Governor-General of India to impose on bounty-fed merchandise an additional duty equivalent to that bounty, should have warned them of the threatening danger. Upon all sugars coming from Argentine, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, and Russia, the American and Indian Governments impose duties, as shown in the table on page 118. On 15th June, 1899, Sir H. Fowler proposed in the House of Commons a motion against the "Indian_Tariff Act." The motion was rejected by the House, and many English free-traders were of opinion that countervailing duties were not contradictory to the principles of free trade. In a letter to the Times (May 27th, 1899), Lord Northbrook said: "The question whether it is desirable or not for a Free Trade country to take action against bounties either by prohibiting the importation of bounty-fed articles or by putting on countervailing duties, appears to me to be simply one of expediency. Either course would have for its object to secure that fair competitition among producers which is destroyed by bounties, so as to restore the natural price of the world's market,' which I believe, with Mr. Cobden, to be the true aim of Free Trade." At a meeting of the London Chamber of Commerce, held on the 12th of June, 1899, a resolution, moved by Sir T. Sutherland, M.P., was adopted, requesting the English Government to enter into negotiation with those governments which had expressed a wish to abolish the bounties, in order to establish a penal clause prohibiting the entry of bounty-fed sugar into their territories. We were invited to join the meeting of December 20th, 1899, where this question was under discussion. Sir Nevile Lubbock, the President, justified, in the following words, the penal clause: We have had considerable number of conferences and sterile conventions, and a study of these conventions and conferences shows that in every instance they proved abortive owing to the refusal of the English Government to consent to what is called the penal clause. The object of such a penal clause is simply to assure those, who may be disposed to abolish their bounties, that they will not have to compete in the future on the English markets with sugars coming from all other countries where bounties are allowed; it is a guarantee for every European nation that the adherents of the convention will fulfil their engagements. Let us suppose that a convention is agreed to by all the European powers who give bounties to-day, and that that convention does not contain any penal clause of this kind. What would prevent one of the signatories from ignoring the convention in one or two or three years and to reinstate its bounties to the detriment of the other adherents of the convention ? In short, I should like to say in one word, that the aim of such a clause would be to assure the parties of the convention the free exercise in abolishing these bounties, whilst neutralising at the same time the prejudicial effects of the bounties granted by those powers who would not be willing to enter into a convention of this kind. At the same meeting of the London Chamber of Commerce (20th December, 1899), Sir Nevile Lubbock proposed the following resolution, which was accepted: The London Chamber of Commerce believes that the moment has arrived for a solution of the question of sugar bounties, and requests Her Majesty's government to arrange as soon as possible a convention with Austria, Germany, and the other countries which have expressed their willingness to abolish the bounties, a convention containing a penal clause, forbidding the entry of bounty-fed sugar in the territories of the contracting parties. Mr. George Martineau who, in addition to other works, wrote for the Statistical Society an admirable pamphlet on the statistical aspect of the Sugar Question, went as far as to ask the following question : If France, as a consequence of an international convention, were to reduce her bounties by one half, would in that case the English countervailing duties on its sugars be removed? Evidently there can be no question of reducing the direct export bounties by one half; they must be totally abolished. And the same remark applies to the premiums on production. There is not much chance that the eventuality which Mr. Martineau anticipates will ever occur. IV. The International Conferences on the Sugar Regime. THIS state of things, then, is all the more dangerous as countervailing duties are not unknown in England, and as all the International Sugar Conferences have proved abortive so far, except the Paris Conference of 1864. Those held in 1872 and 1873 came to nothing in the same manner as the Brussels Conference of 1875. In 1880, England endeavoured in vain to convene a conference. The agitation against premiums in England produced the London conferences of 1887 and 1888, convened by Lord Salisbury. Germany and Austria eagerly adhered to them. France made conditions, but the representatives of Germany, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, and Russia signed on the 30th of August, 1888, a convention, of which the first article held that "the high contracting parties bind themselves to take such measures as would entirely and absolutely guarantee that no premium, direct or indirect, will be given to the manufacture or exportation of sugar.' To ensure the respect of this clause the convention contained the following stipulations: sugar to be manufactured and refined in bond-export drawback to be abolished - bounty-fed sugar to be prohibited — each country to be at liberty to establish its own excise and customs' duties a special commission to be appointed to examine the legislations to be established by each country a permanent commission to be nominated to watch the due execution of it. : A communication of Lord Salisbury suggested that within eight months the special commission should meet, and that two months before its first meeting the various governments should communicate to him the laws which they had adopted to suppress the bounties. M. Waddington, representing France, refused to sign, under the pretence that the United States had not sent any representatives to the conference. Whatever may have been the form which his refusal took it was considered at the time that France wished the conference to come to nothing. It would be useless to maintain the contrary. Then Lord Salisbury introduced a bill which was intended to impose countervailing duties on bounty-fed sugars, but meeting with more opposition than approval the English Prime Minister withdrew it. The agitation continues; many free-traders who in 1888 opposed the bill, as contrary to the principles of free-trade, do not object to it any longer. All those nations who pay bounties feel how absurd the system is. Another international conference was held at Brussels, from the 7th to the 25th of June, 1898, to which France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Spain, Great Britain, Netherlands, Russia and Sweden had sent representatives. The French representative was M. Sébline, Member of the French Senate, a sugar manufacturer himself, who represents the department (Aisne) which counts more sugar manufacturers than any other department. He made his country play a ridiculous part. He proposed the suppression of export premiums, but he would not discuss those production premiums which were wrongly called* indirect export premiums. In his note dated 24th June, 1898, he says that France could not abandon her indirect premiums (p. 73). In his declaration of 11th June, he had stated that "the necessity of changing our agricultural methods and of transforming our plants has caused the advantages accorded by the French home legislation to be considered rather as an encouragement to agriculture than as real * V part, 1st chap., vi. |