Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/132

 124] ENGLISH HISTORY. [juke

An interesting debate was raised (June 15) by Sir Henry Fowler (Wolverhampton, E.) who moved an address to the Queen, praying her Majesty to disallow the Indian Tariff Act, 1899, which imposed countervailing duties upon bounty-fed sugar imported into India. The arguments adduced in support of the imposition of these duties could be used, he contended, to justify any other protective duty, and protection was contrary to the settled policy of this country, and he insisted that the Indian Government did not move of its own free will, but that its action was directly prompted from Whitehall. He feared that Germany and other countries would be provoked to retaliate in a way injurious to Indian interests. The Government would not dare to impose countervailing duties in this country, and what they dared not do here they had no right to do at Calcutta. The Indian sugar trade, which was 3,000,000 of tons, owed only 203,600 tons to foreign importation, and of these only 74,000 tons were bounty-fed, and on account of this small proportion the Government were making an important change of tariff. The motion was seconded by a strong Conservative, Mr. Maclean (Cardiff), who also asserted that the policy of the Indian Government was a dictated policy, and that the act had been passed with indecent haste. The only people capable of benefiting by it were the Indian sugar refiners, who hoped to get a monopoly. He laid the blame of this retrograde legislation on the Colonial Secretary. The Secretary for India, Lord George Hamilton, asked the House to meet the motion with a direct negative. He had always been a free trader, and as such he endorsed the measures taken by Lord Curzon's Govern- ment to combat the bounty system, which violated all the principles of free trade. In India the new act had been received with more popular favour than any other measure which the Government had ever introduced. With regard to the charge of undue haste, everybody agreed that once a decision on this question was arrived at, it had to be promptly carried out. The motion was supported by the Unionist Mr. Courtney (Bodmin, Cornwall), and opposed from the Liberal benches by Sir Charles Cameron (Bridgeton, Glasgow). Mr. Chamberlain, whose name had been freely brought into the discussion, occu- pied himself chiefly with a defence of the policy of placing a countervailing duty on bounty-fed goods. He explained that all he had had to do with the act was to commend the claim of the sugar industry in Mauritius to the sympathetic consider- ation of the India Office. He feared that there existed in some quarters a wish to revive the old commercial system under which the interests of our dependencies were subordi- nated to the interests of home consumers and producers. Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman said it had become evident that ministers meant to impose countervailing duties in this country as well as in India, and that as he was opposed to both bounties, and to protective duties, he should vote