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 im, portation, will reach the market, if the planter does not chuse to diminish his cultivation by one eighth. The prefent glut will therefore be increafed by about 43,000 hogfheads of mufcovado, 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 fo reign 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 mufcovado fugar-are far from being fo clear. On the contrary, 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 ftock in hand, that, even at this price, the whole fugar imported is not fold. It is highly probable, that lefs of what ufed to be grown is imported, and that the profufe ufe, the ordinary waste of fugar in the colonies, is confiderably greater than before. Although, there fore, the prefent price is the highest they can get, it is, at the fame time, the lowest they can take. But they find it nore 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 110 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 purfued 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 should think it difficult, by any further reduction, to augment it. The criterion of the revenue formerly stated would give the yearly confumption of Great Britain, on the average of 1806 and 1807, at nearly 181,000 hogfheads. The excess 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 ufed in 1800 in the diftillery, and make fome further allowance for a small accumulation of stock in hand, the total confumption for ordinary ufes will be under 140,000 hogfheads. The price of this at 84s., the grofs average price of those years, must have been 7,056,000l., 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 some what 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 threemillions 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, seems unhappily, at the pre sent sent moment, matter of pure theory. We may well be excused for treating but slightly the benefits of a more open trade bei tween the West Indies and America, when the folly of our rulers has shut out the mother country from all intercourse with that great and growing market. And to inquire whether the planter would be relieved by peace, might look like mocking him in his distresses, while our statesmen are every where seeking new quarrels, or devising pledges for making the old ones eternal. Leaving, therefore, to a fitter opportunity, the full discussion of those subjects, we shall only take them up, so far as is necessa ry to complete our account of West Indian affairs, by showing, very briefly, that whatever benefits might accrue to the planters, as well as to all orders of the state, from the liberal and enlighten ed measures in question, those persons greatly deceive themselves who expect to find a remedy for the radical evils of the system in any such palliatives. Let us begin with supposing that the trade to America were thrown open, and the West Indians allowed to barter for lumber and provisions, sugar and coffee, as well as rum and molasses. They would certainly get off a part of their surplus in this way; but the proportion, we are afraid, would not be very considerable. Before 1806, they enjoyed this trade under the permission of proclamations; and they exported, on an average of ten years ending 1803, little more than 6000 hogsheads annually. A vent of this extent would evidently afford but a slight relief to a glut such as we have described. + But suppose, as some have done upon very slight grounds, that the demand in America is for 30,000 hogsheads, and that we were to supply the whole of its --what would become of the same quantity which they must at present, by this hypothesis, be taking from the enemy's islands? It would find its way over with the rest to Europe, and displace an equal amount in that market: and this loss would necessarily fall upon the sugars now exported by us. The effects, then, of opening the American trade to its fullest VOL. XIII. No. 26. D d extent, See the late Declarations, and other official correspondence. In the Appendix to the Third Report of the Committee of 1807, it is distinctly stated by the most respectable West Indians, that the relief to the sugar market would not be very considerable, unless, besides allowing our planters to barter their sugars, our government should also blockade the enemy's islands, or, in some o ther effectual way, prevent the Americans from getting sugar elsew where. See, particularly, the evidence of Messrs Wedderburn, Hughan and Shirley. Can the assertions in the text receive a stronger confirmation ? extent, must all resolve themselves into a reduction of the price paid for articles of American growth, necessary to the cultivation of sugar; and the effects of this measure in lowering the prime cost of sugar, must be confined to that part of the prime cost which consists of expenses for American stores. By the accounts from which the Committee of 1807 formed their estimate of the whole prime cost of sugar, we are enabled to ascertain the proportion of this which belongs to American stores. The sums paid on seven sugar estates in Jamaica for American supplies in 1806, together with those paid for the same articles on an eighth estate, during that and the three preceding years, form a total of 87971.; and the whole expenses of the same estates, during the same time, amount to 62,570. The American supplies, then, do not form one seventh of the whole charge of making sugar. It is from these very accounts that the West Indians estimate the prime cost of the Jamaica sugar at 20s. 10d., after deducting the net proceeds of the rum. But it will appear, that, making no allowance for the sale of that article, the whole charges are 27s. Id. The proportion of this, then, which consists of American stores, is less than one seventh, or about 3s. 10d. How much of this is it likely that any opening of the American intercourse could save? The Committee have given us no data from which to form any estimate; but we perceive that the Assembly of Trinidad state the price of American stores, in their island, as about. double the price in Martinico and Guadaloupe. We own that, to us, this appears utterly incredible; for British vessels are permitted to import those stores without limitation, and also to reexport sugar and coffee in any quantity to America: and surely so great a difference of price would immediately draw them into this traffic, until something like a level should be restored. If we allow a fall of twenty, or, at the utmost, twenty-five per cent., as likely to result from the perfect freedom of trade, the prime cost of the sugar will only be lowered 1s. 2d. per cwt.; and even the statement of the Trinidad Council would lead to an allowance of little more than Is. 5d. Inconsiderable as this relief would be, we agree entirely in the propriety of granting it; and hope to show, in a future article, that the grounds upon which it has been withheld, are equally shortsighted and illiberal. The restoration of peace would unquestionably diminish the present expenses of bringing sugar to market. The freight and insurance both on supplies and on homeward-bound produce, would fall; and it is certain that new channels of exportation would be opened, for the relief of the market. But against all this may be set the increased facility with which the enemy's sugars would reach Europe, and the encouragement of his cultiva |