Page:History of the Anti corn law league - Volume 2.pdf/311

 in at a lower rate of duty, the difference would go towards enhancing the price for the importing merchant. He then calculates on a supply of a second class of foreign sugar, at 5,000 tons, paying a duty of 23s. 4d. The importing merchant will, therefore, get as much more in price as the difference between the duties. Instead of 24s., the price of the first class, he will get 28s. 8d., which, with the lower rate of duty, will reach 52s. On one class of colonial sugars he charges 16s. 4d duty. He calculates the amount imported will be 70,000 tons. The merchant would charge 33s. 8d, as the price of the article which the first importer got for 24s. There is a fourth class of sugars. He calculates the produce of this, coming from the West Indies, at 160,000 tons. But on this a duty so low as 14s. is fixed, which will give the merchant a price of 388. instead of the original price of 24s. In all this process he is not lowering the price to the consumer, but increasing the price to the importer. You see, therefore, that on these four rates the importer pays 21s, for one, 28s. for another, 35s. for a third, and 38s. for a fourth, while the consumer pays the same price of 52s. for all. Suppose the minister said, I will charge the highest rate of duty on all sugars, it is clear he would not raise the price a fraction to the consumer. He makes a sacrifice of nearly £2,000,000 of revenue, and he asks the country to make it up by the imposition of an income tax. Now, if he imposed the same rate of duty on all the sugars, he would realise a revenue of £7,000,000, and the community would not have to pay a farthing more for their sugar.

Mr. Bright, after a racy and cutting description of these members of both houses of parliament who called themselves farmers' friends, gave the following account of their own great association, for promoting liberty of trade and perfect freedom of industry:—They had no alliance with lords nor dukes. The prominent men of the League were met from the ranks. They had not embarked in the agitation