HC Deb 03 April 1873 vol 215 cc521-2
MR. RAIKES (for Mr. R. N. FOWLER)

asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether, when the Government agreed to continue the Cobden Treaty, any efforts were made to induce the French Government to suspend the "surtaxe" on the British flag, and the "droits d'entrepôt" levied on goods and produce transhipped from England to France; and, why the conventional tariffs were allowed to remain in force while a prohibitory tax on British ships was to be enforced, and the "droits d'entrepôt" were to be levied on goods not landed in England, but sent "in transitu" to France, as was permitted under the Cobden Treaty?

VISCOUNT ENFIELD

As soon, Sir, as Her Majesty's Government found that the state of business in the French Assembly would not allow of the Treaty of Commerce being discussed as speedily as was anticipated, they instructed Her Majesty's Ambassador at Paris to represent to the French Government the injury to British shipping and commerce sustained by the continuance of the surtaxe de pavillon, from which the Treaty signed on the 5th of November last would have exempted British vessels had it come into operation as soon as had been contemplated. Her Majesty's Government have again recently called the attention of the French Government to this subject. The surtaxe d'entrepôt is not a differential duty, being levied on French and foreign vessels alike, the only articles exempted from it under the Treaty of 1860 are jute, cotton, and wool. The regulations under which this surtax was imposed, and still continues to be levied, are contained in the Commercial Papers laid before Parliament last year (No. 1, page 153). I must remind the hon. Gentleman that the continuance of the Conventional Tariff was not a concession on the part of this country, for the tariff under the Treaty of 1860 expired on the 15th of March; and had that tariff not been continued, the commercial relations between the two countries, pending the ratification of the new Treaty, would have been thrown into much confusion.