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RECENT RATE OF MATERIAL PROGRESS IN ENGLAND 115
be possible. I limit myself strictly to the point, how
far any effect which such bounties can have had would
account for a diminution in the rate of material growth
of the country generally in the last ten years as com-
pared with the ten years just before. Dealing with the
question in this strictly lImited fashion, what I have to
observe first is that hitherto very few bounties have
been complained of except those on sugar production
and 'refining; and next, that the whole industries of
sugar production and refining, important as they are
in themselves, hardly count in a question of the general
industry of the United Kingdom. Even if we refined
all the sugar consumed in the United Kingdom, and
the maximum amount we have ever exported, the
whole income from this source, the whole margin,
would not exceed about £2,000,000 annually, not one-
six-hundredth part of the income of the people of the
United Kingdom; and of this £2,000,000 at the worst
we only lose a portion by foreign competition, while all
that is really lost, it must be remembered, is not the
whole income which would have been gained if a cer-
tain portion of our labour and capital had been em-
ployed in sugar refining, but only the difference between
that income and the income obtained by the employ-
ment of the same labour and capital in other directions.
The loss to the empire may be greater because our
colonies are concerned in su..gar production to the ex-
tent at present prices of £5,000,000 to £6,000,000
annually, which would probably be somewhat larger
but for foreign competition. But it does not seem at
all certain that this figure would be increased if foreign
bounties were taken away, while in any case the amounts
. involved are too small to raise any question of foreign
bounties having checked the rate of growth of the
general industry of the country.
Per (on/ra, of course, the extra cheapness of sugar,
alleged to be due to the bounties, must have been so
great an advantage to the people of the United King-
dom, saving them perhaps £2,000,000 to £3,000,000