to the extent of millions of tons without the imposition of countervailing duties, prohibition, or anything else. That was the absolute destruction of the Convention. The right hon. Gentleman positively proposed to stand in the ports and, in the case of a non-contracting State giving bounties, sternly to reject., as though it were false money or obscene books, every pound of sugar that might be sent, but if the sugar was sent in the form of biscuits, chocolate, blacking or Angostura bitters, it would be admitted without question. That was an absolute fraud on the States which had signed the Convention, and it was a greater violation of the agreement than the repudiation concerning the self-governing colonies, because in this case, after the Convention had been signed and a Bill introduced into Parliament, the Government had the unparalleled assurance to avow to the House of Commons that they did not mean to carry it out. That was what it really came to, and it could hardly be supposed that the contracting States would be satisfied with such a position.

asked the right hon. Gentleman to what document he was referring when he directed the attention of the Committee to a discussion which had taken place on this subject.

was understood to say that it was the report of the proceedings of tile Conference at Brussels.

said that those documents had not been laid before Parliament, and he believed there had never been an instance of such negotiations leading to such a Convention where the protocols and the proceès verbaux of the whole proceedings had not been laid before Parliament. The documents which had been placed in the Library were the procès verbaux of the later sittings. In his opinion the reason why these documents had been concealed from Parliament was, that whereas the Government had argued that by their policy they had imposed a certain line on the other Powers, it was perfectly notorious that the whole desire for the abolition of bounties came from France arid Germany, who had put their heads together, settled a policy and imposed it upon our Government. The prods procès verbaux had been kept back, a proceeding for which there was no precedent in connection with any such negotiations.

reminded the Committee that he had appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to lay these documents on the Table, especially as he had stated that the Convention was to be construed by the pricès verbaux

said the hon. and learned Member for Leeds had laid it down—and he believed it to be good law—that the Courts of law would be driven by the words of this statute to the Convention, and the Government had declared that the Convention was to be interpreted by the procès verbaux, which had not been laid before Parliament. The document which had been laid before Parliament was a most foolish Blue-book, consisting for the most part of votes of thanks from the West Indian Colonies to the Secretary of State for the Colonies As the hon. Member for King's Lynn had pointed out, they were obliged to surround their sugar duties with a perfect maze of duties upon all manufactured products into which sugar entered. In the Conference at Brussels those great British interests of jam and biscuit making into which sugar entered were not properly represented. Therefore as there was nobody to advise the Conference the interests of those industries had gone by the board. There was one other matter which had not been mentioned in connection with this subject, and to which attention must be called in the future. Various forms of preserved milk from abroad were competing with milk at home. This was very serious indeed, and the British farmer would not be pleased to find that the introduction of sweetened milk would be encouraged by foreign bounties while the Government were professing to destroy bounties by this Bill.

said they had certainly been very much astonished by the statement which had been made by the President of the Board of Trade, because he did not think there was a single hon. Member, when this question was first raised, who was not convinced that sugar meant also sugared goods. While they were to prohibit bounty-fed sugar they were prevented from penalising the bounty-fed products. The right hon. Gentleman said that this only applied to the contracting States. What fell from the hon. member for King's Lynn was very much to the point, because in this matter they were making their Convention with the contracting States on the supposition that they were all going to retire something for the common good, but they were going to give the other States an advantage in this branch of their work. He wished to know what would be the position of Italy, for she was a sort of semi-contracting State, and she did not come under the Convention until she began to export sugar. When Italy began to export sugar she would then become a party to the Convention. It was quite clear that in Article VI. the word "sugar" meant sugar and not sugared goods. Italy was one of their great competitors, and the result was that one of the contracting Powers would be practically able to export bounty-fed sugared goods in competition with those manufactured in this country. In Switzerland bounty-fed sugar was to be allowed to go in transit. In Switzerland sugar was used largely in milk and other confections in competition with this country. Bounty-fed sugar could go to Switzerland, where it could be made into sugared products and then come into competition with the English markets, and those goods could not be prohibited under the Convention. Take the case of Austria-Hungary. It was quite clear that they did not intend bringing their legislation in accordance with the Convention, and therefore they would be a non-contracting State.

In today's papers there is a telegram stating that Austria-Hungary has brought her legislation into harmony with the Convention.

Have His Majesty's Government themselves information to that effect?

No, but, we have had every reason to believe that Austria-Hungary would bring her legislation into accordance with the Convention.

said that at all events the question might arise with regard to France. It was very likely that France might find she was not able to bring her drawback into accordance with the Convention, and she would then go out of the Convention, and compete unfairly with our manufacturers with her bounty-fed sweetmeats. As his hon. friend the Member for Norwich had said, this was a serious matter for the manufacturers of sugared goods. Under this Convention the cost of production of these goods would be raised, because they would have to pay more for sugar, while the foreigner, under the Convention, would pay less, because the price of sugar abroad would be lower, whilst in this country it would be increased. Under the Convention, as the right hon. Gentleman interpreted it, there would he this bounty-fed competition in the markets in which the cost of production had already been raised. The additional competition for these goods would be very severe indeed. He had several of those manufacturers in his own constituency, and there were many others in London who employed a very large number of men and women, and at present their margin of profits was very small, but under this Bill that margin would entirely disappear. They were going to have under the guise of this Convention and free trade this unfair competition. The difficulty in carrying out this Act was to define what was sugar and what was sugared goods. That would lead to considerable difficulty. The fact was that the right hon. Gentleman declined to accept any Amendment, however reasonable and however likely to improve the position of the country, because the Government had determined not to have a Report stage. He hoped the Government would reconsider their position and make sonic statement that they would exercise their own judgment and penalise sugared goods as much as they penalised sugar, because if they did not do so they would be doing a very serious injury to those particular trades.

said that his hon. friend the Member for King's Lynn, who had accused the Government of a gross breach of faith towards the other contracting Powers, was not in the House when he explained why he could not accept the Amendment. He then pointed out that the Convention itself drew a distinction between sugar to which sugared products were assimilated for the purposes of Article I., whereas in the other Articles sugar alone was mentioned. To convince the Committee that that was not an unintentional oversight, he quoted certain words from the procès verbaux. He Was very sorry if those procès had not been laid on the Table, but he was bound to say that he thought the attention of his noble friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs ought to have been called to it.

I asked the noble Lord twenty times.