The few American brands of cotton goods that have been introduced here stand well in the market, being made from superior cotton, and it would be easy to enlarge the trade by proper effort.

Imports of piece goods and yarns passed at the custom-house for the months January to

At this time, while the International Sugar Conference is in session, it seems apropos to briefly direct attention to the present situation.

The object of all continental beet-sugar-producing countries has been, until the present, to increase by all possible means the volume of production. In 1855 the output of beet-root sugar amounted to 210,000 tons; in 1895, to 4,793,000 tons, an increase of 2,185 per cent. During the same period the production of cane sugar increased only 154 per cent. It not being possible to consume such quantities of sugar in the countries of production, export bounties were established in 1861. The result was a tremendous increase in trade and the gradual elimination of cane sugar from the British and American markets. In England the proportion of beet-root sugar to the total of sugar imported from 1861 to 1894 rose from 6 per cent to 76.8 per cent. In quantity these results were magnificent, but great sacrifices have been made to attain these results. While increasing their bounties, all nations recognize that the system is ruinous; hence their desire to end the present situation. One, however, can not act without all. Under the menace of competition, the drawbacks have regularly increased. Lately it has been a race to decide which nation could, by high drawbacks, drive its competitors out of foreign markets. In 1896, Germany and Austria doubled the rate No. 216—3.

of their bounties. France soon afterwards increased her scale, and last year the German Reichstag was discussing another advance. The present bounties paid per ton are: Germany, $6.03 to $8.44; Austria, $7.24 to $10.86; Belgium, $7.90 to $11.39; France, $21.71.

All the producing nations suffer from this system. The taxpayer pays more and more, not for the privilege of consuming this product, but rather to enable others-foreigners-to buy it cheaper. The anomaly thus arises that sugar sells in England for 40 per cent of its price in Belgium. If all the governments had bounties as high as those of France, the English consumer would pay only 15 per cent of the price on the Continent. Mr. Chamberlain, indeed, has declared that the French, German, Belgian, Austrian, and Dutch taxpayers were paying British purchasers an annual tribute of $10,000,000.

But, while England is enriching itself, the British colonies are suffering. The planters wish to abandon the cultivation of sugar cane; they declare that they will be obliged to quit it altogether if there is not a radical change in the situation before long. Exports of sugar represent 75 per cent of the entire export trade of the British West Indies. England, therefore, participates in this conference.

The essential object of the conference is the elaboration of a plan for the abolition of sugar bounties, but auxiliary questions will also be discussed. However important the success of such a conference may be for continental Europe, it would be an error to assume that the final solution of the difficulties involved will be found. Nothing is less certain. In fact, this conference is not the first of its kind; it is the eighth, and seven have failed in the main. Another factor not heretofore existing is presented to the consideration of this congress. The United States, consuming 2,500,000 tons (a third of the world's production) and producing only 300,000 tons, inflicts by its new tariff law a compensatory duty on sugar imported equivalent to the amount of export bounty paid by the country of origin. This duty thus destroys the effect of the bounty, so far as our country is concerned, and annihilates any advantage which the European producer may have formerly gained through the action of his own government. Continental Europe thus sees our great market suddenly closed, while it remains open to the manufacturers of cane sugar. The British colonies thus have an immense advantage, and the chief interest of England in the conference disappears. The mother country continues to profit by the action of continental countries, and the colonies see in our market an equal chance for competition. France heretofore has energetically opposed the abolition of the bounties. Thus the situation is at present.

Possibly the delegates to the Brussels conference will have better success than their predecessors; but they are endeavoring to solve one of the most difficult of economic questions.

GHENT, June 21, 1898.

HENRY C. MORRIS,

Consul.

THE ENGLISH CHEMICAL TRADE.

This consular district (Liverpool) is the largest chemical center in the world, and the United States has been the best customer. Conditions, however, are rapidly changing. There is a revolution going on in the method of manufacture. Within recent years, the English chemical trade has been meeting with great competition from the Continent, especially from Germany. A still more recent and more significant feature of the chemical trade of this district is the falling off in the exportations to the United States-indeed, no other manufacture, with the exception of tin plate, shows such a great decline in exportations to the United States. The following table gives the values of the exportations of chemicals from the Liverpool district to the United States for the calendar years named:

During the six months of 1898 ending June 30, the exportations were $1,181,529.

The English manufacturers of chemicals freely concede that the principal reason of this decline of exportation to the United States is owing to the recently established American home industry. At a general meeting of one of the largest concerns in this district (Brunner, Mond & Co.), the president, Sir John Brunner, M. P., referring to the fact that the dividend on the ordinary capital had decreased from 30 to 25 per cent, as compared with last year, said that the shareholders "were all aware that the company had suffered a very severe loss in their American trade through the operation of the Dingley tariff."

The chemical trade is intimately connected with the salt industry, as salt is by far the most important of the raw materials in the manufacture of chemicals. The county of Chester, within this consular district and immediately south of the River Mersey, produces more

salt brine than any other territory in Great Britain, and this fact accounts for the establishment of the chemical industry here. In a statistical circular letter upon the Cheshire salt industry, published by a local authority at the commencement of the year, it was stated:

In 1887 Liverpool sent to the United States of America 169,195 tons of salt; in the year just expired (1897) the total amounted to only 91,723 tons-a terrible decline. It is at all times difficult for England to compete with the salt works of America on their own continent, and this difficulty is turned almost into an impossibility by the fact that the Government of the United States, in the year just concluded, placed upon common salt a duty amounting to 150 per cent of its cost at the works in Cheshire.

The greater portion of the salt exported to the United States. goes over in bags as ballast. The duty under the present tariff act is $1.25 a ton on salt cake, 8 cents per 100 pounds on salt in bulk, and 12 cents per 100 pounds on salt in packages. Under the tariff law of 1894, salt cake and salt in bulk and in bags, barrels, etc., were free, but the bags or other packages paid the same rate of duty as if imported separately.

For some years, there has been an active rivalry in the production of chemicals from salt by two methods-the Leblanc process and the ammonia-soda process. The first stage of the Leblanc process is the decomposition of common salt by the agency of sulphuric acid. In this process there is great waste, and until recently it was very objectionable on sanitary grounds. About forty years ago, the by-product hydrochloric acid was utilized for the manufacture of bleaching powder, the processes for which have been greatly improved upon within the past twenty years. Some years afterwards, the ammonia-soda process was established on a commercial footing in this and other countries. The new process was made financially successful by the establishment of works in Brussels, and by Messrs. Brunner, Mond & Co., at Northwich, Cheshire-33 miles from Liverpool. As carried on by Messrs. Brunner, Mond & Co., the ammoniasoda process has long yielded the principal article required, at a saving of cost so considerable as compared with the Leblanc process that if the manufacturing exponents of the latter had been confined to the production of soda, they would before now have been driven from the field. It is the utilization of their by-product, hydrochloric acid, for the manufacture of chlorine products-including not only bleaching powder, but chlorate of potash (used for making matches. and percussion caps) and chlorate of soda-which has been their mainstay, to such an extent that it is, commercially, quite true to say that in the Leblanc soda industry at the present time, soda is a by-product of the manufacture of chlorine products. The utilization of other by-products has been of great service to the Leblanc

manufacturer in his fight with the ammonia-soda process. Every constituent of every substance employed at every stage is, if not altogether, yet to a very large extent, used in a way to have a market value. Yet, not a few of the houses engaged in the Leblanc process found their profits reduced so much that they dropped out of business.

About the end of 1890, there was a combination of practically all the alkali manufacturers in this country, with the exception of Brunner, Mond & Co. This syndicate is known as the United Alkali Company, Limited, and its headquarters are at Liverpool. It has a capital of nearly $39,000,000. Its principal works are at St. Helens and Widnes, within this consular district, but it also has works at Newcastle, Bristol, and Glasgow. It employs 6,000 persons at the

St. Helens and Widnes works, and 3,500 on the Clyde and Tyne. The United Alkali Company until a short time ago produced nearly all its chemicals by the Leblanc process. In order to meet the competition of the ammonia-soda process, the United Alkali Company has been obliged to cut down wages, and reductions have been made in the wasteful escape of gases. Yet, in spite of the savings. and improvements, there seems to be no doubt that the production of soda by the Leblanc process must continue to steadily decline. The amount of salt decomposed in England by the Leblanc process declined from 434,298 tons in 1894 to 360,929 tons in 1896, while the amount decomposed by the ammonia-soda process rose from 361,603 tons in 1894 to 431,577 tons in 1896. A short time ago, the United Alkali Company established a plant for carrying on the ammonia-soda process at Widnes and Fleetwood (Lancashire), and its output of ammonia-soda is now between 60,000 and 70,000 tons.

It has been the hope of the English chemical manufacturers to so reduce the cost of production by improvements as to enable them to compete with the American concerns. In order to have a share in the American home trade, the United Alkali Company is now erecting works at Bay City, Mich., and will operate under the name of the North American Chemical Company.

Perhaps the question of greatest interest in connection with this. industry is the possibility of producing bleaching powder and other chlorine products cheaper than they can now be produced by the Leblanc process.

It is at this point that the revolution in the chemical trade, spoken of at the commencement of this report, is making itself manifest.

In 1896, an address was delivered by Dr. Ludwig Mond, president of the chemical section of the British association, in which he gave a description of a new method, which, though elaborate, enabled the ammonia-soda process to compete not only in the production of