II. The proposition for using sugar in feeding cattle, is so very gently pressed by the West Indians, and illustrated by so small a portion of evidence, that we cannot think they rely greatly upon We proceed, therefore, to the next class of plans, after briefly observing, that the use of sugar in feeding, if not sufficiently extended by the late low prices, ought, on no grounds, either of justice or policy, to receive legislative encouragement; and that any diminution of the duty with a view to this object, would only create an unlimited power of defrauding the revenue. The measures which we are now to consider, have in view the reduction of the cost attending the growth, carriage, and sale of sugars, First, it is proposed to give the planter the power of refining his own sugars. A more reasonable demand was surely never urged. With almost all the utensils adapted to the refinery-with such a command of labour as must render the process scarcely any addition to his other expenses, the planter is, by the most absurd part of the monopolizing system, compelled to send his sugar to England in the bulkiest form, at a great needless expense of freight, and subject to the certain loss of one part in seven by drainage; for which part, however, he is to pay freight, as well as for that which reaches the market. This glaring absurdity is cherished by the British government; because it increases the tonnage required for the West India trade, and gives the mother country a small branch of manufacture at the expense of the colonies. As well might the planters be forced to send so much rubbish in proportion to each hogshead of sugar, or to pay the passage of one empty cask for every seven full casks which they ship; for this would be increasing the shipping interest. As well might they be compelled to send over raw canes from which British workmen could manufacture sugar; for this would both wonderfully promote the shipping interest, and add a large branch to our home manufactures. That this glaring abuse should speedily be rectified, no man can for a moment doubt; nevertheless, it must be recollected, that, like all abuses in commercial policy, it cannot the well known stagnation of export made' in 1808, and the ' extraordinary accumulation' of produce in the warehouses. It has been proposed to mix up sugar with substances which would prevent it from being used, except by cattle, and which could not easily be separated from it; and in this state, we are told, it might be sold duty free, with safety to the revenue. We have examined the experiments of Mr Parker with some attention; and have no hesitation in asserting, that they leave the question on general, and not on chemical grounds. They prove no difficulty of separat, ing the two substances, which would not be overcome by a bounty of 27s. per cwt. cannot be destroyed without an additional inconvenience. It has raised up another interest which ought in justice to be considered when we are projecting its destruction. The sugar refiner has risked his capital on the faith of the law as it now stands; and a compensation for the loss of his business is fairly due to him. This the committee, in their fourth report, explicitly admit, and by a calculation, which appears to us in all respects fair, they state the utmost possible loss of capital employed in the home refinery, at somewhat less than 820,000l. ;—a much smaller sum than is lost yearly by the planter in consequence of the prohibitory duty on the import of refined sugar. To save this sum, then, could not prove a difficult matter, even were it required at once;the planters could well afford to give it. But the probability is, that the colonial refinery would not suddenly supplant the home refinery, at least in its full extent. Upon this part of the subject, in which it gives us much pleasure to agree for the most part with the West Indian body, we must state one correction of some consequence. A set of traders are not in-. demnified by the mere purchase of their stock at a fair price, if they are forced out of their line of business. In a country well peopled and stocked with capital, the greatest injuries often attend a change from one employment to another; because, besides the inevitable losses consequent upon such changes when they can be made, the difficulty of effecting them at all, is very considerable. A prudent statesman will always take this principle into his consideration, when he is called upon to correct even the most evident errors in the economy which his country has for a course of time adopted; and unless the magnitude of the evil, and the benefits to be derived from removing it, shall be found out of all proportion to the disadvantages of the change, he will refrain from attempting it, except by the most gradual measures; well knowing that there are but few instances indeed in which it is either just or politic, to sacrifice the good of a part of the community to that of the whole; and aware, that as no maxim is more liable to abuse than this, of preferring the whole to the part, because there is but seldom any occasion for making the comparison, so none has been more frequently and grossly perverted. In the course of this article, we have met with a case, where its application. would be clearly a great abuse, even if there were reason to think that the community might gain instead of losing by the sacrifice of the individual interests, we mean the case of the distilleries. The sugar refinery is one to which it may be applied with more safety; but the persons now gaged in that employment must receive a more ample indemnity for the loss of their trade, than the mere value of their stock, unless the change happens a great deal deal more slowly than the West Indians themselves pretend to expect. As for the shipping interest, it is very clearly proved by the committee, that they could sustain no loss whatever from the change in contemplation. We may therefore prepare ourselves to hear unmoved the loud clamour which that noisy body never fails to make upon all new regulations of trade, however indifferent to its concerns; and may perhaps have to steel our nerves against the yet louder echo of it, which has been known, on such occasions, to come from great political characters, who found they could turn the uproar to account. If the duty on refined fugars imported fhould thus be lowered, it is evident that a greater amount by one seventh part of our importation, will reach the market, if the planter does not chufe to diminish his cultivation by one eighth. The prefent glut will therefore be increafed by about 43,000 hogfheads of muscovado, or its proportion of refined, molaffes, baftards, &c. But as this will be fo much clear gain to the grower, he will be enabled to bear a ftill greater fall of price, and to profit by the additional confumption. His advantage in the foreign market will be even fomewhat more apparent; for he will be enabled to meet the foreign grower and refiner upon much more equal terms than before. But the advantages of the other plan propofed by the Weft Indians-that of lowering the prefent duties on muscovado fugar-are far from being fo clear. On the contrary, it appears that any fuch reduction would only put fo much into the pockets of the confumer, at the expenfe of the revenue. The prefent low price of fugar has been occafioned by the glut of the article-by the fupply exceeding the demand. Would the competition of the fellers be leffened by a diminution of the duty originally paid? We find them at prefent bringing fo much of the quantity imported into the market, as lowers the price to 328., exclufive of duty. It has been proved, by the increased accumulation of the stock in hand, that, even at this price, the whole fugar imported is not fold. It is highly probable, that lefs of what used to be grown is imported, and that the profufe ufe, the ordinary wafte of fugar in the colonies, is confiderably greater than before. Although, therefore, the prefent price is the higheft they can get, it is, at the fame time, the lowest they can take. But they find it more profitable to take this price, than none at all: and, if they could get it for their whole ftock, their whole ftock would be brought into the market. It follows, that if the duty were lowered, more would be brought to market. If, for example, 7s. per cwt. is * taken * We are, of course, here speaking of the price before the late temporary rise from the stoppage of the corn distillery. taken off, those who before found it more profitable to take 59s. per cwt., grofs price, for 100 hogfheads, because they received 32s. net per cwt., and who would willingly have fold to hogfheads more, if they could have got as much for them, will now fell the whole 10 hogfheads for 52s. grofs price, because they will still get 328. net upon them: and there being no poffibility of a concert among the large body of dealers, this conduct being pursued by many, will lower the price to the buyer accordingly. But it by no means follows that there will be a demand for the overplus attempted to be brought into the market. Some will make hafte to fell more than they did before; but others will fell lefs, if the reduction of price does not force ftill more into use than is at prefent confumed. Whether this is to be expected, we cannot pretend, with any great confidence, to affert; but, after the great increase of confumption which the low prices have already occafioned, we fhould think it difficult, by any further reduction, to augment it. The criterion of the revenue formerly stated would give the yearly consumption of Great Britain, on the average of 1806 and 1807, at nearly 181,000 hogfheads. The excefs of imports. over exports, in the ordinary state of the trade, is about as fair a criterion, and may therefore be appealed to for the five years ending 1800 it would give the average confumption of those years at 143,000 hogfheads for Great Britain alone. If we deduct for the quantity used in 1800 in the distillery, and make fome further allowance for a small accumulation of stock in hand, the total confumption for ordinary uses will be under 140,000 hogfheads. The price of this at 84s., the grofs average price of those years, muft have been 7,056,cool., exclufive of retailers' or refiners' profits. The grofs price of 181,000 hogfheads, at 66s. 2d., the average of 1806 and 1807, is 7,185,700l. The interefts of the traders who come between the importer and confumer, always prevent the prices to the latter from fluctuating as much as it does in the market of importation. The consumer, therefore, paid somewhat less in the former period, and somewhat more in the latter, than, by this calculation, he appears to have done. He also paid the ordinary profits of the intermediate dealers and the expenses of manufacture, equally on the dear and on the cheap sugars. If we reckon these expenses at about 30s. per cwt., and make a fair allowance for the attempts of the dealers to keep the market from varying more than is absolutely necessary, we shall find that about a million Sterling has been paid yearly for sugar by the inhabitants of this country since it became cheap, more than they used formerly to pay. The increase of money paid is above three millions yearly, calculating on the same principles, from the statement of the West Indians; but it is difficult to believe such an an increase; and we only mention it here as an additional argument against their estimate of the increased actual consumption. We confess that we find some difficulty even in believing the smaller estimate; and are disposed to think, that the prices given by Sir W. Yong, from which we have deduced it, have been overstated. However, that a considerable sum is paid now beyond what was formerly paid for the same article, cannot be doubted; and when the West Indians contend that they have been carrying on a sort of partnership concern with the government, by which the profits have wholly gone to the government, it must be remembered, that the money paid in taxes on sugar, if it had not been so levied, must have been raised in some other shape. It comes from the middle classes of the community, who support, and must, from the nature of things, always support the great part of the public burthens; and an increase of their expenses in this article must, if disproportioned to the general accumulation of wealth in their hands, be attended with a diminution of their other expenses; so that, far from the increase of the revenue on sugar being a clear fund added to the public income, and ready to be spent in drawbacks and bounties, -ready, for instance, to allow the lowering of the whole duty on sugar, this increase is only topical, and brings in a sum to the treasury, which, if it had not been paid under the head of customs on sugar, would have been paid in some other form. A diminution of the duty, therefore, if it did not increase the consumption, would be so much clear loss to the revenue. If it increased the consumption, so as to leave the revenue no loser, the planter would get nothing of the duty, but obtain prices as ruinously low as they have of late been on a greater part of his crop. But even this kind of relief, as far as it could be obtained without injuring the revenue, would require an increase of consumption altogether impossible. In order to leave the revenue equal, under a removal of the duty of 7s., the consumption must, in Great Britain alone, be increased nearly 60,000 hogsheads. We may safely venture to predict, that, if the duty were lowered, the consumption would be somewhat increased, but in a small degree; that the revenue would lose a large sum; that the glut continuing, the prices would fall, and the difference of the duty go into the consumer's pocket, the planter selling a little more sugar than before, at equally low prices. III. The length to which our observations have already extended, compels us to pass over the remaining parts of the subject with a very general notice. But this is the less to be regretted; because any question of throwing open the monopoly, or relieving the planters by a peace, scems unhappily, at the pre sent |